This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Where are y'all betting on Republicans? Asking for a friend.
I hope Talarico wins. If Paxton is the best thing Texas Republicans can put forward, they deserve to lose. They won’t, of course. Trump said Paxton was based, so he won the primary. Trump says Talarico is a vegan, so he’ll lose the general. No amount of graft, inflation, or foreign adventurism will convince modal Texans to break with the big man.
Trump's approval rating is deep underwater in Texas. Paxton still has a good shot to win, because
"likes Trump" is more of an ask than "likes Paxton"which is much more of an ask than "doesn't dislike Paxton enough to vote for Talarico instead", but the late polls are nearly all going for Talarico and he's favored nearly 3-1 on the prediction markets.Bias warning: I've already cast my vote, for Talarico. First time I've voted (D) for a national-level race since 2008. (Half of the time the polls in Texas aren't even close and there's a decent Libertarian I'm free to vote for, the other half of the time the Democrat just sucks)
Edit: scratching out a claim that @hydroacetylene corrected me on.
'Likes Paxton' is more of an ask than 'likes Trump' in Texas.
I voted for Paxton, because Talarico is terrible and I have a rule against caring about politicians' corruption issues. But I won't be too upset if Talarico wins- Paxton was a terrible candidate who probably would have been arrested and replaced with an Abbott appointee for corruption. Hinojosa would be the really terrible outcome.
Looks like you're almost certainly right; thanks for the correction! Trump has higher approval and a higher (though still currently negative) net approval-minus-disapproval than Paxton in Texas. Trump has a higher percentage disapproval, but that's due to Paxton's larger "neither/don't know" numbers; if we exclude those from the denominator than Paxton's negatives are higher too. My only caveats are that Texas-only polls are relatively small and high-margin-of-error and that the polls I could easily find were slightly apples-to-oranges (job approval vs favorability, and I'm sure we could all name politicians who were good at their job despite being bad people or vice-versa).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Paxton did not win primarily off of Trump's endorsement; in actual fact Trump endorsed Paxton when his victory appeared inevitable and before then it had been conventional wisdom that he would endorse Cornyn. Paxton won the primary because GOP primary voters find gun control more objectionable than taking bribes.
Mea culpa. I forgot how little time passed between the endorsement and the primary. It looks like cornyn had no chance even before that.
I’ll say instead that Paxton’s MAGA credentials made the difference.
The activist base that put Paxton over the top wasn't 100% MAGA(although there were MAGA activists in it). The local far-right wanted to take down Cornyn because they were upset about his votes on gun control, and they joined up with MAGA fans of Paxton's 2020 lawsuits. But Cornyn could have lost to a block of wood in a Gun Owners of America hat- or at least come close.
I voted for Wesley Hunt.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Could you not say the exact same thing of Talarico? "If Talarico is the best thing Texas Republicans can put forward, they deserve to lose"? He will show support for murderers and blatantly lie about how unjust the system is for particular demographics to get votes from those demographics. Of course, it's all in the eye of the beholder. But considering the red-leaning nature of Texas, it will be profoundly sad to me if they elect someone that is way to the left of the state and deviates significantly in religion and culture, even if Paxton is particularly controversial.
For my predictions, I think Talarico will lose, Ossoff and El-Sayed will win, and Troy Jackson is unclear to me. I guess I'd say he's probably going to win, too.
Tangent: isn’t Talarico a fairly serious Presbyterian? I’m seeing some claims that his church is hyper liberal, but I don’t know how you get a religious degree without some genuine faith.
Oh my dear friend, you have plainly not read me sperging out about his views on the Annunciation (hint: the point of it is not the Incarnation, redemption, repairing the broken relationship between God and man or atonement for sin, the point is God is okay with abortion so go right ahead and have your abortion without guilt like the mean ol' bad right wing Christians try to make you feel!) Even the liberal Jesuit magazine had to go "Er, no" on that one 🤣
He had to clarify what he meant by "God is non-binary" (theology behind that remark is not incorrect, but it's a shit-awful way of phrasing it and Jimmy boy was clearly trying to be both one of the cool kids and get the normies all het up, but just inserted his foot in his mouth).
His church is indeed hyper liberal, the retired-but-came-back Pastorette Babs was assuring all and sundry that Jim boy was lying through his teeth about LGBT+ issues in order to get elected, but once elected would reliably go back to the right side of history (in another interview, she wasn't as sure about if Jesus ever existed, but she was sure about Jimmy boy). The main pastor of the church thinks, well, where do I even begin with the bounty of material from "referring to God with masculine language makes girls feel their brothers are more important" onwards? Jimmy boy isn't quite as to the extreme edge as his pastor, but he's done the usual "True Christianity is all about being nice" liberal crap in politics so to sum up, this Catholic isn't sold on how solidly Presbyterian this seminarian is, apart from "member of a progressive church in a liberal branch of the denomination and reliably on-board with the Democratic platform on everything".
Though fear not, he has now accepted there are two biological sexes and not six 😁
This is still just so crazy to me. Even secular historians agree that Jesus existed, it’s decisively been the (again, secular) consensus for over a century, at least. This could be sort of an edgy but intriguing thing to say in like the Vienna cafes of the early 1800s, now it’s just stupid.
The Texas senate race this year is truly the Battle of the Bad Candidates, isn’t it. I don’t envy people voting in that one, especially moderates. Curious if there’ll be an unusual rate of abstention in that particular vote.
Years back, as an interested onlooker to the Anglican Wars, I got an introduction to some of the wackier ideas of liberal Protestantism and hoo-boy. Pastorette Babs is a church leader not because she believes that god shit, but it's a useful tool for social liberalisation and the doing good stuff can be extended out to "this means pro-reproductive justice, pro-gay marriage, pro-trans rights and the sixty other liberal to progressive notions pulled out of the grab bag". She's an old lesbian so this is catnip to her - ha, take that all you dumb right-wing Christians of my youth who told me my lifestyle was sinful, I'm a lady pastor now, so how do you like that?
Jesus Mythicism is just another step on the path, after all what really matters is how we feel inside about things and building community and being Good People, and if the idea of Jesus helps you do that, then fine! Just don't force people to have to believe in this being literal, and we're all good.
Though Pastorette Babs is still not as shocking as the former Primate of The Episcopalian Church, the very smart and educated* (she has a science qualification as an oceanographer!) Katharine Jefferts Schori, who managed to preach a sermon where the encounter of St. Paul with the possessed slave girl is the excuse for scolding Paul for being jealous of other people having spiritual gifts, so that is why he exorcised her. Yes, being possessed by a demon and your owners using that to make money off you as a fortune teller is a beautiful gift of God, and if Paul had only been able to recognise how special and wonderful this was, then he would have been able to learn. About slave owners and demonic possession. Being good things.
"Maybe there was no actual Jesus guy" is just a commonplace of liberal theology after that.
*There was a wonderful interview with the NYT shortly after her election as Primate where she was asked about the Episcopalian numbers sinking like a stone, and she came back with "well, we're educated so we tend not to have lots of kids, unlike the Catholics and Mormons". Managing to insult two different denominations in one go, that takes talent! 🤣
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
His church is extremely liberal (in both "open minded" and "leftist" senses). The top three images on their website are a video that begins by pointing at their "Love They Neighbor - No Exceptions" banner, a photo of a cross covered in progress-pride-flag-design drapery, and a "No Human Is Illegal" sign.
Whenever I visited (before my father's death but after he moved to Austin he was a member for a few years) everyone I talked to (including the current pastor making headlines, but I don't recall meeting Talarico) seemed animated by genuine faith, even if the level of liberal (in both "open minded" and "ample" senses) interpretation required for that faith gave it a very struggling/double-think tone to me. That sounds patronizing, but it isn't intended to. I met a lot of loving and helpful people there toward the end of that "before my father's death" period, and I'm a bit worried about the Eye Of Sauron now shining on the place. I did sadly conclude that their beliefs are wrong in a descriptive way, but there seem to be a lot of people now angrily concluding that their beliefs are wrong in a normative way, and I'm hoping that doesn't include anyone too unstable.
More options
Context Copy link
Don't non-denominational schools of theology exist at some universities?
Maybe, but I’m not sure any of them are labeled seminaries.
They adopted that term from Catholicism as the Protestant denominations became mainline and wanted to sound respectable and rooted in ancient tradition and shed any vestiges of "Brother Billy-Bob leading the tent revival because he was called by the elders". Brother Billy-Bob went to Bible College. The Reverend Robert went to seminary and got a Masters Degree in Divinity.
Oh, those wacky Protestants.
Can't throw stones too hard because we have the crazy in Catholicism as well, but at least there is some effort to try and at least pretend we officially believe the doctrines 😁 But like I said, a Presbyterian coming out with how much he admires Mary makes my Catholic antennae twitch (due to historical Presbyterian attitudes to Mary and indeed women in power), and instead of (for example) quoting the Magnificat he goes off on "because this was about choice, so God likes choice, so abortion is totes cool and fine!"
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
No?
Paxton sucks for a number of nonpartisan reasons.
Talarico has none of these issues. A replacement Republican politician has none of these issues. Therefore, primary voters choosing somebody with these issues are shooting themselves in the foot before ever getting to the partisan bits.
Don’t get me wrong: Paxton has plenty of those “eye of the beholder” points.
But if it was down to those, I wouldn’t be talking about “deserving to lose.” Regardless of my personal opinions, I recognize those as subjective in a way that the first set really weren’t. A difference in values is not a difference in competence.
More options
Context Copy link
I just have a hard time believing that black Christians will vote for an Arab Muslim.
Yeah, I could be wrong. I forgot about his having troubles with the black vote and doing ads targeted towards black people. But it seems like that state is really blue now, with all the protests and all the Muslims.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link