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 -
Your post is directionally correct, but I'd quibble that you missed an important point: this was a midterm election, which brings out a very different electorate. A portion of the Dem blowout is just an artifact of that, similar to the R blowout in 2010. If everything else was the same but Republicans had retained the more motivated voters like they had in 2010, we likely would have seen something closer to a D+5 -- still a D win, but much less decisive.
Not that I actually mind MAGA getting its comeuppance of course.
If you will kindly check again, this was literally the centerpiece of my election prediction- that the 2026 electorate would be more similar to 2018 than to 2022 or 2024. I didn't even reference any polling. I never saw anyone else establish 2018 as the baseline, they were all working off of assumptions that the electorate would be similar to 2022 or 2024.
And the midterm electorate being so atrocious for Republicans is 100% Trump's fault. In the midterms before 2018, in 2010 and 2014, it was the Republicans that had a higher propensity electorate.
And in 2022, when Trump was not in office, the Republicans did fine. Republicans also did fine in 2002, 1998, and 1994.
Trump single-handedly destroyed that midterms advantage, which kills the Republican party at every other level of governments throughout the nation. Republicans used to famously be the party with the most high-propensity voters.
Trump's only other competition for "single-handedly launched a political party into the wilderness" in the past ~200 years will be Hoover.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link