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 -
Just as follow on, and in the spirit that everything related to Trump is culture war:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/19/politics/trump-voters-of-color-analysis/
Pull quotes:
This fact should be the smoking gun that we're not talking about the same thing that we used to with the term "racism". The american public pretends to believe that Trump was more racist than Wallace.
This is political realignment from the inside. It's slow, it could reverse or it could continue. I believe very strongly that the political coalitions are going to change composition quite a bit in the coming decade. I don't know what the issues will be, but the separation between the working class (see our discussion in last week's thread) and the middle class is becoming big enough to win elections on. The question is which party will get which side, and in what quantities.
As a point for discussion, if (and it's a big "if) the Republicans fully take up the flag of the working class, would that make them the left-leaning party?
No, for the same reason the torries failed, the mainstream right parties are the parties of corrupt oligarchs who signal to the working class by making fun of woke people. The democrats are portrayed as the elite party among online right wingers, but the republicans are to a great extent the party of Boeing, Raytheon, or Exon mobile. Boris Johnsson could be funny, but in the end his brexit ended with replacing polish workers with Pakistani cheap labour, since his donor class voters want open borders. The working people who supported brexit weren't specifically hating eastern Europeans, they didn't want immigration. The republicans will be more loyal to the military industrial empire and wall street than to their working class voters. Four years of Trump, and he delivered on everything he promised to Israel and almost nothing he promised his base.
Most left voters are not online twitter mobs. Most of them want cheaper health care, they dislike extreme wealth disparity, and they want to protect the environment. Instead of having an honest discussion surrounding the grievances of most democrat voters, the online right fights bipolar 21-year-olds having a meltdown on a college campus, ignoring that 29950 out of 30000 students on that campus were not protesting some event.
The mainstream right has tanked all over the western world. In the anglosphere the right as a whole has tanked because of the first past the post voting system. In the rest of the west, newer right wing parties have picked up the slack.
Boeing, Raytheon and Exxon all contribute fairly equally to Dems and Repubs. All favored Biden over Trump.
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/raytheon-technologies/summary?topnumcycle=2022&contribcycle=2022&lobcycle=2022&outspendcycle=2022&id=D000072615&toprecipcycle=2020
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/boeing-co/summary?topnumcycle=2022&contribcycle=2022&lobcycle=2022&outspendcycle=2022&id=d000000100&toprecipcycle=2020
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs//summary?topnumcycle=2022&contribcycle=2022&lobcycle=2022&outspendcycle=2022&id=D000000129&toprecipcycle=2020
It is true that the left and their allies in the military industrial empire did prevent Trump from ending existing wars and conspired to mislead the American people about him (ze russkies!!!). Wall St has been solidly part of the left for 20 years.
You might be confusing Trump and the populist right with Liz Cheney.
Trump didn't even manage to run the party when he was president. Trump really didn't deliver on much, where is the wall? Two years of republican presidency and congress under Trump and not much to show for it. Trump could make funny tweets until he got banned but when it comes down to it it is the Liz Cheney types that run the show.
Of course not, you seem to be forgetting that we are talking about Republicans and not Democrats. The Republican party is specifically organized in such a way no one candidate can "run the party". That decentralization of power is one of republicanism's core tenets and also the primary reason that an "insurgent" candidate like Trump could even win the nomination first place.
In an alternate universe where the Republican party was organized along more "democratic lines" Jeb would have crushed both Trump and Cruz under his boot-heel with the same ease that Clinton crushed Sanders under hers.
Nah, the issue was that Hillary was near the median Democrat's views on things, plus she was well known, while Jeb was far to the left of the median Republican primary voter. Ironically, Citizen's United has been terrible for the GOP Establishment, because any weirdo billionaire with wacky views can back a candidate in a primary.
...and from the perspective of a lot of ordinary Republicans this is a feature rather than a bug. Which part of the "decentralization of power is one of republicanism's core tenets" bit did you not understand?
More options
Context Copy link
Citizens United was about corporate independent expenditures, not individual.
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
More options
Context Copy link