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 -
The question is not whether Trump is personally corrupt - to be honest, nobody cares much if he took or given a bribe or two. The reason he was elected is not because he's a saint personally, it is to try and break the whole corrupt system - where the problem is not personal corruption, which can be dealt with by replacing the corrupt individual, but systemic perversion of the whole power structure. So, for those who elected him, Trump defecting is exactly why they elected him - because cooperating hasn't been working for them for decades now, and they feel like the other side is already been defecting for a long while, and it's time to respond in kind.
These are good examples, because neither of them actually violates any democratic norms. It does violate the norms of behavior that the elite political class has set up - mostly not for themselves but for others - but that's, again, why Trump is there in the first place. Whining about elections being rigged is the staple of American politics - but when the Left has been doing it about Bush, that was par for the course. Asking KGB's Andropov to help with fighting Reagan was par for the course. Arranging with Medvedev to be "more flexible after the elections" is par for the course. Getting millions from Russian banks and oligarchs for "charity purposes" is par for the course. It's when the Right is suspected of doing a tiny bit of something similar by themselves - then it's a norm violation, they're not supposed to do it to us, we're supposed to do it to them! That's exactly the norms that the deplorables wanted to be violated.
But does it really? Maybe the Democrat President did not have to personally challenge the results - he had hundreds of lieutenants to do it for him. The deplorables do not have the army of lieutenants that the systemic president, chosen by the system, has. So they can not rely on a network of proxies to do the job, if anything can lead this on the deplorable side, it's Trump. But the norm of "elections are never questioned" does not exist - it's all pretend. Bush results were questioned all the time, Stacy Abrams still claims her election was stolen and she is not seen as norm violator - I know her title as The President of Earth may not qualify, but she is still quite prominent to illustrate that this supposed "norm" is fake - it works only towards one side and not the other. Such are almost all "norms" that Trump has "violated".
Sure, but if this is the case you don't have standing to complain when his opponents adopt the same strategy. Arguing that indicting Trump is norm-breaking rings hollow if Trump himself was elected to break norms.
It's a continuation of the norm-breaking that led to electing Trump. Or, in other words, the supposed "norms" have been norms only to one side, but not the other - and the indictment is added to the long list of these one-sided norms, where Democrats are routinely doing things they claim shouldn't be done because of the "norms". It's not the new complaint, it's the same complaint over and over and over and over.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link