site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023

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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Trump could bring up and rehash all of his 2015-2016 talking points all over again, and it would carry him right back into office.

The main issue that would stop this are his stances on Russia and the Ukraine. Many of the population still remembers the cold war and the fact that Russia was America's #1 threat, and if democrats played their cards right, could use his stance there to put his campaign under ground.

Trump could bring up and rehash all of his 2015-2016 talking points all over again, and it would carry him right back into office.

I don't think it would be wise because it's no longer as salient of an issue. hardly anyone on twitter cares about immigration anymore. it's all attacking wokeness, and then second, attacking the left for being soft on crime and the societal breakdown of law and order. that is the angle now.

That's been a part of the major cultural arguments for at least ten years now. Racial crime rates are brought up each election cycle as part of right wing talking points in basically all major online efforts, so I'm not seeing what's changed.

Perhaps the tone of the arguments and what musk wants the algorithms of Twitter to do have caused the culturally-allowable talking points to change.

That Hillary was weak is a partial explanation I'll accept.

No one wanted Hillary as president, even nominal democrats.

Many of the population still remembers the cold war and the fact that Russia was America's #1 threat, and if democrats played their cards right, could use his stance there to put his campaign under ground.

I'm not sure this is the case. Democrats calling Trump a Russian Operative and claiming he is in Russia's pocket caused a lot of Trump supporters to not be anti-Russia, if not pro Russia. The was with Ukraine may have complicated that, but the Democrats bringing up Russia will just remind Trump supporters that Trump was erroneously tied to Russia by those same-self Democrats for 4 years.

I do. He and his team would need to freshen the talking points up and rephrase them. Instead of "Drain the Swamp", it's "Finish the Job" or similar. Trump's ability to take an accusation to his face, absorb it, then spit it back out at his opponents without missing a beat, the man may as well have walked on water.

That said, there is something to be said about democrats not voting for Trump, so much as voting against Hillary. The midwest and flyover states all hated her, so there's a large chance Trump won mostly out of spite.