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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   38183 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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Richard Hanania thinks Desantis should challenge Trump to a boxing match. Desantis's campaign so far has been pretty pathetic. He's been afraid to really push back against Trump despite Trump lobbing almost daily attacks against him. Desantis is great on paper, with his victories against woke institutions in Florida, but he's failed to appeal to the Republican id so far. Many Republican voters care far more about appearance and physical vigor than policy positions, good governance, intelligence, etc.

I don’t think Trump can lose a Republican primary at this point. But if I were giving DeSantis advice, it would be to do the opposite of what Abernathy suggests. Republican voters love the stupidity, obnoxiousness, vulgarity, and simian chest-beating. While the conventional wisdom seems to be that Rubio and Cruz tried rolling around in the muck with him and failed, Rubio’s most vicious personal attacks in 2016 didn’t come until after Trump had won the New Hampshire primary and Nevada caucuses, that is, pretty late in the game. And Rubio wasn’t the guy to do it.

Instead of seeing Republican primary voters as concerned citizens seeking a voice, try to imagine them as chimps laying around under a canopy. They’ve chosen the alpha male. He’s the loudest, most obnoxious member of the tribe, and his power depends on the degree to which other apes are afraid of him and give him symbolic displays of respect, which in this case has meant saying, for example, that he actually won the 2020 election. What could break this spell? Not reasoned arguments, but signs of weakness. And no, not weakness in the sense that he might not be the most electable candidate — that’s counting on a level of thinking that is far too abstract for this population.

Rather, one needs to emphasize literal physical weakness. Notice how obsessed Republicans have been with the real and imagined physical and cognitive shortcomings of figures like Biden and Hillary. In many corners of right-wing media, “our opponents are old, fat, ugly” seems to get at least as much attention as actual issues, especially during election season. In 2020, we saw doctored videos of Pelosi slurring her words go viral on social media, and this shows not only how susceptible the Republican base is to fake news, but also how obsessed they are with physical and physiological correlates of health.

The Dylan Mulvaney hysteria is another demonstration of the red tribe being driven by the most base and primitive instincts. These people started shooting beer cans with assault rifles because a company sent a six pack to a guy who acts like a sissy. Good luck explaining to them the importance of going after higher education accreditation agencies.

You might think it’s strange for a group like this to have chosen Trump as their leader. But when he posts memes of himself as an Adonis or says things like he’s in better shape than Obama or Bush were while they were in office, and no one corrects him, that serves to only cement his dominance over the party. Trump’s perfect body is like the unreliability of Dominion voting machines. Shirtless Putin has a similar effect in Russia. Educated Westerners roll their eyes at his primitive demonstrations of vigor, but I suspect that, like Trump, he’s a much better student of human nature than they are. The conspiracy theories might have been false, but the Trump-Putin bromance was real, and no accident.

This means that DeSantis’ best shot is trying to emphasize that Trump is physically weak and he no longer intimidates others in the party. You can’t do this with words alone. DeSantis can call him fat, and Trump can reply everyone is saying that I’m in the best shape of any man who’s ever lived, and the voters will eat it up. The Florida governor needs a way to clearly highlight that he’s younger, stronger, and more physically courageous.

DeSantis should therefore challenge Trump to a boxing match. Trump will almost certainly refuse, at which point he can say that this shows what a coward the former president is. Or, DeSantis could say that, on further reflection, maybe it wasn’t fair to challenge an 85 year-old man (yes, lie and exaggerate, Republican voters love that too), and he understands that his opponent is too feeble at this point in his life to get into the arena.

DeSantis shouldn’t do this out of the blue. He could start by trying to bait Trump into saying something particularly nasty about him, or preferably his wife or kids. Then he can play the role of the justifiably angry patriarch. Every time Trump launches a personal attack, DeSantis can reply by saying that his opponent is a pathetic coward, and if he has a problem with him he’s already made clear that they can settle their differences like men. If he’s not willing to do that, then we can stick to the issues, at which point DeSantis can go on about whatever he did in Florida. At the very least, a challenge to fight will eat up all the energy and make sure no other candidate gets any attention, as one of the main things DeSantis needs to do is make the primary into a two-man race.

Right now, the DeSantis strategy is to try to get the Republican voter to ask questions like “who is more electable?” or “who has shown more focus in fighting woke?” Those are exciting questions to conservative intellectuals but way too boring for the Republican masses. They will never tell a pollster this, but they resent anyone trying to make them think too hard, which is part of the reason they hate liberals in the first place.

There are a lot of ways that this could go wrong, and it probably wouldn’t work. But I think people are still yet to truly understand that, if things proceed as normal, Trump is going to be the nominee. Making sure he’s not would require meeting Republican voters where they are, instead of continuing to wish they were something else.

Republican voters love the stupidity, obnoxiousness, vulgarity, and simian chest-beating.

Instead of seeing Republican primary voters as concerned citizens seeking a voice, try to imagine them as chimps laying around under a canopy. They’ve chosen the alpha male.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a lot of words, but Hanania may as well have written, "ooga booga you dumb" for all he's said. Wojak is at the Republican primary, standing in the corner, his feet hurt, I bet they don't even know how I've transcended simian instincts. This is just dumb, Hanania is arguing against a cartoon Republican he just made up in his head.

In 2020, we saw doctored videos of Pelosi slurring her words go viral on social media, and this shows not only how susceptible the Republican base is to fake news

Good morning, it's Sunday Morning.

These people started shooting beer cans with assault rifles because a company sent a six pack to a guy who acts like a sissy.

This is exceptionally dumb. In one paragraph Hanania is kvetching about media hyperreality, and in the very nexy sentence Hanania is using some video of some person shooting a beer can to characterize the whole Republican base. This is not an argument, it's gesticulsting, and it's not even well-informed gesticulating. (The word "imagined" is doing a lot of work in his argument: I can trivially find examples of Biden, Hillary, and Pelosi all having senior moments.)

If this is Hanania's usual stuff, then he's a pseud and deserves to be ignored.

a guy who acts like a sissy

Who was invited to the White House. When was Richard invited to the White House? And if he thinks describing the "trans woman" as "a guy who acts like a sissy" is an accurate description, then why is he objecting to the objections? Is it that he thinks this is how "these people" speak of it, but he himself is totally "trans women are real women" unlike the sub-human knuckle-draggers?

What is Hanania trying to do, and is he speaking out of both sides of his mouth? I don't think Dylan is she but I'm not going to give any hostages to fortune by describing them as "a guy who acts like a sissy". If Hanania is attacked for using tat kind of language, who are the people going to defend him? Well, he's just insulted them all and shown his scorn for them, so why should they help him out?

Wojak is at the Republican primary, standing in the corner, his feet hurt, I bet they don't even know how I've transcended simian instincts.

Way to prove him correct. Did you feel clever when writing it? Or did you feel Based?

This is just dumb, Hanania is arguing against a cartoon Republican he just made up in his head.

No, he is not. In fact he isn't arguing at all. He is trying to normalize shaming of Trump loyalists as low-status, trash, unserious Republicans, to divert the remaining talent to a candidate with better chances – both of winning the election and of prosecuting a desirable policy.

We still have tons of Trump loyalists even on this relatively sophisticated sub, for all the good this loyalty has done for them. Hanania is very mean, sure, but his meanness is sensible. What would it take for them to abandon Trump, if his demonstrable political ineptitude, lack of gratitude or respect for his base, ugly and self-defeating tantrums, immaturity so pronounced one has to suspect it's affected etc. – did not?

I think he's correct that it's only humiliation of Trump as a man. But it doesn't really matter. The sad truth is that very many people do not even have a simian idea of political worth. It only matters for them whether voting for Trump is Based or Chringe.

a candidate with better chances – both of winning the election and of prosecuting a desirable policy.

Like Mitt "the Mormon Theocrat" Romney? Being nice and clean-cut never stopped the attacks from the Democrats, why do you think Trump became so popular? He drove them mad, but the usual attacks rolled off him like water off a duck's back, and they couldn't stop him getting to the White House instead of the anointed empress.

You don't have to like Trump or think he was a good president to appreciate "he drove the people who hate us absolutely foaming at the mouth mad" and enjoy that.

Thank you for providing an example. Yes, the point of voting Trump is to Own The Libs, drive them mad. This is exactly what Hanania is talking about.

Like Mitt "the Mormon Theocrat" Romney? Being nice and clean-cut never stopped the attacks from the Democrats

I suppose we will never know how well Romney would've handled those attacks were he to become POTUS.

Or he didn't become POTUS because of the way he handled those attacks. Which might explain why Trump supporters prefer owning the Libs even though the strategy is passed it's expiration date.

What would it take for them to abandon Trump, if his demonstrable political ineptitude, lack of gratitude or respect for his base, ugly and self-defeating tantrums, immaturity so pronounced one has to suspect it's affected etc. – did not?

The only one here disrespecting Trump's base is Hanania. Why would Trump supporters care what Hanania thinks when he's expressed nothing but contempt for them? By the same logic, why should I care what you think of me?

Way to prove him correct. Did you feel clever when writing it? Or did you feel Based?

It's fair game if this is how Hanania wants to play. We need to trick Trump supporters by looking masculine and tough? OK then, Hanania is a pale nerd who looks like he could barely bench the bar.

Oh, right, Hanania doesn't believe that applies to himself because he and his audience are the smart crowd, teehee, we're not boorish and vulgar like those populists. That's the problem, Hanania's argument isn't an argument, it's contempt disguised as an argument. There is no intellectual content, it's all attitude, it's about looking like an intellectual, by looking down on people who aren't trying to look intellectual.

The hell does any of that mean? Let's go step by step:

Why would Trump supporters care

Does it look like he's talking to Trump supporters even to express contempt?

what Hanania thinks when he's expressed nothing but contempt

Because arguments are to be considered on their merits, for one thing, and there is demonstrably some merit to DeSantis but zero merit to Trump as a political representative? Because this attitude makes you extremely vulnerable to trivial manipulations?

By the same logic, why should I care what you think of me?

What logic exactly?

And why would I care whether you care or not? Scratch that, what even is this inane macho train of thought about caring or not caring, this one-upmanship? Hanania talks of Trumpists from a zoological perspective; I am using you as a reference point. You are demanding gestures of unconditional respect for your position as advance payment for deigning to engage at all. But this precludes the possibility of any conscious change on your part, thus makes debating you a waste of time.

Still. Let me elucidate my opinion: the point is not to convince you of anything. The point is to convince those on the margins of the Red Tribe that your kind is a lost cause, that you are completely impossible to rescue from your self-satisfied vulgarity, your boomer Facebook group Qanon fetishes, your perverse addiction to throwing tantrums and toothless LARPing.

Hanania probably does believe that, hypothetically, you may be enticed by an alpha male chimp who physically assaults Trump, or by some other bait. This is all peripheral. At the core of that piece is Hanania's desire to have smarter Republicans – not just RINOs, but every Republican with more brains and greater self-restraint than an average Chechen teenager has – join him in losing compassion for you, for their own family and culture, and plot for disenfranchising you from here on out. It is a long-term agenda that is meant to outlive Trump as a political figure, regardless of how well he does in 2024.

The point is to convince those on the margins of the Red Tribe that your kind is a lost cause, that you are completely impossible to rescue from your self-satisfied vulgarity, your boomer Facebook group Qanon fetishes, your perverse addiction to throwing tantrums and toothless LARPing.

I'm not really seeing that expressed in that piece. Okay, he does think Republicans make tons of mistakes, systematically, because they're not trying to address root issues. But most of the piece just seems like he's saying that Republicans want to be entertained. And he's lumped himself among that to some extent, he's clearly enjoying the whole show, writing that piece etc. It looks to me more to be a mix of just a suggestion of the style of thing that Desantis needs to do to win people over—the professed purpose, may be some, at least, of the actual purpose—and secondly, to talk about what he thinks the appeal of Trump actually is to people.

Hanania is also here endorsing some of the tactics that you seem to be saying he actually is trying to oppose. My current read on him is that he likes the show, and cares about policy and accurate analysis.

Because arguments are to be considered on their merits, for one thing, and there is demonstrably some merit to DeSantis but zero merit to Trump as a political representative?

If arguments are to be considered on their merits, than Hananias argument is garbage even when there's more merit to DeSantis as a representative.

That's the problem, Hanania's argument isn't an argument, it's contempt disguised as an argument. There is no intellectual content, it's all attitude, it's about looking like an intellectual, by looking down on people who aren't trying to look intellectual.

Well, there is some intellectual content. It can be summed up in one sentence and the rest of the article is just delivering that one bit of content in an entertaining way. But overall I agree with you that there is not much intellectual content there. However, why is that a problem for you? Is it the contempt? The lack of intellectual content? The fact that it was posted here even though it would probably have gotten modded had it been posted here by Hanania himself? Something else?

However, why is that a problem for you?

Where do you perceive there is a problem for SlowBoy?

This is a discussion forum. You don't need to have a problem with something to weigh in with an opinion on it. An article was posted for visibility and at least implicitly soliciting opinions on it. Slowboy shared his. When people engaged his opinion, he elaborated back.

That is his angle and it works. Many of his readers span the spectrum of the rationalist-right and center-right, who share a large overlap of readership with similar blogs . Hanania is not catering or speaking to to the Fox News demographic or the 'Republican base'. There is a huge and underserved audience of centrist and rationalist conservatism, who reject Fox News low-brow or populist conservatism. Had he parroted stale trad or mainstream-con talking points, his blog and Twitter-pundit career would have been DOA. he would need to go on TV instead.

His argument is dumb, and the idea that Ron DeSantis could challenge Trump to a boxing fight is dumb. People are not going to look at all five-foot-nine of Ron DeSantis proposing a boxing match as a political stunt and think, "Wow, this guy is the real alpha, now I like him more than Trump". It's facile. Is this really what people want? Dumb arguments dressed up in rationalist costumes?

I do not think that Hanania's article is wearing any rationalist costume. It is simply vicious political criticism/satire in the style of H. L. Mencken or Hunter Thompson. I guess Hanania is vaguely associated with rationalism for some reason (I don't know much about him), but this article has zero pretense of being rationalist.

People are not going to look at all five-foot-nine of Ron DeSantis proposing a boxing match as a political stunt and think, "Wow, this guy is the real alpha, now I like him more than Trump".

I agree that it would just seem silly if DeSantis is actually 5'9", given that Trump is 6'3". It is hard to figure out DeSantis' actual height though. I've seen figures of up to 5'11".

Anyway, I am not sure that Hanania really thinks that DeSantis challenging Trump to a boxing match would help DeSantis. You might be interpreting Hanania's article too literally. His main point is not to give DeSantis advice, it is to point out that the Republican base wants machismo and owning the libs, not policies or speeches.

It might seem silly, but DeSantis is 44, Trump 76. The young, small guy would beat the senior citizen. Trump could potentially turn things around and say that DeSantis is just a liar and a braggart, beating up on a fit old guy or some crap like that. Then he can say DeSantis has a Napoleon complex, if he really is 5’9”. Even at six feet, DeSantis might have a hard time doing this.

There is a huge and underserved audience of centrist and rationalist conservatism, who reject Fox News low-brow or populist conservatism.

I can't say how huge, but this is a point that I've tried expressing to others, only to get met with a fairly perplexed look. The conservative mainstream (i.e. Republican) is always desperately going to try and gatekeep the term to maintain as much of the political marketshare on the right-wing that they can. But I remarked to a friend back in 2016, that there were a lot of different conservative voting blocks that all thought they were going to get what they impressed onto Trump. The Jared Taylor faction thought they were going to get their white nationalist into power. Libertarians thought they were going to get their free market utopia enacted. A disgruntled Democratic voting block wanted to thumb its nose at the party for sidelining Bernie. Everyone thought they were getting what they wanted with Trump.

Yes, I still remember some of the contortions that some libertarians I argued with about Trump would put themselves through to explain to me why Trump was libertarian despite his clear authoritarian/"get things done by any means necessary" streak and the fact that he implied multiple times that Edward Snowden should be executed for treason.

The smarter ones of the bunch at least realized that Trump was not actually libertarian and instead tried to convince me along the lines of "well yeah we know but he's better for libertarianism than Hillary..." Although I am pretty sure that at least half of those types were actually smitten with Trump on an emotional level and were just saying what they thought it would take to convince me, not what it was that had actually convinced them.

The smarter ones of the bunch at least realized that Trump was not actually libertarian and instead tried to convince me along the lines of "well yeah we know but he's better for libertarianism than Hillary..."

Through accelerationism? The more autocratic he gets, the better for the libertarian movement?

No, their arguments were more along the lines of "At least Trump will protect gun rights and capitalism and will prevent third world people with anti-libertarian politics from moving to the US".

Trump was always going to be a self-absorbed individual before he would ever become an ideologue with a 'vision' to carry out. I think the people that ended up being the most disappointed with him were the ones that had the most unrealistic expectation of who he was. And even in retrospect, I do think he was better than what I think it would've likely been with Hillary. And in 2020, I maintained that he would've still been better than Joe Biden. I'm not saying Biden hasn't done good things that I would agree with, because he has. But people overwhelmingly focus on the wrong thing where it concerns Trump, and that's his outward personality instead of what he does in his capacity as President. If I want a sobering assessment of Donald Trump, I'll try and see what Noam Chomsky has to say about him. The irrational TikTok tirades of the left and disaffected right-wingers that feel he betrayed them, have nothing worthwhile to offer me as far as critique goes.

The smarter ones of the bunch at least realized that Trump was not actually libertarian and instead tried to convince me along the lines of "well yeah we know but he's better for libertarianism than Hillary..."

I would have said this but still recognized that the libertarian candidate was far superior, I would vote for them, and they would definitely lose.

I didn't push the red button labeled "ABSOLUTELY DO NOT" when at the polls but it was funny when others did.

People do not have to be stupid in order to enjoy and be swayed by visceral displays of dominance. Even in smart people, intelligence is uneven. We are still apes and it is hard not to be influenced on some level by the same kind of crude stuff that worked back in the day of ape politics.

This is not an argument, it's gesticulsting, and it's not even well-informed gesticulating.

Yes, Hanania is not trying to write a well-reasoned logical argument. He is trying to shed some light on things by exaggerating and mocking. It is not logically airtight but it still works to reveal some truths.

Maybe the lights are on -- but nobody's home!

Come on, I've seen videos od Joe Biden saying that America "could be defined in a single word," Hillary Clinton having a seizure, and Nancy Pelosi rambling about Sunday Morning. Hanania wants to pose with some tough love tells-it-like-it-is bravado, but it's all an act. He's clearly ignorant of what he's talking about.

Just because Hanania thinks that the Republican base is stupid does not mean that he thinks the Democratic base is smart.

One of his examples for how the Republican base is stupid is that they're imagining elder moments in Democratic leadership. But these moments aren't imagined, they're famous! He's wrong about basic things while he tsk tsks others. That's gaslighting or that's glib.

He wrote:

Notice how obsessed Republicans have been with the real and imagined physical and cognitive shortcomings of figures like Biden and Hillary. In many corners of right-wing media, “our opponents are old, fat, ugly” seems to get at least as much attention as actual issues, especially during election season. In 2020, we saw doctored videos of Pelosi slurring her words go viral on social media, and this shows not only how susceptible the Republican base is to fake news, but also how obsessed they are with physical and physiological correlates of health.

Note: "the real and imagined". Clearly Hanania agrees that some of the shortcomings are real.

And he also provides an example of an, according to him at least, doctored video that Republicans believed was real.

The "doctored video" was a short clip of Pelosi that underwent compression that few people saw until the press seized on it as a "doctored viral video". It's a silly story because Pelosi has had voluble senior moments already, and the "doctoring" in the "doctored video" was minor stuff.

It's a very weak argument. Hanania adduces one (exaggerated, I think) example to show that the Republican base is susceptible to fake news. And Hanania isn't?

Fair enough, if he used a bad example he used a bad example. It does seem pretty clear to me, though, that a pretty large subset of voters are gullible and have difficulty understanding how reality works. This includes both Democrats and Republicans.

More comments

Peer review and academia is the high-IQ equivalent of politics and celebrities for average-IQ people. Same sort of appeal to authority.

Hanania was asked to speak to the Yale Federalist Society, i.e. a bunch of future red state judges and clerks, about his 'Woke Institutions are Civil Rights Law' hypothesis. While he seems remarkably devoted to biting the hand that feeds him by expressing his contempt for the conservative base he is not without influence.

Hanania isn't fed by "the conservative base", he is fed by "intellectual" right wing think tanks and the like, the difference of which to the conservative base is like the difference between man and monkey (I exaggerate, but only slightly).

the base is irrelevant. Hanania is smart enough to know that real, lasting change comes from the legal system, and other influential people and institutions, not the bottom-up.

Both parties have a large contingent of dumb or midwit voters, either because they're low-intelligence or simply because they don't pay attention to politics that much and as such have simplistic opinions, e.g. a "guy who just wants to grill" making voting decisions by "going with his gut". This isn't a boo-outgroup screed, but rather a proper understanding of reality. It's utterly fanciful to pretend these people don't exist or have that they don't have a massive impact on vote tallies.

People become politically active in the same way they watch the Olympic games, once every four years. I'm constantly torn and at odds with myself about what to think about voters. On one hand they're the collective ignorant, and on the other, they're smart enough not to bother wasting their time with the false display of a decision making process that they don't believe will benefit them, no matter who they elect.

Politicians are rational actors in the sense that politicians do whatever gets them elected. If they do stupid things that attract the support from voters, who's to blame? On the other hand, more informed people won't vote because their preferred candidate has no platform. It's a paradox of sorts.

Hanania can't credibly complain about the stupidity of the electorate if his argument is this stupid. OK, apparently the Trump people are stupid, but who else? I don't see Hanania saying that Biden voters are dumb, so Trump should speak to them by wearing a pantsuit.

Calling a specific group of people dumb, and then defending that by saying that everyone is dumb, is an extreme example of a bailey and motte.

“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives...

I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. Suppose any party, in addition to whatever share it may possess of the ability of the community, has nearly the whole of its stupidity, that party must, by the law of its constitution, be the stupidest party; and I do not see why honorable gentlemen should see that position as at all offensive to them, for it ensures their being always an extremely powerful party . . . There is so much dense, solid force in sheer stupidity, that any body of able men with that force pressing behind them may ensure victory in many a struggle, and many a victory the Conservative party has gained through that power."

-John Stuart Mill

Hanania can't credibly complain about the stupidity of the electorate if his argument is this stupid.

Sure he can. I doubt that Hanania is not smart enough to write a logical argument if he wanted to write one. He is exaggerating and mocking people because it is fun and it gets him views. And it also most likely also reaches a much broader audience than a more carefully reasoned argument would.

But even if he actually was stupid, why would that mean that he could not credibly complain about other people's stupidity? I do not see the connection there.

Sure, maybe Hanania was Just Pretending To Be Retarded. But it wouldn't be a very good defense of what he's written. Either he's stupid on accident, or on purpose!

I do not think that he is being stupid, I think that he is being an over-the-top and exaggerated satirist.

Is the Republican base quite as stupid as he implies they are? Probably not. Is the Republican base in many ways stupid? Yes.

The Democratic base is also to a large extent stupid. As I am pretty sure Hanania would agree.

If you believe Hanania thinks leftist voters are all geniuses... you're not very familiar with his work. He's gone into what he thinks of left-leaning voters before I'm sure, but this article isn't about "R voters are uniquely stupid", so he didn't deem it relevant to bring it up.

It's not a motte and bailey because it's not a central point, or even an argument (as you presented) that he believes in at all. The real point is about Desantis. Desantis would be crushing Trump if the R electorate was completly made up of themotte posters and National Review type right-wing intellectuals, but it's not, and it's ludicrous to expect them to be. Desantis' pitch of "Trump but competent" won't land with less engaged, less interested rightwing voters.

Desantis would be crushing Trump if the R electorate was completly made up of themotte posters and National Review type right-wing intellectuals

Yeah, maybe, but the conservative base is extremely frustrated with "National Review type right-wing intellectuals" which doesn't mean that they're:

less engaged, less interested rightwing voters.

I mean, if you imagine yourself being like National Review pundits, I sincerely hope you pick higher ambitions.

‘National Review’ type intellectuals doesn’t mean anything. Some of the above supported Trump, some didn’t. The Flight 93 Election article was written by a Trumpist intellectual.

It means something, and not anything good.

NR is now a byword for Conservative, Inc grift.

They're hated not just by the base. They live almost entirely within the moral framework set up by their enemies, which means they cannot possibly succeed.

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New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


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