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 -
As another politics as sports fan, it seems a bit early to decide it's already boring. At this point in 2007 Obama was a plucky upstart who was still formulating a strategy to pick up early momentum in Iowa and the political world was still reacting to Biden's clean and articulate quip. The drama started in spring of 2008 as Obama started to capture more and more primary delegates and the question was about whether he could maintain a large enough lead to offset her advantage in likely superdelegates.
In the summer of 2007 McCain was downsizing his office and his campaign only started picking up momentum later in the year.
In 2012 all those changes happened in 2012.
In 2016, Trump was fairly active in 2015, but his famous elevator ride was in June of 2015.
While there's a debate tonight (and there were similar very early debates in 2007) the real action seems like it will be December through maybe March to June depending on how close the races end up being.
Your 2008 examples are true, but by this point in 2012 and 2016 there had already been quite a bit of action. Bachmann had flamed out and Perry was ascendant by this point in the 2012 cycle, while Trump was already the frontrunner in 2016. Also, Obama never dipped below the mid to low 20's in 2008, whereas support for Desantis has dropped to as low as 10% in some polls, with all of that going to other candidates who also look unlikely to pose a serious threat to Trump.
The season isn't over yet of course, but the first few episodes have been really boring with few signs that things will get better.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link