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 -
I find myself increasingly perplexed by the people who think a second Trump term would be any kind of a big deal; that there’s anything he’d be able to do in a second term he wasn’t able to do in the first. It’s primarily in fellow right-wingers that I find this attitude most vexing, but it also holds to a lesser degree for the people on the left who hyperbolically opine in outlets like Newsweek and The Economist about how a second Trump term would “end democracy” and “poses the biggest danger to the world.”
Really, it’s not even about Trump for me, either. I don’t really see how a DeSantis or a Ramaswamy presidency would amount to anything either. What can they possibly accomplish, except four years of utterly futile attempts at action that are completely #Resisted by the permanent bureaucracy? Giving “orders” to “subordinates” that prove as efficacious as Knut the Great’s famous command to the tides?
I hear about how the president can do this or that, according to some words on paper, and I ask “but can he, really?” Mere words on paper have no power themselves, and near as I can tell, the people in DC haven’t really cared about them for most of a century now, nor is there any real mechanism for enforcing them.
If I, a random nobody, come into your workplace and announce that you’re fired, of course you still have your job. Security will still let you in when you show up each day, you can still log in and out of whatever, your coworkers will treat you the same, and you’ll still keep getting paid. Now, suppose your boss announces that you’re fired… but everyone else there treats that the same as the first case? You still show up, you still do the work, you still get paid. Are you really fired, then?
We're at the point where reporting in the msm assumes that Trump will just suspend elections somehow. This report from PBS Newshour is about Trump using the word 'vermin' in a recent speech. In this report the words 'Dangerous Rhetoric' were overlaid over an image of Trump, and the meat of the report was an interview with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor from NYU. Right off the bat her comparison was with You Know Who, and she then argues that rhetoric is symptomatic of sections of the Republican party wanting to move to authoritarianism and suspending elections. The mechanism for this happening is up to the viewer's speculation.
Is there a mechanism for him to suspend elections and stay President forever? No.
Will he try anyway and cause a shitload of drama? Probably.
Trump AG prosecute Obama, Biden,Hilary, Fauci etc.. Also people who criticize him. People get violent. Atmosphere of fear, people are afraid that one wrong move will fracture the republic (or try to make that move because it feels virtuous given that your side is right).
Replace generals with Trump loyalists? That doesn't get you all the way there, but it helps. Then you have a choice between an internal military coup to get rid of the Trump loyalists at the top, and maybe they say that it's better to have another term of Trump than to destroy the Republic; they might be right.
You could see how they would think it's reasonable. The first term didn't count because the deep state interfered, and this makes some kind of internal sense, so this would be his first real full term, or maybe the next one, because he will need to use this one to eradicate the deep state.
Ya, I have a hard time seeing any of this happening.
The thing is, for the first term, we were told all this was going to happen anyway. People were online asking about how they could flee to Canada ahead of the jackboots marching in the street to drag gays and minorities off to be tortured in the camps.
What happened, in reality? Pretty much business as usual, apart from Covid. And getting conservative judges on the Supreme Court, which I really never imagined he'd either try or even get done. Congratulations there on a real achievement.
We didn't get the Third World War, the nukes flying, the end of days, crashed economy, torture conversion camp for gays, the Christofascist theocratic regime. So why think that even if he somehow manages to win a second term, this would happen? Too much "wolf! wolf! look there's a wolf!" cried the first time for me to believe all the "no really a wolf this time!" this time round.
We did get the attempt to overthrow democracy. So there's that.
Oh, you mean the setting up of CHOP and CHAZ and people forming little militias that killed the very people they were supposed to be protecting?
Not that, huh?
I was more talking about Trump's actions, but sure, there was that too.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'm hardly informed about goings-on over the pond, but isn't that a bit of an exaggeration? Not that democracy is flawless or working overly well, but I'm having a hard time seeing attempts to overthrow it outright in the recent past.
No, I don't think it's an exaggeration. He lost an election and tried very hard to stay in power regardless. That is a central example of an attempt to overthrow democracy in my book.
Hm. Alright. Hearing "overthrow", I expected something more effectual, but I suppose I can see where you're coming from.
More options
Context Copy link
From the Trump side, we did see an attempt to overthrow democracy, and it was successful: the Biden coup.
If 2020’s election season and J6 were indeed a Biden coup, it was portrayed to those in the know as a way to pre-empt a seemingly inevitable Trump coup, complete with Nancy Pelosi’s daughter capturing events for a documentary intended to portray events as a 9/11-style attack.
If it was a Trump attempt at seizing power, it was the most ridiculously convoluted and ineffective plot in political history, with an impromptu army of hundreds of thousands just giving up without firing a shot.
If it was all just a series of bad game theory moves which gave each side's actions the illusion of malfeasance through tribal lenses, it is a tragedy of democracy all around.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link