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 saw the 2020 elections. At the time they seemed suspicious, but as much in a badly-run way as in an obviously-stolen way. Then in 2022, mostly-Republican precincts in maricopa and harris counties ran out of ballot paper.
This has significantly changed my priors towards ‘democrats were cheating in 2020’.
Yes, Arizona 2022 significantly increased my certainty that 2020 was illegitimate.
What was problematic about the Arizona 2022 election?
My overall impression was that the Republicans just ran a slate of terrible candidates and lost. (By a very close margin, in the case of Hamadeh.)
Republican precincts in maricopa county suspiciously ran out of ballot paper(although, yes, Kari Lake and Blake Masters were not good candidates). The same thing happened in Houston and plausibly swung some county level elections(specifically the county judgeship).
I just looked it up again, I'd forgotten about that. It looks like it was problems with toner printing too light before it was fixed, and they were still able to vote, just their ballots were counted separately or something? I'd imagine that would cause some people not to vote, especially with it hitting social media, which yeah, could well have meant that Hamadeh would have won.
Why would you assume that it was interference rather than just an error, though? I'd thought that in those districts the voting was mostly administered by republicans?
Because elections just keep having irregularities that are totally secure and fine but always wind up favoring democrats, in short. I’m not totally familiar with the division of labor in Arizona elections, but in Texas(where Harris county which did the same thing and plausibly swung the county judge election is located), it’s a county level responsibility to run elections, the elections judge has a fancy title but is basically just a clerk. My assumption is that Arizona is the same way; the Maricopa county elections department being responsible for sending out all the equipment(incl ballot paper) and the poll workers just use it.
“Always wind up favoring Democrats”
And yet Republicans win plenty of elections.
Perhaps you recall way back in 2016 when the underdog presidential candidate outperformed polling and won an extremely close election?
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
Now that being said, the inability to do something more subtle than that leads me to conclude that 2020 cheating was fairly small, nothing like what trump is alleging.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link