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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   20456 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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Basically yes.

If you want a peaceful transition of power, you need to be able to convince the losers that they lost fairly and that they have more to gain by continuing to work within the system than they have to lose by checking out of it or blowing it up.

As I've touched upon before I think liberals tend treat the relative peace and prosperity of societies such as the US and EU as though it were a physical law (like gravity), rather than something that has to be actively cultivated and maintained, and this sort of attitude strikes me as a manifestation of this tendency.

If you want a peaceful transition of power, you need to be able to convince the losers that they lost fairly and that they have more to gain by continuing to work within the system than they have to lose by checking out of it or blowing it up.

Is there a responsibility, in your view, for the losers to examine if their real objection might not be principled, but literally over just losing?

No because that's not how Democracy works.

You want Democracy? You need buy-in from the démos.

That means you don't really even want elections, right? You just want negotiations over policy. Because if the losers, as I suspect, are a bit more motivated by losing than they claim to be, then no amount of proof would work because they don't care about proof in the first place.

That means you don't really even want elections, right? You just want negotiations over policy.

Perhaps this is the Leviathan-shaped hole in the discourse rearing it's ugly head again, but "negotiations over policy" (or rather who gets to set that policy) is exactly what an election is, is it not?

Otherwise, I refer you to @DuplexFields' response above.

Perhaps this is the Leviathan-shaped hole in the discourse rearing it's ugly head again, but "negotiations over policy" (or rather who gets to set that policy) is exactly what an election is, is it not?

No, my point is that you and anyone else who takes this viewpoint is essentially claiming that you don't care about proof over whether the election was stolen in the first place. You just want a guarantee that your policies are enacted.

Suppose the Democrats were to offer a guarantee that they'd quash any attempt at enacting laws which would shift the government's stance to be more socially progressive in exchange for Republicans (including the MAGA ones) never bringing up the 2020 election again, and that this would hold for the next 10 years. God himself comes down and says they're not lying about what they'll do. In this scenario, I would expect people complaining about the election losers to largely come down against this deal on principle. Instead, I suspect the losers would actually, seriously debate if they should accept.

you and anyone else who takes this viewpoint is essentially claiming that you don't care about proof over whether the election was stolen in the first place. You just want a guarantee that your policies are enacted.

Isn't this, like -- strictly way better than relitigating 2020 in excrutiating detail over and over again? The evidence is what it is, we aren't getting more, and even outside of partisan hacks pretty much everyone has made up their mind.

"I don't care about 2020 proofs and never want to hear about it again -- but we need to bake accountability for following voting procedures and anti-fraud measures into the system so it never happens again" is at least actionable -- and something that is difficult(ish) for either side to object to. (and no, "it doesn't matter, those dumb MAGAs will protest anyways" is not a valid objection)

Why would it be better? It's a flat-out rejection of the idea that the truth should inform action. I have no problem with litigation over the facts of the 2020 election, but the frustrating part is that the election truthers don't ever give me confidence that they care about the truth for its own sake, but more because they think it's impossible Trump could have lost in the first place.

You are describing hardcore truthers though -- isn't it way easier to engage with people who say 'I can't be sure whether fraud had an impact (and therefore the results should stand) but it would be better for everyone if the system were such that it is possible to be sure that fraud can't have an impact'?

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