site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024

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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

...did you forget a negative and mean to say 'if Trump wins'?

A significant part of the drama of the last decade of American politics centers around the modern Democratic party's collusion with various state and non-state actors to perpetrate a series of conspiracies and smear campaigns to a degree not seen in political generations for the purpose of making Trump lose no matter what. Russia-gate wasn't simply an election-year smear, but a sustained multi-year conspiracy that was on national television so often that the Democratic party convinced a plurality of itself that it was true. Well-established precedents in various legal subjects were tossed or ignored in the name of lawfare against policies, nullification theory was directly resurrected in the name of resistance, and entirely new and novel legal theories were embraced in the name of prosecution and attempted disqualification. There are a whole host of tactics and escalations that have been unleashed on Trump that are not even close to matched when he was in a position of actual power.

If Trump is destroyed, the message is not clear or firmly set that 'heads I win tails you lose' election will result in the person doing it's total annihilation, because the Democratic coalition has been doing that for most of the last decade would not have been annihilated. Trump's defeat would be a validation, not a discreditation, to that style of politics.