site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 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.

10
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Do you think that John Roberts will buy that rather broad interpretation of the Supremacy Clause?

Yes. Just like I was quite certain he would buy the general federal election argument to kill the silly Colorado decision. The only thing I got wrong there was I thought it would be 7-2 when it was 9-0.

What did you predict?

I also predicted 7-2.

I think chief justice roberts would want to end the constitutional crisis as fast as possible and with a minimum of bloodshed, and if that means forcing New York to release trump to the White House, that is a better outcome than a civil war.

It's not clear how he could force that under any circumstances. John Rambo he ain't.

New York City is technically under border patrol jurisdiction, for just one thing.

Okay, but John Roberts doesn't command them, the President does. If there is no acting President, then I suppose it would fall to the a agency leadership, and why would they do anything to help the person they hate and who they may believe stole the election, and when they are about to be fired anyways? Suppose they just order their people to stay home?

…The border patrol is very red.

Even in NYC? But regardless they still can't operate without leadership. A cadre of rogue border agents is not going to liberate a president-elect on their own initiative.

They're red and they really don't like Biden after he bought into the dumb "border patrol agents on horseback whipping refugees at the border" media narrative, and then promised to hold people accountable.

There’s no specific breakdown of border patrol in NYC, but the border patrol is generally very red and so is the NYPD, which is probably the closest proxy.

In any case recent events point to the border patrol following Greg Abbott in the event of a constitutional crisis.

What is your source that the NYPD is very red? I know the union leadership is, but my priors are that the police force, being more closely drawn from the area and much more demographically representative, will also be more politically representative as well.

More comments

Quite possibly. What, do you expect him to want the supreme court to rule that the president of the united states is stuck in jail?