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 -
Oh no. The average person known Biden is fully senile and thinks it's extremely concerning.
Correct.
I'd wager about 47% of the vote (so, about 94% of the Blue tribe vote) is simply "Blue Tribe good. Orange man bad." The average voter looks at Biden and goes, "Oh, yeah, that guy isn't even on this planet. But...fuck Trump." They will vote for whatever blue option is there. This is why Harris (should the hot swap happen) will end up with "A historic share of the vote for the first BIPOC womyn candidate for President" .... even though most of her voters will (again) simply be smashing that Blue Like Button.
The obvious thing that I think is being missed is that the polling data for Biden is really, really, really bad:
Again, my back of the envelope math is that about 94% of the vote is already set in stone. If all you have to work with is about ~6%, the polls can't ever do a truly wild 10+ point swing. Most of all of it is already hard locked in.
This is why it's so on-its-face hilarious that you have some (not all, maybe not even many, but some) media outlets trying to spin the post debate polls as "hey, the polls have only moved against Biden 2 or 3 points maybe" when that's something like 30-40% of all moveable (I.e. not hard set) votes. It's a huge deal, especially because debates are mostly viewed as nothing burgers in recent campaign histories.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Presidential race polling is one of the most potent forms of copium with an overlayer of confirmation-bias rohrshach test. See also: the UK elections wherein "polls" had Labor absolutely "crushing" everyone and actual results showing ... 34% of the national vote (this is a little apples-to-oranges as the structure of British Parliament means you can win even though you don't win a big vote share, and I acknowledge that).
I mean it depends on who you're listening to. AFAIK virtually all of the actual pollsters, rather than politicians (or anchors) who make use of polls, have said that the polling is absolutely dreadful for Biden, and that was true to some extent even before the debate. Second-hand poll users are free to make arguments about how weak the polling is, but that does not make it what the primary sources are saying, so to speak.
More options
Context Copy link
The danger to the DNC is mostly not that regular dem voters will vote for Trump. That's probably not happening, except for however much racial realignment is going on.
The danger for democrats is that those voters will stay home instead of voting for Biden and throw downballot races.
Granted VBM has reduced this risk somewhat as it reduces the cost of voting.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link