site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   29942 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 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.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Politicians are, almost by definition, generally likeable and good at convincing others to support them.

That's why Hilary was such a bad candidate. It's not that she's unlikeable compared to an average person, it's that she's unlikeable compared to an average politician.

Having never campaigned for anything, she was thrust into the highest levels of politics without any skill development. It would be like going right from Little League to the Majors. No matter how much coaching she got, she just didn't have the skills.

Parties should lean into the primary process in order to find the best talent.

Hilary is a bad politician, but she's the best the democrats had (have?). No democrat right now is able to convincingly articulate any stance that is amenable to the centre, much less reach across the aisle. Polarization makes the task more difficult but not impossible. I can think of no democrat politician that has any charisma or rally skills. Its all partisan loyalty displays (BLM and Pride support), polemics about how the OTHER GUYS are evil and need to be stopped (everyone anti-maga) or mildly competent bureaucrats in boring constituencies without major insanity. This last category is a GOOD category that the dems have, but theyre not gonna be winners. Perhaps Gretchen Whitmer, Tony Evers or Mark Kelly can impress with quiet competence, but they can't slug it out in an open fight with Jeb Bush, let alone with any Trumper.

Ultimately I blame Obama. He was a charisma supernova that sucked all oxygen for politicking out of the democratic party and wasted an entire generation of politicians who needed to bloody their knuckles in the machines of electioneering.

or mildly competent bureaucrats in boring constituencies without major insanity. This last category is a GOOD category that the dems have, but theyre not gonna be winners.

Are you confident of this? I don't think Biden won in 2020 due to personal magnetism. At least until the boomers die, any politician that goes on the stage and says "I will be boring and keep the status quo, I'm not scary, no sirree" can siphon of votes from otherwise culturally conservative aging population — enough to win elections at least.

Even if boomers don't like guatemalans or transkids, the ones I know all have clay feet and spook at any politician seriously threatening to reshuffle the established order. They're winding out the clock on their comfortable retirements, after all. Consider that the democrats are still 40% likely to win according on betting markets, despite the last four years and their presenting an optically horrible candidate.

I agree that normies love stability. the problem is a bland democrat is the same is a bland republican. And the worry is that the bland bureaucrat is easily bullied by conviction motivated activists. Youngkin defeated McAuliffe because boring McAuliffe flubbed and made him seem vulnerable to the activist wing of trans advocates overriding parental concerns. It is these, among MANY blind spots in the democrat wing, which is why I believe the bland normie is seen as weak: push comes to shove no one has faith Evers or Whitmer will stand up to AOC. (the enemy to me is Jayapal, but no one seems to care about her)

I agree that normies love stability. the problem is a bland democrat is the same is a bland republican.

Can the GOP front a bland republican? It seems to me the Democrats are fairly successful at channeling their radical wing's energy into bland-seeming manager politicians. By contrast, the MAGA wing will veto non-MAGA candidates, who in turn spook the normies; this is to my eyes what happened in 2022 with the red wave that never materialized.

The core difference is that, for all of BLM and antifa's blustering about the revolution, the American red tribe is a whole lot angrier about the state of politics. Psmith is only somewhat exaggerating here when he says 100% of the revolutionary energy in our own society is on the right today. Blue tribe meanwhile knows it's playing defense.

Just this week in the UK, the MAGA equivalent in Britain blew up 14 years of Conservative rule to vote for the radical populist Reform, allowing Labour to waltz into power with a laughable third of the vote. This is what I expect in the US if 2028 Republicans try to field a Nikki Haley or Mitt Romney-like.

Counterpoint- Youngkin.

Which only happened because the VA GOP did an end around and instead of holding a primary, held a convention that basically installed Youngkin. Even then, in the next midterm elections, despite Biden's unpopularity and Youngkin's at the time relative popularity, the Dem's held the Virginia legislature, largely because of abortion.

True, Liz Cheney might as well be under Jorgensen for all the pain she is receiving.

I contend though that the Blue Tribes are playing defense on two fronts: the far right and the far left both, and the public fears the far left more than the far right. The far left is acting as a vanguard element to coopt the machine of the normie like how the far right did it with the centre right normies but this only happened because people prefer the far right to the far left. If the option is the normie right vs the far left, the normie right wins. Issue is whether the far left can wear the skinsuit of the normie left long enough to get into power.

Liz Cheney has a Dick Cheney problem. I don’t think she’s a good example.

At this point everyone knows Dick Cheney was planting false stories to the establishment media to sell the war to the American people. The same thing we know see on the left of funneling misinformation thru the Times.

And I am honestly not even against the Iraq War. I think it ended up ok. Probably could have been better executed if we worked with the Baathist and just cut the head of the snake. Saddam was pretending to have WMD and Cheney used the fact Saddam couldn’t deny having the WMD to sell the war.

Iraq was a mess then. Ideally we could have worked out some kind of deal for him to step down and then provide resources for a new stable regime.

After 9/11 having a guy pretending to be a little crazy with weapons wasn’t something we wanted. Setting up something like the Saudis relationship would have been great.

was thrust into the highest levels of politics without any skill development

How would you explain Trump stepping directly into the major leagues and winning in 2016?

I think people, on the left, right, and center vastly underestimate the fact Donald Trump was the most famous person since Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for POTUS.

Which is partly, as a left-wing social democrat, I'm not worried about MAGA, post-Trump. Tucker Carlson or J.D. Vance or whomever is famous to political weirdos, but they're not showing up in guest spots in major motion pictures or being on network TV for a decade or referenced by rappers.

I should have phrased that differently. Political skills are mostly innate, not learned. To paraphrase Wooden, primaries don't build political ability, they reveal it.

The candidate who emerges from a cutthroat primary will, statistically, be a superior political animal to one who is simply gifted the top spot.

He’s been people schmoozing for several decades prior.

Trump did over a decade of reality TV, which is plenty of time to experiment with what people like to see broadcast, anyway.

Well that and she was full of scandals and made idiotic and preventable decisions like barking on live TV and declaring herself ‘just like your abuela’.

But yeah, a coronated politician who hasn’t been through the selection process for politicians is probably going to be less likable than one who rose through the ranks. And that’s what Hillary was.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats