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 -
I agree, and when you actually ask ‘2020 was fraud’ proponents here about the arguments, the smarter ones will typically concede the practical points but then argue that there was just a general air of illegitimacy, a kind of stench of it, perhaps due to mail-in ballots or some shenanigans in a few counties, or maybe ‘the media propaganda manipulated people’ into voting a certain way (if that made a vote illegitimate, then no democratic election in history has been legitimate). Of course voter fraud occurred, as it has in every election since 1789. But the evidence that it was much more fraudulent than 1968 or 2000 or 1932 or whatever is very thin and largely self-serving. I’m also curious whether the claims will be retracted if Trump wins this year, since presumably that would be the deep state choosing to allow him to become president again, right?
Why would a sincerely curious person have reason to believe a 2024 Trump victory would negate or disprove beliefs of deep state opposition to Trump?
The core argument on the idea of a deep state is that it exists and is organized and has power that it utilizes for a cause, not that it is all-powerful and all-determining. There is no requirement for some Nybbler-level nihilism that the deep state determines all and resistance is futile because the deep state determines all. The premise of a deep state is that it is still a state, and while people frequently have unclear ideas of the limits of states they are also very aware that there are limitations of a state and their ability to fail if key actors are opposed (the basis of politically organizing against a vague group of interests) or fall out (divisions within the private coordination mechanisms causing visible turmoil). Even the most famous examples of deep states of contemporary history, including some of the ones that popularized the term like the Pakistani deep state, can have both clear power and clear limits and failures to their attempts to influence. For a somewhat more public version, the current fallout over Biden that is breaking the Democratic coalition apart is a failure of system, not evidence of that Biden's new critics are secretly pro-Trump. The non-public Democratic coordination mechanisms are still anti-Trump, they just are in disagreement as to how.
Organizations- public or secretive- can simply try and fail. Their failure does not imply they were secretly for the other side the entire time. This is particularly true when the reasons for their failures are the over-use of increasingly ineffective/discredited tools that have become less effective with time and over-use.
More options
Context Copy link
From the smarter deep conservatives I know IRL, there's either margin of fraud issues('Trump only won by five points but republicans need ten') which might not happen this time, or the political machines that are actually rigging the elections aren't as onboard with Biden as they were, or 2020 was exceptional and the deep state dropped the ball on faking a global pandemic this time, etc.
You can have as many epicycles about history as you want. What matters is epicycles about the future. You can believe that the the JFK assassination never happened, that the moon got where it is as an alien death star to wipe out an advanced ancient civilization, stonehenge was built by aliens, there was an ancient nuclear war that destroyed Mohenjo-Daro, the Nazis built pyramids in Antarctica before their base was destroyed by American nuclear weapons disguised as a test, cats were domesticated by the Annunaki to implant cameras in and spy on the progress of civilization, the earth is 6,000 years old, the printing press was invented in 800 AD but suppressed by the inquisition until Gutenberg, the last prince of Wales reached north America and that's why the Cherokee are white-looking, the Incas were regularly in contact with China, Atlantis had a Mars colony, the Olmecs were the original black people who colonized west Africa, Eleanor Roosevelt was transgender, whatever, and still be a smart, well functioning person who accurately predicts what's going to happen in the future, even on related subjects. And the guy who told me the cats theory was a physics professor. Why? Because those are matters of fact, not function. Kind of like scientific theories- it's a term to describe processes. Denying whats doesn't matter. You're simply factually wrong about something that happened once, and it probably doesn't affect your day to day life if black people originated in Mexico instead of Africa, nor does it really affect anything in the future. Denying hows does. If you believe elves built your car you can still fix it. If you believe elves power your car by running in hamster wheels inside of it in exchange for gasoline, you can't.
Elections are a lot like that. It's not hard to come up with a just-so story as for why the deep state can rig the election in 2020 but not 2024. It doesn't even have to make sense. What's important is that it doesn't impinge on future processes.
More options
Context Copy link
Honestly I am beginning to drift towards the position you described in your last paragraph. Deep State rigging for Biden in 2020, Deep State rigging for Trump in 2024. I think the Deep State might have decided it’s better to get Trump in the Oval Office to get middle America on board for World War III. They would have to undertake some maneuvers to get Trump personally on board for a war, and to contain his domestic political impulses, but I think they believe they can do that. That might be easier for them to manage than the French Revolution nightmare scenario of a simultaneous existential foreign war plus a hot civil war at home.
I always thought the insinuation that the federal civil service was near-uniformly Democrat was unlikely. Academia? Sure. Journalism? Definitely. But DC is filled with ex-military and other middle aged straight white guys in senior positions in the federal government who live in the suburbs and who, statistically, are at least substantially (say, 50%) Republican. Especially in the CIA, full of Mormons anyway, and in the Pentagon. These people aren’t revolutionaries, probably consider Trump vulgar, but that doesn’t make them Democrats.
https://www.fedsmith.com/2021/02/12/political-donations-and-federal-employees/
Sure, I don’t dispute that, but even that article suggests that in many of the most important departments like State, 30-35%+ of employees are Republicans. Also, since Dems in the federal government are likely more committed than Republicans it doesn’t tell us everything about the ratio of employees.
what makes you think that they are more commited?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link