site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   38655 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 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.

I think Trump is in trouble vs Harris. Especially if she picks the PA governor as her running mate. Trump is very unpopular but had the benefit of running against someone even more unpopular.

Harris’s current numbers are bad, but I think she has upside once she’s untethered from Biden.

Either way 4 months is a lifetime in election politics and we are in for a wild ride to the finish.

I suspect otherwise. Kamala is not a very popular or effective politician. Her only election win was in deep blue California and it was very narrow. She did terribly in the primaries, where being Black And A Woman counts for much more than in the country as a whole. Though she does have a certain charm, she can also come off as off-putting. She neither has strong credibility as a progressive champion or as a moderate. Her record of executive experience or of campaign experience is also thin.

Kamala does have upside, she could surprise us all. But it would be a surprise if she turns out to be another Obama or Clinton (the first).

Harris’s current numbers are bad, but I think she has upside once she’s untethered from Biden.

This is a common issue for vice presidents as presidential candidates- they can't just "untether" themselves from the president. For good or ill, they served him loyally as his #2. If they go on camera and say "actually I disagreed strongly with him on that issue, I just kept my mouth shut for the sake of public relations" it looks horribly dishonest. If they just want to say that they supported the president on everything and will continue to do more of the same, it's hard for them to come into their own as a real candidate, instead of just a weak shadow.

It can kind of work when the previous president is still popular (Reagan, Clinton, and Obama) but still leads to a fairly bland, forgettable candidate (HW Bush, Gore, and Biden).

It's certainly a bad situation to be in. If a Veep speaks up, they can be accused of being disloyal, ambitious, two faced, a snake. And they have nearly no official authority in the WH. The show Veep got it right - it's a terrible position to have.

Just ask Cactus Jack Garner.

Do you not remember her primary run? She is horrible in front of a camera. She has a tendency say absolutely nothing in an overly long way by repeating statements. Even the left made fun of her for it. https://youtube.com/watch?v=72vUngNA9RM

She has Hillary levels of charisma, and a weird mumble giggle that seems to pop up mid sentence for no apparent reason. Only thing she has over Biden is that she's unlikely to die in the next few years.

The giggle is what gets me. It is so distracting and cringy.

Harris' biggest advantage is the online right is going to be totally unable to hide their power level, in ways that will be negatively polarizing to the median voter. This is already happening in this thread.

Eh, I'd say that's unlikely. The amount of direct sway that the actions and memes of the "online right" have on the "median voter", positive or negative, is practically zero; it's easy for us very-online culture warriors to lose sight of sometimes, but these are two different worlds. To the extent that "normie" voters are even aware of the "online right" as an entity, it's from what they occasionally hear filtered through the opinions of "official" channels, where they are/will be portrayed as a bunch of neo-nazi white supremist weirdo ghouls regardless. The racist frog people Kamala-posting isn't going to move the needle.

They have a weird amount of negative sway over my mother, who is online enough to see the collected lolcow posts reposted and laundered through Democratic party mouthpieces, but not online enough to run into it in the wild. So she's saying stuff to me like what's with the Nazi frog?

To the extent that "normie" voters are even aware of the "online right" as an entity, it's from what they occasionally hear filtered through the opinions of "official" channels, where they are/will be portrayed as a bunch of neo-nazi white supremist weirdo ghouls regardless.

I remember scoffing at "Twitter is full of Nazis" for years, until it eventually became true.

Harris’s current numbers are bad, but I think she has upside once she’s untethered from Biden.

What makes you think so? It's her administration too. It's not just Biden having personally done something terrible, people are actually unhappy with the outcomes of the administration policies.

She's been mostly hidden during the administration; it won't be difficult for her to stake out different positions that people who don't particularly like Trump but really couldn't stomach voting for a guy who appeared to be non compos mentis will believe. This isn't an election about convincing anyone - Trump's taken all the political oxygen in the room for all but a couple of months for the past decade - but instead about limiting discouragement among supporters. Remember, both the 2016 and 2020 elections went to the candidate who avoided having the last negative news cycle.

She is non-senile and capable of staying on message and repeating a talking point without mangling it. Biden runs well behind Generic Democrat on Senate and House polls, and if she can successfully approximate Generic Democrat, she wins.

Oh, I like her chance to be better than Biden, but I don't see much for true upside. The most likely scenario seems like returning to the pre-debate status quo, which was quite bad for Generic Democrat because the majority of Americans think the results from the last four years aren't very good.

The most likely scenario seems like returning to the pre-debate status qu

I would probably agree, other events excepted -- now that ~30% of America probably thinks that the Deep State tried to have Trump offed, and the undecideds literally just saw him putting his life on the line for (his conception of) America on live TV, I think Generic D would have issues, and Uncharismatic Nobody D will struggle hard.

Except basically Generic Democrat's are running ahead in swing state Senate races.

“Generic X” always does better than any concrete candidate because people will think of their own perfect idealized person. Means very little other than as an upper bound.

The PA governor is Jewish. I wonder if having him on the ticket would hurt with turnout with a segment of the Dem base?

I think everyone's forgotten about Palestine already. I can't tell what the new current thing is yet, but the flags in bios have slowly started to change again.

but the flags in bios have slowly started to change again

At first I thought you were making a joke about NPC firmware updates being rolled out. Then again, maybe you were!

"bios flags" now have two different meanings.

Wait until the fall college semester starts.

It's possible, but I doubt it. I don't think the anti-Zionist segment of the Democratic Party are anti-Jew enough to stay home over a Jewish VP candidate. I'm not aware of Shapiro making any particularly egregious anti-Palestinian statements.

The Muslims in Michigan absolutely are.

If the candidate doesn't signal support for Israel or preferably explicitly signals disapproval, I don't think many Michigan Muslims would care about the mere fact they're Jewish. At least not enough for it to make them not vote.

I don't think many Michigan Muslims would care about the mere fact they're Jewish.

My sense at least is that politically active and religious Muslims are generally pretty abundantly anti-semitic. And we're not talking about a guy raised secular who doesn't identify at all with his background; wikipedia describes Shapiro as an observant Conservative Jew and quotes him as saying, among other things "Israel not only has a right, they have a responsibility to rid the region of Hamas and the terror that Hamas can perpetrate".

Even without the above statements, any image of him entering a Synagogue or near an Israel flag would likely spread around hardcore Muslim communities like wildfire as proof he's a bloodsucking Yahud Zionist who they have a duty to treat as an existential fundamental enemy in their Holy War.

That's fair due to his statements about Israel. (That Wikipedia article shows even more divisive examples than just saying Israel should wipe out Hamas.) I think if he were just a random Jew who hadn't commented on Israel or was somewhat more critical, they mostly would be fine with voting for him.

Muslims can certainly be antisemitic, but - and I could be wrong - I think most Muslims in the US don't really have an issue with Jews who aren't known to be supportive of Israel. For some that may require active condemnation of Israel, but for others I think lack of explicit, vocal support is sufficient.

Muslims can certainly be antisemitic, but - and I could be wrong - I think most Muslims in the US don't really have an issue with Jews who aren't known to be supportive of Israel.

It depends on how religious/political the Muslims in question are. If we're talking about people who are basically entirely secular, then maybe they wouldn't care. But I doubt that's the case for those seem to care strongly about Israel, which seem to be those causing headaches for the Democrats in Michigan etc. I'd be stunned if the fervour of their anti-Israel sentiment doesn't strongly correlate with outright Jew-hatred. I can't imagine, for instance, a prayer in an American Mosque for Palestinian victory in their quest to murder all Jews in the Holy Land to end with a reminder to the congregation that American non-Zionist Jews are decent people, and it's important to be nice to them.

Hmm. Maybe Harris is better off with Andy Beshear, Roy Cooper, or Mark Kelly then.

The online Right has hypersensitive Jewdar, but I don't think the online Left is as attuned to whether random politicians are Jewish. He's not an Israeli. I'm trying to look up whether he has ever set foot in Israel. The answer appears to be not yet.

It might confuse voters who don’t want to vote for Ben Shapiro. I’m not kidding. It would be less stupid than the voters who couldn’t figure out what the giant arrows on the butterfly ballot meant.

An election’s outcome can potentially be flipped by bad ballot design – not just the misalignment of rows, but also choices as seemingly minor as the order of candidates’ names, which disproportionately favors those at the top of the ballot.

This sounds less like a ballot problem and more like an electorate problem.

On the one hand, I can totally believe this, but on the other hand I think anyone who would get confused by this probably doesn't know who Ben Shapiro is.

The evidence suggests Trump is more popular. Trump's turnout for 2020 was 10 million greater than 2016. You'd have to go as far back as Reagan for a candidate to be have a >55% of popular vote. Most candidates are not that popular, and the outcome comes down to the margins, like swing states, and that is where Trump shines.

He’s -12 in unfavorable/favorable on 538. It’s an improvement from when he was closer to 60/40, but he’s still very unpopular.

I also think trump is basically at his ceiling as people have very hardened views on him at this point. Was going to be enough to beat Biden but might not be enough to take on someone who isn’t 81.

I think Harris is less popular than Biden, or at least not significantly more popular.

I think Biden's popularity is lower than Harris's because his weakness and mental frailty has been in the news for a month. Meanwhile, she's been mostly out of the spotlight for years now, which is good, because when she's in the spotlight we're treated to monologues about the significance of the passage of time unburdening us from what has been.

Her favorability will go down once she has to speak extemporaneously and people have to actually evaluate her as a potential president rather than just someone with a pulse.

What do you think about this explanation for that recurring turn of phrase she uses?

https://x.com/conceptualjames/status/1815057918229975147?s=46

Is dude seriously saying she's doing a Luciferian incantation? That seems a very odd take.

Why are people replying to this like "oh, that's interesting"? It's paranoid delusion.

My main issue with Kamala is how do we reconcile the “coconut” comments with the “unburdened by what has been” comments?

If we didn’t fall out of the coconut tree, we exist in the context. But isn’t existing in the context, in essence, very similar (if not the same) as being burdened by what has been?

Because it's just random feel-good nonsense slogans. (Several prominent liberals on Twitter like Yglesias have also pointed out the inconsistency.) I'm referring to what's stated in that thread - people should scroll down and read it if they haven't. I'm not saying they're great slogans. I'm saying it isn't literally-Satanic-literal-communism.

Because everyone who thinks it’s paranoid delusion is just ignoring it.

I think Republicans should make this criticism central to their critique of Harris from now until the election.

People really overestimate the degree to which people plan their moment-to-moment actions/statements. 95% probability that someone wrote her that line in a speech sometime, she liked it/it stuck in her head, so it got filed away in her brain's library of verbal tics, the same way musicians fall back on favorite licks.

Can anti-Democrats ever stop making Democrats sound cooler? Esoteric incantations? I'm voting for those.

Seems like a stretch to me. She's just saying a random political slogan.

The whole "the elites are secretly occultist Satanists doing magic spells right in front of us" can seem kind of compelling but... I haven't found good enough evidence to buy it. Yet.

I think this particular gem of hers would fit pretty well on TimeCube:

It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day.

Damn, I just checked and TimeCube is down! It's true. The internet really is dead.

https://timecube.online/ is a false archive of the TRUTH, a trap to make people educated stupid. Accept no imitations. https://web.archive.org/web/20160112193916/http://timecube.com/

I think that’s where the current polls are at. However, Harris is going to be able to launch a campaign that benefits from rock bottom expectations.

She could end up not improving her position but I think just based on those low expectations she has upside and it won’t take much of a gain to overtake Trump.

It won’t? He’s up 3-6 points in swing states. 3-4 on national polls where dems need +2 to break even.

I’m curious how you’re coming to “it won’t take much”.

Before the debate disaster it was much closer and 80% of the country thought Biden was too old to be president. Harris shakes that liability and will be able to actually campaign, unlike Biden.

Trump can still win but i believe Harris has a decent shot (unlike post debate Biden).

Trump was shot and showed real courage under fire. Biden dropping out doesn’t change that.

Would that gain him any new votes or make people who generally vote D but thought Biden was too old less likely to vote for Harris?

I think it might make on the margins some people more likely to vote for him

What about this idea: She picks a moderate Republican as a running mate. Boom.

I think the people people who voted for Haley are begging for any alternative to Trump. This would give them a way to vote Democrat in good conscience.

Joe Manchin is making noises about re-registering as a Democrat in order to contest the convention. Lawl.

TBF, Manchin would be one of the strongest nominees the Dems could field. But there's no way he gets it.

If Mario Cuomo was "Hamlet on the Hudson" for forever waffling about throwing his hat in the ring, what does that make Manchin - the Farmington Fence-Sitter?

A good running mate is someone who covers her weaknesses. So this would be be a center-leaning while male.

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