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 -
And you won't. The path to Democratic victory is selling Kamala as a generic Democrat, not her actual policy stances which weren't popular with Democrats last time and will be even less palatable to Republicans and squishy centrists. Just because GovTrack deleted their page naming her the most liberal senator of 2019 doesn't mean it wasn't true.
She is both a far left extremist who supported BLM and in height of violence saw the protests as necessary to continue to get more change, favored police decriminalization, open borders, DEI, Green New Deal and a mainstream Democrat. This republican anti Kamala video includes most of them except her BLM 2020 protests comments https://youtube.com/watch?v=bHlb0z1vZm8
How much backlash did Kamala face then or now for any of this? And how alone has she been?
This is what the Democrats are now. Maybe she is somewhat even more left wing than any random Democrat, but they are a far left party and the difference between Harris and other Democrats will not be significant as the default of liberal democrat politics has shifted to a more radical direction. It represents the 21st century type of far left which is of course different than early 20th century far left of orthodox marxism. Nor is this a constantly anti-establishment far left but a pro being the establishment far left.
As for the voters, I do think that there will be an attempt to fool the electorate by promoting her as a more moderate politician than she is. But the issue isn't X or Y random politician but a broader trend of a shift of the mainstream, and of the Democrats in general towards the far left.
There is an obvious bias by many against describing the Democrats as far leftists, under the fear of being perceived too partisan, or right wing. Suppose someone writes an article analyzing the election and the candidates, it would actually be their duty to properly inform people about where the parties and candidates stand and to talk about how far left the Democrats actually are.
To say she supported BLM is a bit of an understatement. There's a decent amount of evidence, her last presidential campaign was supposed to have followed Jussie Smollett's attack (lynching) and her Federal anti-lynching bill but the whole thing fell completely apart as more of the story of the attack came out.
More options
Context Copy link
I will preface by stating an agreement in principle with the strong judgment expressed by the video, but the hyperbolic rush of right wingers to class everything as BLM open borders defund the police has unfortunately clouded the waters. Harris is a climber bending her opinions to the whims of idiots, not an originator of bad ideas (my bogeyman for that is Pramilla Jayapal).
Harris is a modal minority democrat who post 2020 has to position herself as against the modal white democrat because she is pretty poor quality as a white democrat. Barack played the white (Centrist Democrats) game well, and Cory Booker is a black democrat who plays the Centrist game pretty well too. By contrast Bernie doesn't play the white democrat game well, and neither does Warren. I hope this elucidates my general observation of white vs minority democrat styles, in crude classification.
Harris is a climber sanewashed into centrism by association with Biden, and her progressive points post 2020 are likely a positioning game to be a champion of an otherwise disrespected democrat political caucus. Her actual voting history is unsympathetic to black and brown issues, and the current brattification/wokeification of Harris is just throwing anything at a wall to stick.
More options
Context Copy link
Her abysmal primary performance was enough. But all that's being erased now. The Democrats will promote her as a generic Democrat; all for women and minorities, for taking from "the rich" and giving out goodies to the good people. No need to go into specifics.
But if that someone is writing for the mainstream media, they are a booster for the Democrats, so they will not. If they aren't writing for the mainstream media, they are preaching to the choir and will make no difference. Control of all the "neutral" institutions is a ridiculously powerful tool.
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah, I don't think American Democrats generally realise that their party is substantially further to the left than e.g. the UK or Australian Labo(u)r parties.
It... depends what you mean by "left". Economically the US Democrats don't seem to be more socialist. Socially, yes, they're more progressive.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Is GovTrack an actual reliable source? I saw an article about how six democrats voted with the GOP to condemn Kamala Harris as the Border Czar so I looked up these six democrats (and to no surprise ideologically they're in the middle). So I just clicked around, and their political stance becomes obvious with a page like this:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/ted_cruz/412573
The "Elections must be decided by counting votes" specifically, that's apparent if you select the page for numerous Republican senators. Factor in the fact that they removed the scorecard page labeling her as the most liberal senator and their bias is clear, but I did find utility in their Ideology–Leadership Chart as well-being able to view their voting records and bills.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link