site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

When I first saw memes hinting that Biden's debate flop was an intentional setup by the Democratic Machine, I thought it a humorous take but didn't treat it seriously. While the overall media reaction was excessive, the dismay seemed genuine. What benefit would there be to publicly humiliate their candidate? However, given the immediate and overwhelming support for Harris following his withdrawal, I've since updated my beliefs. I think now that Biden's flop was at least somewhat arranged.

If my theory is correct, sometime in early 2024 (Feb-April), Biden suffered a steep decline. It was too late to pivot for the primaries, and the Party hoped that he would be able to limp his way to re-election in the fall.

The Biden administration proposed in mid-May to have an extra-early June debate. It could be that the setup was already in play at this point, though I suspect it was a still a backup plan that would only kick in if something particularly incrementing happened before the debate.

On June 4th, the Wall Street Journal reported Biden's decline on his Europe trip. The Wall Street Journal only wades against the Narrative when it has airtight evidence lest it be accused of partisanship (a worry that the Washington Post and New York Times, alas, do not share). Indeed, the administration immediately accused the Journal of partisanship, and enlisted more friendly journalists to rebut the claim. Yet, the Party saw that the cat was out of the bag and that they likely couldn't sufficiently contain the evidence of decline through November.

On the day of the debate, I suspect that the Party withheld whatever stimulants they normally provided Biden during late speaking engagements. I suspect they also hinted to the CNN hosts that overtly negative coverage of Biden would be tolerable. The administration can drum up positive coverage at will as demonstrated by the above Journal article; it seems likely they can influence negative coverage as well. One or two senior officials would then tweet or otherwise message a stirring farewell. As is often the case, a compelling message from the top is quickly repeated and augmented by the lower echelons of the Party. There is no conspiracy in this: it is simply a way for Party members to signal their loyalty. The sooner they can repeat the message, the more likely their message is to go viral, so there is an incentive to relay it quickly.

But then, something happened that was not anticipated: Biden was not ready to go gently into that good night. He stuck around for weeks as the calls for him to step down mounted. What could, and, (from the Party's perspective) should have been a clean withdrawal followed by a Harris coronation, stretched into something that looked more and more like a soft coup (which, if my theory is correct, it certainly was). Finally, Biden under mounting pressure formally withdrew; though given the medium for that message, even that was done in a way that raised eyebrows.

The most brazen aspect of the whole charade was how the originally planned message was then promulgated with no substantial updates. My social media feeds from lesser Party officials became a chorus of "how brave and noble for him to put his country above his personal desires, and his term was one of the most successful of any president". An example quote, verbatim: "President Joe Biden has been the most effective president of the last century. He's...always put integrity first. So grateful of his leadership, and looking forward to working alongside Kamala Harris to win this November." For me, this messaging was 1984 levels of bizarre: we had just seen the Democratic Machine take down a sitting president who clearly wanted to remain in the race, yet when he acquiesced that same machine treated him as a hero. We were always at war with Eastasia. Yet I have seen no pushback from any center/mainstream outlet on this sudden and disingenuous pivot. And it was on observing this that I updated my opinion on the debate.

I suspect that the Party withheld whatever stimulants they normally provided Biden during late speaking engagements.

Why do you think Biden (the people running him who get power through him) would allow him to be deprived of his stimulants in a setup like this ?

FWIW my theory is that they changed something in his drug cocktail the night of the debate. This was intended to improve his performance, but backfired severely.

I think these sorts of theories are much more plausible than those involving deliberate sabotage.

He was known to have Parkinson's related dementia when he campaigned.

Natural progression of disease and sundowning seems like a more expected cause.

A kink in this theory are all the debate conditions that Trump was made to agree to for the debate to even happen. No audience, mics to be cut when it’s not the speaker’s turn, etc. They appeared designed to get him to refuse to debate.

Those conditions ultimately were not a help for Biden, but I doubt the Biden team anticipated that. If they did, then how could they have not anticipated that Joe was going to go down kicking and screaming?

But then, something happened that was not anticipated: Biden was not ready to go gently into that good night. He stuck around for weeks as the calls for him to step down mounted. What could, and, (from the Party's perspective) should have been a clean withdrawal followed by a Harris coronation, stretched into something that looked more and more like a soft coup (which, if my theory is correct, it certainly was). Finally, Biden under mounting pressure formally withdrew; though given the medium for that message, even that was done in a way that raised eyebrows.

If this were really the case then I think the reaction from the top would have come on quicker. Instead the initial negative reaction was among the media and rank and file Democrats. It took several days for any elected officials to go on the record in favor of Biden stepping down, and it took a couple weeks for the heavy hitters to start talking. In the days after the debate, in fact, most of the "official" sources doubled down on their support of Biden. If Biden had suddenly announced he was stepping down in the immediate aftermath of the debate then it could have been perceived as a rash decision and thrown the whole Democratic ticket into chaos. Prudence required them to at least wait until the next round of polls came out before deciding to switch horses. Except the following week was the 4th of July, and the holiday and associated vacations meant that the results of that week would be below standard. So they'd have to wait another week for more reliable poll numbers came out.

They couldn't announce the following week, though, because the focus was on the RNC, and while there was a chance an announcement could have taken the wind out of the GOP sails, there was an equal likelihood that it would create a narrative where Trump was being coronated while Democrats were scrambling. This was especially likely in the wake of the assassination attempt. So instead, they had to wait until after the convention. But then Biden got COVID and couldn't make a traditional prime time announcement from the Oval Office, and rather than delay any further, they put it out on Twitter and scheduled an appearance for several days later, when he would presumably have recovered.

It's worth noting that, prior to last week, it didn't necessarily look like Biden dropping out was the right move. The polls I mentioned earlier? They showed a sharp drop in the days after the debate but quickly recovered to their prior positions. Maybe a little lower, but not the kind of precipitous drop that would suggest changing candidates; if they had dropped like that for no discernible reason then it would just look like normal variation. More importantly, when given the option between Trump and an entire raft of possible Democratic candidates, Biden did better than the competition. Yes, that even includes Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania. And while Kamala was the obvious next in line, it wasn't clear if picking her would be well-received or elicit a chorus of groans from the Democratic rank and file.

What they would have feared most, though, was several weeks of infighting among prospective candidates, which would threaten to divide a party that needed unity and a strong message. I'm guessing that once Democratic leadership was on board with a replacement the week of the GOP convention, a lot of time was spent talking to Biden delegates to make sure that one candidate would have enough support to avoid a floor fight. They wanted to be sure that the new candidate would come out of the gate with enough support that any person who could credibly challenge for the nomination would have the entire party apparatus arrayed against them and would be committing political suicide by throwing their hat into the ring. If Biden drops out over the Fourth of July you run the risk of immediately having big names start calling delegates to get support and having a unified party becomes less likely.

One other advantage of waiting until after the convention was that, in the triumphant atmosphere of being at a convention while ahead in the polls (something foreign to Trump), he ended up making a bad VP choice. It's as if he was so assured of victory he decided to name a successor rather than make a strategic pick. In 2016 he chose Pence because there was a legitimate concern that a twice-divorced philanderer might not play well among Evangelical Christians. It was a constituency he needed to shore up his support with. Vance ostensibly shores up his support with working-class whites in the Rust Belt, who are already Trump's core constituency. And I say "ostensibly", because Vance actually polls worse in the Rust Belt than he does in the country as a whole, -16% net favorability to -6%. Having an heir is of limited value if you don't win the election.

That being said, I don't think that much thought was put into it. I don't believe in all this "palace intrigue" nonsense. The Democratic party planned on running Biden. He had an awful debate performance. Party leaders weren't thrilled but they initially thought that stepping down would be worse than staying in, and, in any event, Biden wasn't about to step down after one bad night. But there was a bottom-up groundswell that party leaders couldn't ignore. When local reps start getting calls and letters that all run in the same direction, they tend to bring these things to the attention of party leadership. Eventually, the President was persuaded that things would be better if he turned things over to Kamala Harris. To imply that there's this much coordination among "party elites" is naive; it's based on the assumption that being a smart person in a position of power means you have an almost God-like control over things. But this is rarely the case. Most of the time, what you see on the surface is what's actually happening, and the simplest explanation is the correct one.

You may well be correct, but the two things that remain unexplained are the extent of the panic after a mediocre debate (which you yourself show didn't impact polls long term) and the flavor of the reaction to his withdrawing from the race (which would have made more sense if he hadn't fought tooth and nail to stay in).

I'm not supposing that the elites coordinate that much, or that they have much control. Indeed, I think the world is spiraling out of their control (to the extent they ever had it). My theory only requires the actions from one or two individuals...and responses to those reactions that are quite predictable.

Why doesn't their reaction make sense? Aren't they just being magnanimous? What would you expect instead?

Swing state polling more important than overall national polls. Biden no longer had a path to victory re the polls.

I based my analysis on swing state polling, which showed a sharp turn toward Trump in the immediate aftermath of the debate but in the ensuing weeks leveled off with Trump gaining about a point. Certainly not the best outcome but it wasn't the kind of drop that would normally have one running toward the exits. The whole "path to victory" thing is hopelessly muddled anyway, with RFK Jr. being in the race. He's polling around 9% in some of these states, but there's no way he actually wins 9% of the vote there. Telling a pollster you're voting third party is easier than actually voting third party. It's not clear who Kennedy voters favor but if, as Republicans have been saying, they lean more left than right, it could make up for the gap. If Trump is up by, say, 4% in Pennsylvania but Kennedy is polling at 9%, half of Kennedy's voters breaking for Biden (and a negligible amount breaking for Trump) would be enough to close the gap. I honestly thought earlier that choosing RFK would be the best thing the Democrats could do because he'd in theory get his own voters plus Biden voters, which puts him in the lead in so many states it's not funny. Trump would have gone from talking about getting 320 electoral votes to being in danger of losing Texas. It's understandable (and probably advisable) that Democrats didn't elect to go this route, but it's an interesting thought experiment.

Except the polling isn’t that different including or excluding RFK Jr. On average, he seemed to bite into both major party candidates.

Even here, you had people arguing “you can’t make a president run if he doesn’t want to run” when it was obvious Biden wanted to run but the Dems effectively prevented him from doing so.