site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It seems you are promoting a distorted picture and acting as if never trumpers never didn't do nothing and it is all the bad Trump. Trump is attacking Kemp for not promoting unity and his wife not endorsing Trump after according to Trump benefiting from Trump's endorsement and in private acting much differently. THEN we see Kemp's response. You accept the frame that Trump is the one promoting disunity even though it isn't as clear and you then endorse further disunity as the way for republicans to prove they are men.

I don't know the details of why Kemp's wife wouldn't endorse Trump, but the screenshot it self shows the picture you are trying to paint to be misleading.

At what point would these guys actually draw a line in the sand?

It's hilarious because these Repubs think of themselves as the party of Real Men, but this is absolutely womanly behavior.

Well, maybe not womanly, if Kemp's wife has said she's not voting for Trump even if her husband is, lol.

Of course the republicans who are a party submisive to big donors, lobbies, and the left aren't that great. Kemp's wife is not manly for not voting for the republican candidate. She might like a greater proportion of women than men, be part of this problem, although we need more details to ascertain what is going on. Women are not manly nor courageous for being more liberal than men and that might be part of what is happening.

Trump isn't really all that great but republicans would be even greater losers for listening to such blatantly bad advice to become disunited to prove "manly" against the meanie Trump. They have a problem of people who hate the right being part of it. And even though Trump himself has some of this problem too, much of the opposition to him has to do with the successful subversion of western center and right by the left. Basically symbolically Trump represents more of an opposition than they are willing to tolerate. This doesn't make supporting Trump to be automatically correct, but it does argue against bad reasons for opposing Trump.

It seems you are promoting that you want republicans to be against their own candidate to prove they are men. This is wrongheaded and if the republicans are a political opposition to you, well it looks like you promote division against your political opposition so they lose. Of course neither republicans, nor outsiders should listen to such claims at minimum. Actually if we want to encourage republicans to be acting in a more bold manner, they should be more aggressive against attempts of subversion.

There is a constant repetition of people willing to offer "advice" to what they see as part of the right that goes that to win elections, to prove you are compassionate, non racist, manly, principled, respectable, true Christian, not a far right extremist, etc, you ought to act in this X,Y, Z self destructive manner. Opposing that and powerful donors, and lobbies promoting what is destructive to their civilization is what right wingers should show some genuine courage towards. Doing what is right even if someone would call you a bad label to try to manipulate you, or there is a possibility of genuine cancel culture. It takes zero courage to be self destructive over irrelevant petty drama and therefore enable the left to dominate politics.