site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 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.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I believe the polling is accurate. President Trump is uniquely polarizing and is considered the catalyst that got us into the culture war dynamics of the past 8+ years. The central organization points of the 2016 Trump campaign have been banned and ostracized from the internet beyond Truth social, who supposedly has 2 million users and 600k active users (I never tried it, and it seems a pale comparison to twitter or other platforms. Even Gab supposedly has more registered and active users and I haven't tried their site since 2017 at the latest). The assassination was great PR for Trump but also obviously psychologically damaged Trump, who seems a lot more cautious of making public appearances which has been historically his greatest strength. Vice President Kamala's coordination with establishment and new corporate medias has allowed them to block out Republican messaging and boost her "Vibes based" messaging.

This is most represented by her website. Her website is devoid of everything a normal presidential run consists of. Whay are her policy positions? Interviews? Pressers? Tours? Kamala's history as a political radical has been washed from the internet. When is her last TV interview? Presser? Zoom rally? The silence has to be deliberate; anyone position she holds, or historically held, has been scoured from search engines.

President Trump needs more eyes on him for him to sway voters. Vice President Kamala needs the opposite.

President Trump is uniquely polarizing and is considered the catalyst that got us into the culture war dynamics of the past 8+ years.

I'm not buying it. The culture war dynamics were already in play before Trump was even running for president, and I'm not sure I believe anyone was even reacting to him in particular, rather than people not being enthusiastic enough about the rule of the enlightened elite.

I agree that the dynamics were there before Trump, but Trump truly embodied them and brought them to the forefront of American culture war battlegrounds that wasn't as present during the Obama era.

Obama actually said that he knew there would be a backlash against the educated elite, but he posited a John Wayne esque tough talker would emerge to stand up against woke excesses, instead of a billionaire new yorker in a bad toupee.

The animating energies against woke elites is definitely real and much more powerful than the woke elite can acknowledge, or perhaps even handle, but Trump is proving to be a remarkable spoiler in prognosticating the culture wars direction.