site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

You mean a guy who was convicted for bribery charges had a hard time not stepping down? That seems a little different…

Why? Trump has been convicted and didn't stand down, because there is no-one in the GOP with enough pull to pressure him into it. Both a conviction and being unable to stand up to your opponent in a debate (to put it mildly) hurt your chances. So the party if able will put pressure on you for the "greater good".

Politicians are generally self-interested and ambitious, if they are not made to they will try to hang on even when damaging the overall chances of their party. Hence why parties have whips and the like. To exert pressure. That is their entire purpose. To whip the party members into line (Not literally nowadays of course) but through pressure, dirt, promises and the like. I am sure Biden and his inner circle were getting inundated with pressure from lots of angles. And that is all entirely normal in any situation where a politician does something that weakens his party.

Trump was convicted on trumped up nonsense charges in NY that don’t stand up to legal scrutiny (the one that did was the one in Florida). But all of those crimes or alleged crimes were Mickey Mouse crimes. Bribery is the sine qua non of crime for a politician.

And being publicly senile is also somewhat bad for a politician presunably you would agree.

But still examples of politicians having a scandal or crime or some crisis, maintaining they won't step down, then stepping down under pressure is common, which is the point.

Liz Truss in the UK is another example, Al Franken as well. Newt Gingrich on the other side.