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 -
That's actually optimistic. IMO it's just dangerous and the damage has already been done.
My take is that it doesn't matter if they pull up a case. It's already too late at this point.
Unless Trump went into the debate with multiple, verifiable (as in "caught in 4K video") cases it was always going to seem crazy and be easy to dismiss.
I think the idea that this is what gets John and Jane Q finally onboard is the sort of thing jaded internet people who've seen Democrats seemingly escape every single "immigrant t-bones/rapes/robs citizen" story thinks will finally land and cause the scales to fall from the eyes of the nation. It won't. It just looks weird to even bring up and people will recoil. If they don't Google it, see the first mainstream outlet and fuck off.
The truth is that Democrats in the real world (as opposed to online leftists who have a clear incentive to never cede an inch) aren't getting away with it; people are already dissatisfied with Democrats on immigration (which is why they tried to deal) and the polling indicates this is one of Trump's (or any Republican's) strongest issue and the one where he has the most credibility relative to his Democratic opponent.
It's just that Trump is unpopular enough (and has a flexible enough relationship with the truth) that it's still close. If it was anyone else you likely wouldn't need the dogs and cats thing in the first place. And it certainly would be more believable if Mitt Romney or Nikki Haley decided to sound the alarm.
I don’t think that’s true, because this is something that absolutely hits the sensibilities of the PMC who have been basically able to ignore the problem because it’s not affecting them. Pets are in many parts of the PMC class a very sensitive point. They don’t have to care about blue collar rednecks losing jobs to immigrants. They only have brief conversations with rednecks when they show up to fix the HVAC system or repair the roof or install a floor. But having an immigrant steal your beloved pet and eat it is something that the wine moms are going to be upset about. These are the same people who are trying to certify their pets as support animals so they can take them to Walmart. The idea of losing their pets in that way would be horrific.
If you grew up in the era when people still read newspapers or watched local news on TV (i.e. you were born before about 1990) then if-it-bleeds-it-leads media incentives meant that you were subject to intensive coverage of lurid crimes and a media narrative that crime is out of control. This narrative was completely unresponsive to the large drop in crime in the 1990's, with the result that low-information voters think that crime continued to increase, and use this fact to justify cocooning their kids. You could live somewhere as peaceful as the Zurich suburbs and still fill a local media crime blotter with sufficiently lurid stories that crime would be out of control in the minds of people who consume media crime coverage, and a crucial part of the education of a blue triber is understanding this.
Even if it was true, "One Haitian immigrant in one small town killed and ate their neighbours cat" being signal-boosted nationally by partisan media is exactly the sort of crime coverage that blue tribers have learned to tune out, and frankly that everyone should have learned to tune out.
More options
Context Copy link
Still too optimistic.
And race isn't? Arguably it's the sensitive point. If it was refugees from Scotland you might have a shot.
Your mistake here is assuming people are going to treat this as a neutral rational argument and not a plate of political sewage; they will react with visceral disgust. 2rafa's post about how people react in Britain to bringing up uncomfortable immigration facts is how it'll actually go:
In the American case they'll simply refuse to even grant it unless it's absolutely unavoidable. And even then, you might get some of the "pigheaded 'what of it?' stubbornness" with the more left wing types.
There are some things people of good character and breeding just don't want to hear, let alone talk about in polite conversation. "Black savages are eating people's cats" (which is how it'll sound to them because, let's be real, that's what the DR is saying) is as close to the top of the list as I can imagine. You really need the 4K video. And something that hints it wasn't one deranged person.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The thing is, and I say this as a dirty open borders social democrat, there are plenty of actual bad cases, as you'd expect in a nation of 350 million people to use for examples, and even with families who will support you using their case, as opposed to the poor kid in Springfield, Ohio, whose family is against Trump or anti-immigration folks using their child as a bludgeon against immigration.
So why make up stuff?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link