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 -
Here’s how the government can regain the trust of the right wing:
Require an ID to vote.
ENCOURAGE as many audits and court cases (with discovery power, that are not dismissed on “standing”) as they want.
Pardon everybody who was involved in “January 6th”
Drop all the lawsuits against Trump.
Actual, televised court cases for any of the grievances republicans have wrt to “January 6th”.
Televised, with discovery power, and “you are held in contempt” power to investigate the 2020 election, the origins of Covid, and the vaccine.
Now that I’m writing this out I don’t think it’s really possible. A lot of people have heard the phrase “I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation” one too many times. They feel like their government is working against them and will happily just lie directly to their face, and until a LOT of that is undone I don’t think they’re really going to accept the election outcome.
It's very interesting how the belief in meritocracy falls away when advocating for Low Human Capital beliefs like election denial. Why can't people who think Biden stole the election live by the same laws I do, when it comes to civil lawsuits? If you can't prove standing, either you have a terrible case or a terrible lawyer.
Meritocracy where a judge gets to make a subjective decision on if you get to have a trial or not?
I'm just a dumb asshole without a law degree, but here's how "standing" with respect to the election appears to me, a lowly voter:
"You didn't have standing to bring this case before the election because you didn't know if there would be any damage, but you don't have any standing to bring the case after the election because the damage has already been done. Heads we win, tails you lose."
Yes, if you have a good lawyer and good argument, it would've gotten past one of the dozens of judges, including Trump-appointed ones. One or two, OK, a grand left-wing conspiracy. But, every single election lawsuit failed because there was nothing there when it came to actual evidence, as opposed to some very well-made strings on cork board.
Again, why if the elections were so obviously stolen in 2020, is Kari Lake the only person to say her election was stolen in 2022? Even in states where no changes to the law were made. Did the Democrat's not steal them this time, after stealing them in 2020?
The problem there is that lawyers have been known to get fired for taking RW clients, so it's not so easy to get one. Part of why Trump's legal team sucks so much is that it's common knowledge that taking Trump as a client will result in being blacklisted, and better lawyers have more to lose from that.
Now, the Trump claims regarding 2020 were basically ludicrous AFAIK, and that much is on him, but his lawyers sucking can legitimately be blamed on SJ/cancellation.
There's literally a whole society of conservative lawyers. There are indeed plenty of Federalist Society lawyers out there. They likely didn't take the case for the same reason there were people in Trump's White House telling him he lost the election.
Beyond that, the main reason it seems like Trump has had issues keeping good lawyers pre-President is just like in the rest of his business dealings, he's terrible at actually paying people.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Waiving the requirement for legal standing will inevitably be abused by a bunch of crazy, partisan, pro se plaintiffs to tie up every election official and manufacturer of voting equipment indefinitely, let alone those coming from less-reputable lawyers. This is not a remotely-reasonable suggestion. If this is something truly desired by the right, then I am massively lowering my opinion of the right.
Did you mean to say prosecutions? Or are private citizens to be forbidden by the government from filing suit against Donald Trump?
If you had to guess which one do you think I meant?
I wasn’t asking rhetorically, given your other suggestions for changing the legal process.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It sounds like you desire more transparency in government.
More options
Context Copy link
If somebody actually committed a crime, why should they get automatic clemency? It's like a BLM supporter saying "there will never be racial reconciliation unless you pardon everyone for everything that happened during the BLM riots."
Would these do anything? If they get their day in court, the default outcome would be for them to... still fail on their merits. What happens then? Republicans will then just say the courts are still biased.
What is the point of relitigating all of this again? I feel like I've had this conversation, probably with you, like 1000x since 2021. This feels like we're going through a choreographed dance.
Because there is a massive, massive discrepancy in the application of the law between these two groups of people, as well as the scope of what happened.
Because the alternative is "we looked at this and decided you lose. No we won't tell you our logic." Does that seem like it's helping? If it's going to fail on the merits, show me the merits; allow the debate to happen.
Is there? This is usually taken as an article of faith by conservatives, but no one seems to put any actual numbers out there. Based on the way Trump talks, you'd think nobody was arrested. In Minneapolis, for instance, there were about 100 people charged with felonies in the wake of the riots and another 500 or so charged with misdemeanors. That may not sound like a lot considering that those numbers represent two days of rioting during which over 100 structures burned, but the contexts of the arrests are rather similar. I'm hesitant to offer advice on how to get away with committing crimes, but I'd recommend against livestreaming your criminal activities or posting them to social media. the BLM riots took place at night and were distributed across a large area where there was minimal media presence. Jan 6 took place in the daytime, had a lot of people in a concentrated area, practically none of whom were trying to conceal their identity, and the area itself was swarming with media. The people who got arrested in Minnesota were largely those who decided to livestream looting or post their hauls on social media, and the same was true of virtually everyone who was arrested in connection to Jan 6. In an emergency situation, the police have higher priorities than arresting individuals. Practically nobody was actually arrested on Jan 6, but identifying he perpetrators was like shooting fish in a barrel. Not as many BLM protestors were quite this stupid, but the police didn't ignore those who were.
The other thing that makes this line of arguing particularly vacuous is that, even if the number of BLM protestors convicted is proportionally lower, I have yet to hear any Democratic politician suggest pardoning any of them.
I think you're confused about how the legal system actually works. First, I'm not sure if your complaint is that the cases should be heard on the merits or that the courts aren't issuing written opinions. If it's the latter, be aware that being told "you lose" without explanation has nothing to do with standing and is the norm in litigation; written opinions are very rare. Some motions are filed strictly to protect the record and won't be challenged if the opposing party indicates that they're going to contest them. In these cases the court won't even formally deny them. If we decide to argue a motion, we'll get some sense of the judge's reasoning based on how he responds during oral argument, but most judges don't say anything during argument and don't rule from the bench. A week or so later you'll get an order granting or denying the motion and that's it; you move on with the case. And yes, this includes motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment where the judge is practically ending the Plaintiff's case, at lease against one defendant. And, not that it applies to the election cases, but jury verdicts don't offer any more insight. You either get a defense verdict or a bill, with no further commentary except in unusual situations.
Now, in some cases trial courts do issue written opinions, particularly in cases where there are novel issues and the court expects an appeal. In those cases, the court will occasionally write a brief opinion that isn't published and has no precedential value, but is in the records for the appellate court to look at if they want to. I agree that some of the trial courts could have done so here. There are two problems with this, though. First, these cases were all asking for emergency relief. You can't expect the court to act fast but nonetheless have time to issue opinions detailing their reasoning. The second problem is that this wouldn't do anything. The standing objections were obvious to anyone with a passing familiarity with the law, and there was plenty of commentary available. The court issuing an 86 page opinion that acts more or less as a primer on standing and why this Plaintiff doesn't have it would have done nothing to shift public opinion.
Now, if it's the former, and you really want the cases to be heard on their merits, then it gets even worse. First, I don't know what you mean by wanting full discovery power. Most of these lawsuits didn't involve any factual disputes. For instance, Texas v. Pennsylvania (which is what I assumed you had in mind when talking about dismissals based on standing) didn't involve any disputed facts. The question was whether actions taken by various state election officials violated the Constitution; no one was arguing that these actions weren't taken. An "on the merits" ruling by in trial court in this case would have likely been "there were no constitutional violations, you lose". Would that be a better outcome? Would a 120-page opinion explaining why state legislatures are allowed to delegate ministerial responsibilities really satisfy the people alleging MASSIVE FRAUD?
And what do you expect to accomplish with this discovery, anyway? None of the lawsuits, save Sidney Powell's, made any actual allegations of fraud. "Full discovery" is essentially asking the court to let you go on a fishing expedition. Where are you even going to start? If you file the day the election is called for Biden, you're looking at a few days for the defendants to respond, and for the judge to hear motions to dismiss. If he denies these motions and sets the case for trial, you're normally looking at a discovery deadline around May 1, over three months after Biden has been sworn in. Of course, there's no way you're even making that deadline, because you're going on a fishing expedition, which means you need to conduct discovery just to get to the point when you can begin conducting discovery. What are you looking for? Do you want emails? Are you going to request emails involving official election accounts in all the affected jurisdictions? You better plan on giving them ample time to sort through these emails to get rid of irrelevant information. Or since you don't trust them to do that you can sort through them yourself. How many emails do you think this is? How many of them do you think you'll actually want to use as evidence in court? How much time and money do you expect it to take for you to sort through all of these yourself? How many depositions do you plan on taking? Who do you plan on deposing? How much do you think this is going to cost? Given the breadth of the allegations, two years seems like an optimistic timetable for discovery completion, and that's before you get into all the other stuff. With any luck you might uncover the fraud and get your verdict before the next election. Assuming there are no appeals, Trump might actually be able to serve a few days of his term before being constitutionally ineligible.
I think this is an underappreciated point. I am an interested layman when it comes to law but it was still pretty easy for me to find actual lawyers going through these complaints on social media and explaining the specific deficiencies with them. These are the same deficiencies a court would inevitably point to when they did issue a decision dismissing the case or granting summary judgement. The idea that all the judicial decisions had a partisan motivation seems contradicted by the fact that third party observers could identify the outcome and explain why that would be the outcome in advance.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
You've had a debate (presumably on the merits of the claims) a thousand times and you remain unconvinced, yet you claim that everyone would be ok with it if the court would just listen to arguments? Seems more likely that people will just say the court is biased and keep believing.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Are you interested in converting Republicans en masse overnight, or chipping away at this distrust over time? If you're hoping for some audit to prove the election's integrity and get everybody to issue a mea culpa that same day - good luck. I think you're setting yourself up for the "Gosh, they're so unreachable" conclusion you seem to be angling for. And I'd expect said mea culpa to arrive at the same time as the many others I'd want from Democrats by now - which is never.
Best you can hope for is people quietly dropping it out of embarrassment, in much the same way many Republicans quietly stopped supporting the War On Terror when that albatross got too fat.
Candidates in 2022 managed to pull it off basically overnight, going for claims about how the election was going to be stolen from them, but all of them except Kari Lake managed to basically put forward standard concession statements and everybody seems to accept those elections, despite no changes being made in most states. So why are those elections different? Perhaps it's not the evidence, then.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link