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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024

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The entire institutional ecosystem is soft-rigged against the GOP, regardless of whether there was any direct voter fraud. This is an argument that I have a lot of time for - if one faction has a huge advantage in political communication, and its credibility is laundered by all the major epistemic institutions of its society, then it's hardly a free and fair contest of ideas. …However, these were not the actual arguments made by Trump and allies, nor were they the arguments voiced on January 6.

This seems like some sort of reverse-motte-and-Bailey on your part. Some crazies yell extreme theories, therefore the moderate theories are not worth considering?

At some point you're just too far away from the candidate himself or his campaign.

It also seems like an effort of sophistry to avoid the question of “how to get Republicans to accept the election results” by playing around with definitions until the people with legitimate reasons to distrust the election don’t count as Republicans any more, ergo dusts hands job done.

This seems like some sort of reverse-motte-and-Bailey on your part. Some crazies yell extreme theories, therefore the moderate theories are not worth considering?

On the contrary, I just said:

We also sometimes see the argument that the institutional landscape, particularly re: media, academia and 'experts', civil servants and bureaucrats, etc., is so thoroughly slanted as to systematically misrepresent the positions of right-wing or Republican figures. No election held on such biased terrain can be considered fair. The entire institutional ecosystem is soft-rigged against the GOP, regardless of whether there was any direct voter fraud. This is an argument that I have a lot of time for - if one faction has a huge advantage in political communication, and its credibility is laundered by all the major epistemic institutions of its society, then it's hardly a free and fair contest of ideas.

I said myself that I agree with the mottes! I just sometimes feel like the mottes, and my agreement therewith, are used to try to justify baileys that I find much more doubtful.