site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 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.

8
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Where did you get this specific detail from? I’d like to read up on the source.

I know him as "party worker from the 39th ward, 44th precinct"

https://sites.duke.edu/pjms364s_01_s2016_jaydelancy/files/2016/04/Report-of-the-Special-Grand-Jury-US-District-Court-NE-Illinois-.pdf

Likewise, source on this? Because it seems the 2020 election certainly was scrutinized plenty. Why would Republicans and even Trump’s own advisers be okay with conceding the election if there was actually such widespread fraud?

2020 was scrutinized by people without investigative power. Particularly preventative investigative power, which is basically only the FBI.

The last time I am aware of a state level organization investigating fraud in a preventative measure stance is NY, where they obtained ballots under false pretenses in all but 2 out of 63 attempts. This would have been 1/63 because they tried voting using the name of a felon who's father was working the polls.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/report-new-york-investigators-obtain-fraudulent-ballots-97-percent-time-john-fund/

Thanks for the sources, that is really helpful.

At this point, my remaining gripes are that Trump’s complaints about 2020 being rigged still come across as highly ad hoc. Again, if there was such massive fraud, why didn’t the rest of the Republican establishment side with Trump? If there was any evidence for fraud, surely some of the court cases in some of the states would have advanced and federal investigations would’ve come up with something, because the Democrats don’t control every part of government like that. Instead, it was pretty much unanimous consent from establishment candidates across the aisle which way the election went.

And if there’s really no way for the current level of evidence to satisfy you, then make that a core political issue. Instead, all the noise has been about how 2020 was stolen, instead of how 2024 onwards will be made more secure.

I think the pre-Trump Republican establishment has been caught up in respectability politics for most of my life and wining elections was considered non-important.

I think catching voter fraud, at the levels demanded by courts, would have required active sting operations. None were conducted. Such is the way the system is made. Ballots are instantly anonomized when cast.

Of course I prefer talking about making ongoing elections secure. Also I don't focus on 2020, as you can see, my concerns rely on things that happened before even 2016. That said, 2020 was particularly bad. Just look at signature rejection rates in major swing states. They were implausibly low.