site banner
PaperclipPerfector  24d ago (text post)   34278 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Joe Biden made the following remarks:

“Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. Well, let me tell you something, I don’t, I don’t know the Puerto Rican that I know, the Puerto Rico where I’m fr -- in my home state of Delaware. They’re good, decent honorable people,” he said. The president then added: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”

First this guy is the gift that keeps on giving. I really suppose he lowkey wants to tank his party out of spite with juuust enough plausible deniability. Let's start with unpacking. First - he twists what was said - it was a comedian act making a joke, not a speaker. Subtle but important difference. Even Jon Stewart pitched on the controversy by saying - I find this guy funny something is wrong with me.

Second - this comes from the president, is not a part of comedy act, and the republicans decided to give democrats run for the pearl clutching gold. And without some charity there is no way to deflect (I do think personally that he meant the speakers of the rally, but let's be honest - he deserves exactly as much charity as Trump campaign and kill tony got).

Now the media didn't let it slide even if they gave him somewhat more charity. It's called gaffe, where as a comedian joke is taken at face value. But that is to be expected in a way.

Do you think this will affect meaningfully the election?

He shouldn't have said it (for optics/politics reasons), but he's 100% right (or at least 95% right; some, I assume, are good people). Just wish he would've said it after November 5th instead.

(But also, it's clear from his statement that what he meant is "the real garbage is the people saying Puerto Rico is garbage".)

  • -23

We, in fact, hold posters here to a higher standard than presidential candidates. Don't do this.

( @corman, you too - I know you are just playing tit-for-tat, but don't do that. Report the post.)

Actually, Harris supporters are garbage.

And this is the level of discourse you're inviting here.

Go on. Make the case for Puerto Rico being better than the mainland, and for those who come to the mainland being better than the ones already here with regards to litter.

and for those who come to the mainland being better than the ones already here with regards to litter.

And now I'm reminded of a forum post I was once linked to — I think it was referenced by a commenter on a Steve Sailer post — by a puertoriqueño New Yorker complaining about how "the Jews" obviously control New York City, or at least its sanitation department. His argument? That the streets in the "Jewish neighborhoods" were always so much cleaner — free of litter, and especially empty/broken beer bottles — than those of his own, predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood. This, he concluded, could only be because the Jews were using their control of the city government to have the sanitation department focus on constantly cleaning the litter and beer bottles from the streets of their own neighborhoods, and less on cleaning everyone else's streets. That maybe different groups litter at different rates, and that the inhabitants of predominantly-Jewish neighborhoods simply don't toss empty beer bottles into the street to begin with, never crossed his mind. (What's that old quote, from a Roman author IIRC, about people mistaking their particular cultural norms for universal laws?)

Its quite obvious where I live that there is a gradient from one side of the neighborhood (which neighbors a primarily mexican one) to the other (which borders a primarily white yuppie one). You go from frequent corona and modelo bottles to fewer, to on the other side your problem being that the trash cans are overloaded by then end of a 3 day weekend because those people can't help but use the cans, and the city refuses to install enough cans. Also people write on their own private cans "private use only" because otherwise these litter-adverse folks will simply seek out the closest available can rather than utilize a sidewalk once the official cans are spent.

At least one news source reported it with an apostrophe and emphasized it: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters’.”

Trump showed up to an event in a garbage truck

I think there is an opportunity for MAGA-branded construction vehicle toys waiting to be the accessories to a Trump action figure.

Damn, that's good.

Even though I've seen people here claim the 2024 election doesn't have the energy of 2016, I disagree. No one does this unless they're willing to have fun with it, and Trump is definitely having fun with it. It is a way to political points, sure, but it just sparks joy seeing these kinds of antics.

There was a lull after the assassination attempt (which, yeah, perfectly reasonable) but he's really picked back up these last few weeks.

The hi-vis vest seals the deal. Blue-collar workers will always side with the manager who isn't above putting on the same PPE that they do.

I really don't think this matters all that much, except maybe to knock out the last gasp hopes of the Kamala campaign. (The Puerto Rico joke also didn't matter, mattered even less, except that it gave some Kamala operatives final hope for one last great push.)

There have been a thousand stories in the recent past where more and more of the American public is criticized by America's elected officials. What's one more? But somebody's going to lose this game of hot potato eventually, and Democrats are going to have a generational struggle to fix things if they're the last ones holding it.

How could it not matter? You have the head of the government and the Democratic Party literally calling Trump supporters garbage. I mean if I wanted to get any base riled up, I’d call them garbage.

Does this shift Trump supporters at all? They believe, with reasonable evidentiary support, that Democrats see them as garbage already. This is just another piece.

I think even going with "Biden is saying it to sabotage the Harris campaign out of bitterness/revenge" would probably shift more people, sheerly out of demoralization.

It increases the likelihood of the right voting. It’s motivation to get your butt to the polls to vote against a regime that calls you garbage.

oh so what was the punchline to the puerto rico joke?

I don't think this question is in good faith but just in case: it was a simple misdirect joke, making it seem like he was talking about the Pacific garbage patch that progressives are very concerned about and then revealing that he was speaking figuratively about a country. It would be like if a tsunami was in the news and I said, "I'm very concerned about this massive tidal wave about to hit our shores - but enough about the Democrats' immigration policy."

I kind of doubt that it matters. Normally it would, but I don't think most people really view Biden as being the President anymore. They think of him as just some old grandpa who wanders around between Delaware and DC and occasionally says something random. So in practice this just comes off as "old half-senile retired guy says something random". Not only that, but calling Trump supporters garbage is such a minor thing against the background of all the insults that have been flying back and forth this election season that it's a tiny drop in a big bucket.

One of the funny things from this election season has been seeing Trump supporters ask "well, who is actually running the country?" after Biden dropped out of the race. I know that many of them probably don't actually think it's an issue and are just saying it rhetorically in order to try to damage the Democrats' chances. But probably some of them do care about it, and to me it's like seeing grown people who still believe in Santa Claus. It's an interesting misunderstanding of how the government actually works. The reality is that the government would run mostly the same as it does now even if a literal block of wood was elected to be the President. If you didn't pay attention to politics, you might not even notice that the President was a literal block of wood.

Does that mean that the election doesn't matter? No, it matters. Even if Trump would do nothing other than post on social media if elected, him being elected would still at least bring some non-leftists into high office and would do a lot to motivate non-leftists across the country. If we're lucky, he might even do some good by hiring new people and sending out some helpful executive orders. But the reason why it matters is not because the country needs to have an alert, mentally healthy person in the chair of the chief executive. It really doesn't. It would probably be nice to have, but it's far from crucial.

It would probably be nice to have, but it's far from crucial.

Why do countries have presidents? Why do companies have CEOs? Why do armies have generals? Why do ships have captains?

One-man leadership is possibly the most tried-and-tested social structure in history, we use it everywhere. That isn't to say that it's autocratic leadership, there can be laws and votes of no confidence and so on. But we have it for a reason. There needs to be someone with final say, a clear chain of command so that people know who is to be obeyed. Someone needs to be in charge to punish incompetence and reward success.

What happens if people from different departments want different things? 'We need to bail out Ukraine, send more air defences, it's vital for freedom and liberty in the world' says the State Department. But the Pentagon says 'no, the primary danger is in Asia, we need to focus on China - let Europe pick up the slack'. Maybe the CIA and intelligence agencies want resources heading to Israel, as a third option. This is just a hypothetical.

There needs to be someone with the formal authority to set priorities and make decisions even if he has to tread on other people's toes. There needs to be a legitimate ruler, not a gaggle of eunuchs constantly plotting and horse-trading to get parts of their agenda through. Government by gaggle of eunuchs leaves little room for long-term planning or coherent strategy. Without proper leadership, officials get too comfortable and entrenched pursuing their own agendas. That's exactly what's been happening in America for years and years now, probably only a world-historical genius can fix it.

Would you invest in a company without a leader, where all the department heads just come together and do their own thing? Probably not because you know that just about every company has a CEO, a founder, a 'paramount leader' one way or another. You wouldn't take that risk.

But the reason why it matters is not because the country needs to have an alert, mentally healthy person in the chair of the chief executive. It really doesn't.

That's one of the key underpinnings of the Trump/MAGA movement, though: it should matter. While the average voter (or even the above-average) has no real idea of how government functions on the daily, they still would like to believe that they have a vote that matters, and elected officials who represent them. If it's all unelected bureaucrats/deep state running the show, and everyone knows it? The show is over.

If it's all unelected bureaucrats/deep state running the show, and everyone knows it? The show is over.

And what would be the problem with "the show" ending? With the sham that voting matters and elected officials have real power ending, in favor of the unelected bureaucrats running the show openly?

Well the problem would be unelected bureaucrats running everything in the first place, if this is already the case then the main difference between it happening openly or behind the scenes is how likely you are to get a revolt.

the main difference between it happening openly or behind the scenes is how likely you are to get a revolt.

Which is a bigger concern — the likelihood of a revolt, or the capacity of a potential revolt? I mean, which is the preferable scenario:

  1. a 50% chance of a "revolt" that is weak, disorganized, and easily crushed — the sort of thing ordinary law enforcement can handle, no need to call out the troops, or

  2. a 5% chance of a strong, organized revolt likely to overthrow the government, and can be stopped only at great cost and with immense damage?

If you're part of the unelected bureaucracy running things, I'd say you'd prefer option 1. Right?

First - he twists what was said - it was a comedian act making a joke, not a speaker.

Context matters. It was a rally where racial insults and epiphets were thrown around and nauseum and Trump said there was "so much love in the room". If you want to make the case that it was purely comedy, that's fine, but I don't see it that way.

But by the same token, Biden's statement wasn't helpful either.

  • -18

It was a rally where racial insults and epiphets were thrown around

Name some

Please justify the 'ad nauseum'.

it was a comedian act making a joke, not a speaker.

A comedian riffing at a rally is a speaker. It is not an exclusive designation.

I mean, there is a difference between a comedian and politician (especially the president).

You don't think you're being biased here?

I'm beyond caring about claims of bias. In some trivial sense everyone is biased. It is true and unimportant that I am not biased against Trump in this one matter.

A comedian riffing at your event is a speaker. "Speaker" does not mean "speaker, but only if they are also a politician". I have a purely semantic objection here.

And yes there is an obvious difference between a comedian who is a speaker at an event and a politician who is a speaker at an event. But both are speakers.

Already priced in. This "gaffe" is so benign compared to everything else going on that it doesn't rise above the level of background noise.

I predict it will sway zero (0) votes.

Swaying votes isn't the point - it's all about voter activation and turnout now.

It’s timed perfectly to Goose Republican voter turnout, however.

It seems like it largely will get the Joke out of the news coupled with JD going on Rogan.

Strong odds that Rogan brings this up -- I expect he's pretty sympathetic to jokes not landing sometimes.

His recent episode with the Triggernometry guys had discussion on it. He thinks it was ill-advised for a political event, but... eh, predictable consensus is that this is nothing.

There’s a meme that has developed that Biden is consciously tanking Kamala and this would be consistent with it.

Why was he even on some video conference at this moment? Kamala was holding her rally just outside the White House at this exact same time. Yet Biden wasn’t there. Maybe she told Joe he wasn’t wanted. Perhaps she thought him a liability. Or simply this was Her Moment.

I mean it's nice the head of the Democratic party is finally just dispensing with subtlety and is being honest. If concerned parents being added to FBI watchlist, people defending themselves being thrown in prison, functional communities being utterly destroyed by federal human trafficking didn't already give it away. How is it not manifestly obvious these are policies of hate and destruction? They consider felons and illegals more legitimate constituents than people who want property rights, safe communities, and schools that won't teach their children to sterilize and mutilate themselves.

If you need a timeout until after election day, we can oblige.

Stop doing this.

  • -13

Stop doing what?

Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

"They consider felons and illegals more legitimate constituents" is pretty obviously a generalization - you're not seriously claiming you have proof that 75 million people actually explicitly support this position, are you?

Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!'

The topic was "Biden said people were garbage" and none of those links has anything to do with that topic - you could plausibly drop those as a separate thread, but they're clearly just "Boo outgroup" in this context.

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.

Link #1: The FBI has been putting people on watchlists for decades, and I don't think you can make any sort of solid case that it's a partisan issue. This is pure "Boo, outgroup!" Both sides are guilty and you're just cherry-picking a random example. If you really need me to drop a dozen "FBI harasses liberals" links to counter you, I can, but I'm going to think a lot less of your research skills if you really need your hand held.

Link #2: "Defending yourself" sure is a weird way to say "killed someone" - if you can't even come out and say what the guy did, I'm already questioning how well you can defend this one. I don't even know what your point with this one is? The guy killed someone and he's being held for trial. That seems pretty normal to me. Maybe there's a different version of the story, but your actual link fails to bring up politics at all. What does this have to do with anything?

Link #3: "For example, basic social norms in grocery stores, parks or any shared space in the city are non-existent. It's things as simple as five or six immigrants standing in an aisle at the grocery store and not moving aside respectfully to allow others to pass." - Yeah, I've had old white guys do that to me plenty of times. I assume we're going to have a frank and honest conversation about these damn white people and how much they're disrupting the community? Would you like a dozen links discussing how black communities got ruined by white people?

Like, c'mon, that's really the best you can do? You're already ignoring the topic and just picking whatever links you want, and the best you can come up with is "Democrats won't listen to how terrible it is having someone blocking the aisle in the grocery store"?

Preaching to the choir. This isn't a discussion about how evil the Dems are, and while I don't necessarily disagree with you it's irritating to see the applause lights come on with nothing to prompt them.

Boo Outgroup?

If "Boo Outgroup" now means "Pointing out with references the things the ruling party does" instead of Chinese Robber shit, or random non-representative headlines, might as well shut this place down.

Agreed. You didn't antagonize anyone specifically, you made factual statements with references, and there was no rule broken that I can identify.

'How is it not manifestly obvious these are the politics are policies of hate and destruction' seems like a pretty central example of boo outgroup/uncharitability, and incidentally also consensus-building.

I do agree it would have been better without "how is it not manifestly obvious." This place has given me a nose that can smell consensus-building from 5 miles away, and it's amazing how strong a habit it is in nearly any journalist media.

May 12 2022

Do you just take any post as an opportunity to unload all your grievances about Democrats/the left?

How is it not manifestly obvious these are policies of hate and destruction?

If you just want to fantasise about how much Democrats hate you, just go and watch OAN or something with all the other morons.

  • -20

Maybe. But there is also an election in 6 days, so you know, seems like a good time to go over grievances from the last 4 years.

Don't namecall.

Where's that rule when we're talking about liberals? :P

  • -15

Enforced quite often, to much discontent.

Puerto Rico is a political entity; supporters are human beings. Puerto Rico has so much corruption that its anti-corruption laws created new industries of corruption. Its former governor was arrested on bribery recently, and in only six months, 10% of all mayors were arrested for corruption. Calling the place garbage is a normal way of describing such a cesspool of corruption. Let’s also dwell on that last phrase: a cesspool is for storing sewage, the worst kind of garbage. Trump himself has called America a “cesspool of ruin” due to crime, and DC a cesspool of corruption — was he being racist against Americans here? Obviously not.

This is all a very normal way of talking about things, and the distinction between entity and ethnicity is important. If Puerto Rico wants to be part of America then it needs to handle the bants — calling New Jersey trash or an “armpit” has been common for decades. It’s shocking to me that some people care more about how we describe a horrible place than that this horrible place is within the domain of America. Why not acknowledge it is garbage and focus on how to fix it up?

Puerto Rico also literally has a trash problem (because its government is not just corrupt but incompetent)

True, but I have about as much faith that Tony Hinchcliffe was joking about a legitimate solid waste management problem (which is, at best, only really only funny to an audience familiar with its existence) as I do in the administration's apostrophe in the Biden transcript.

Do you know Tony Hinchcliffe? He goes for obscure refences all the time. Sometimes he verges on "too online" with his comedy he goes with references so niche. The first part of the joke is in fact a reference to the fact that there is a literal giant island of trash in the ocean. Why wouldn't the punchline be about Puerto Rico's notoriously dysfunctional waste management?

Because it's a joke that's been done many times with different islands as the punchline. I've heard the same joke with Australia or the UK as the punchline.

Yeah - the point of the joke is to clown on an island you don't like. The reason it was a gaffe isn't that Hinchcliffe told a rude joke (Trump being happy to say worse things than that is long since priced in) - it is that he read the room at a Trump rally and thought that Puerto Rico was the right island to clown on.

calling New Jersey trash or an “armpit” has been common for decades

100% confident that if Trump referred to Detroit or Baltimore or maybe even Louisiana as "trash" or similar this would be cited as a white supremacist dog whistle, for unsurprising reasons. Who, whom all the way down.

But that's because it's Trump saying it. A comedian calling detroit or baltimore or louisiana a 'dumpster fire' or 'trash' is not controversial.

I am sceptical.

A comedian calling West Virginia a mountain of white trash wouldn't make anyone bat an eye.

The term “white trash” is a fascinating insult in this day and age. Trash or garbage is something discarded after its usefulness has ended.

The “Rust Belt” is full of towns which were thriving industrial concerns until unions inflated the cost of their labor, companies offshored production, and the towns were reduced to service economies. Discarded after being used up.

The reason why the Puerto Rico as trash island gaffe may be cutting through in a way which the average "Republican says something vaguely racist" or "Democrat insults the rustbelt" story doesn't is that it isn't just an attack on the outgroup. The much bigger issue is that it may be, and can be spun as, a mask-off moment about who the outgroup is.

The big positive message of the MSG rally, and in my view the Trump campaign more generally, is "Real America is uniting behind Trump to crush the external enemy (illegal immigrants and an unspecified subset of undesirable legal immigrants) and the internal enemy ("far-left lunatics", which has a deliberately ambiguous meaning but appears to include the Democratic politicians letting the external enemy in). To make this work, Trump has to define "Real America" broadly enough to have enough votes. And, at the margin, the key groups that the Trump campaign have successfully included in their idea of "Real America" in a way previous identarian-right movements failed to do are black men with otherwise-conservative views and well-assimilated Hispanics. And the big threat to that outreach is the not-unreasonable fear among well-assimilated Hispanics that Trump's coalition don't see them as Real Americans, even as Trump himself insists that they are. If Musk or Vance or some other sufficiently prominent Trump supporter said "Actually, Puerto Ricans aren't real Americans" and didn't get slapped down then Trump would be toast.

Apart from Hinchcliffe, every other speaker who does a funny bit is clowning on MAGA's outgroup (mostly named Democratic politicians, but also California, flag burners, art fags etc). And that is what you expect at a unity rally. There is a time and a place for equal-opportunity clown-on-everyone comedy, but right after prayers and the national anthem isn't it - and in any case from reading the transcript of Hinchcliffe's bit, the nearest thing to an ingroup roast is where he suggests his own mother might have joined in the pet-eating in Ohio. There are, for the obvious good reasons, no jokes about inbred West Virginians, SSDI cheats, or fat divorced middle-aged men, and I do not think the audience would have laughed at them if there had been. It certainly looks like Hinchcliffe was put on the agenda to clown on the outgroup - probably a poor choice (and definitely a poor choice in hindsight) because his MO as a comedian is to go after everyone.

So when Hinchcliffe calls Puerto Rico a trash island and the audience laughs (from listening to the video, my guess is that a lot of them don't, but Hinchcliffe treats the half-laugh as a slow audience to warm up rather than a joke that went down badly, which does the Democrats' work for them spinning it), the message sent is "MAGA considers Puerto Ricans to be the kind of people it is okay to clown on straight after the national anthem at a unity rally." And that message is not consistent with the appeal to assimilated Hispanics that Trump has, to date, been making successfully. "Trump hates Puerto Ricans" is spin, but it is true that Hinchcliffe and the rally attendees who laughed at him think Puerto Ricans are their outgroup, that the Trump campaign chose Hinchcliffe to speak straight after the national anthem, and that Trump is sending flacks to deflect blame for what Hinchcliffe said rather than using his bully pulpit to say how much he loves Puerto Ricans.

Is any of this going to affect the election? Probably not, because nothing seems to be affecting the election - from outside it feels like everyone made their mind up within 2 weeks of Biden pulling out, and we are just waiting to see which side in a 50-50 nation has the better GOTV operation. But "Republicans think Puerto Rico is trash" is news in a way which "Biden thinks Republicans are trash" is not, so if anything is going to affect the election at this late stage, Hinchcliffe's gaffe is a candidate.

So when Hinchcliffe calls Puerto Rico a trash island and the audience laughs (from listening to the video, my guess is that a lot of them don't, but Hinchcliffe treats the half-laugh as a slow audience to warm up rather than a joke that went down badly, which does the Democrats' work for them spinning it), the message sent is "MAGA considers Puerto Ricans to be the kind of people it is okay to clown on straight after the national anthem at a unity rally." And that message is not consistent with the appeal to assimilated Hispanics that Trump has, to date, been making successfully.

An alternate reading would be that well-assimilated Hispanics would see an attack on Puerto Rico as a jab at non-assimilated Hispanics. A few reasons:

  1. There is nothing stopping Puerto Ricans from moving to the mainland, as a great many have. The ones who have elected to stay on the island, in this reading, would be the ones who intentionally chose not to assimilate into America.

  2. My understanding is that Puerto Rico is still very culturally different from America, despite being an American territory, and that rates of English fluency on the island are quite low. I also gather that the larger Latin American world sees Puerto Rico as a shithole, and Puertorriqueños as lazy, stupid, and heavily admixed with African ancestry. Thus, assimilated Hispanic Americans would see a jab at Puerto Rico the way upper-middle-class coastal Americans would see an attack on inbred hillbillies.

  3. As someone else pointed out, Puerto Ricans in America are a reliably leftist voting bloc. As recently as the 70’s, Puerto Rican independence activists were shooting Congressmen and committing waves of bombings all over America. In NYC they are a core Democratic voting/power bloc. Even wealthy and well-educated Puerto Ricans like Luis Miranda (father of Hamilton playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda) are often hardcore racial chauvinists and have deep ties to Puerto Rican separatists, including terrorists. I don’t think they should be considered examples of “well-assimilated Americans”, at least not in a political sense.

The ones who have elected to stay on the island, in this reading, would be the ones who intentionally chose not to assimilate into America.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that Puerto Rico is a part of America.

What has always amused me is that we've spent quite a bit of effort nationally tamping down discrimination in the basis of national origin, but I've never seen it applied domestically. Saying "Georgians need not apply" and rejecting job applications from those born in Tbilisi is actually against federal law. I don't know of any case law if you do that for Atlanta.

Is there some for Puerto Ricans? They are American from a national origin perspective. You could make an argument that it's a language and cultural thing, but nobody is up in arms about California banning contracts with Texas (because inadequate social justice) for a disparate impact on Spanish-speaking Tejanos.

We've become so fixed on rooting out certain discrimination, but turn a blind eye to it domestically.

In practice, anti-Puerto Rican discrimination would get struck down on ethnic grounds.

It is an unincorporated territory. Residents of Puerto Rico are American citizens, but they cannot vote in federal elections and generally do not pay federal income taxes. The island is largely self-governing, and its residents are highly culturally-distinct from the American mainland. It’s as much “a part of America” as, say, Guam, which is to say, only in a complicated political sense. Like I said, Puerto Rican separatist terrorism was a significant political issue in the 1960s and 1970s, and although that violence has subsided, my understanding is that Puerto Ricans are deeply divided in regards to what degree of political/cultural integration they want with the mainland United States.

Guam catching strays. Guam is way more American than Puerto Rico, hell, at least on Guam English is actually the primary language. I think Guam is at least as American as any Hawaiian island (except in a complicated pollical sense).

On the other hand, much of the Biden-turned-Harris campaign's message has been focused on how Trump is morally dangerous and demonizes people. If your message is that even people who disagree with you should vote for you because of your Moral Superiority™️, debasing yourself and even dipping a toe in the waters of open hatred makes it really easy to show the moral claims are a farce.

If you're an on-the-fence voter here -- maybe even disliking both candidates -- but leaning toward holding your nose to vote for Harris on account of "decorum", her boss calling your friends (the neighbor with a Trump sign on the lawn) "garbage" probably gives quite a bit of pause. At least it does to me.

I think "Prominent Democrats hate Trump supporters, think they are [insert slur here], and are happy to say so if they don't realise there is an open mic" is priced in by now - in much the same way that "Trump is uncouth" is priced in. Biden isn't saying anything in private that he wasn't willing to say in public in his 2022 midterms speech where he said "MAGA Republicans" were a threat to democracy (complete with scary red lighting in the background).

The point I am trying to make is that "MAGA see Puerto Ricans as outgroup" is not priced in - if Hinchcliffe had said Haiti was a trash island it would have been a dog bites man story.

The point I am trying to make is that "MAGA see Puerto Ricans as outgroup" is not priced in - if Hinchcliffe had said Haiti was a trash island it would have been a dog bites man story.

I'd think it's roughly the opposite of that (at least in reality, but maybe you're making a good case for why pundits would try to make this stick). Puerto Rico works as the punchline because it's a funny surprise, exactly because they're not a serious outgroup currently, but are a decent sub-population in NYC. They can take being roasted in 2024, especially when the bit is more about the 'island of trash' setup, and the punchline just needs to be [real place].

It would have actually sounded a lot meaner and out of place if he said "yeah, I think it's called Haiti". That's where other comedians would start saying 'woah did this just turn into a klan rally?'

The ingroup would have been if the punchline was “Long Island” (or indeed Staten Island). Puerto Ricans aren’t GOP voters like Cubans are, they’re a core Dem base in NYC which is why people have said this was potentially strategically unwise (not that NY matters, but still). If he’d said Haiti NYT journalists would call the rally ‘racist’ on Twitter or say the remarks were “racially charged” in the press, but not much else would happen, because almost no Haitians are going to vote for Trump.

Given who the MAGA right see as their outgroup, "Manhattan" would have been even better. NYC also has notorious problems with garbage and rats - which are much more well-known than Puerto Rico's because, well, NYC. In the second half of 2024 they are introducing bins as a new, innovative garbage management innovation. The campaign to do this had used #Trashcity as a hashtag on the basis that everyone knew it referred to NYC.

You haven’t presented any evidence it is in fact cutting through. The democrats and their allied media are talking a bunch about it. But that doesn’t mean it’s cutting through. Indeed it could have the opposite effect (ie Puerto Ricans hear about it and realize a comedian made a joke yet the Dems think this is the end of the world).

Republicans with large Puerto Rican constituencies are doing damage control. They think it could be cutting through. I don't think it will - but very obviously it is provoking more of a response on both sides than the usual "politician insults opponents in a way which demonstrates a lack of civic virtue" story.

Compare and contrast the response to "Puerto Rico is a trash island" to the other seen-by-the-PMC-as-unsayable things said at the rally - nobody is surprised by a watermelon gag at the expense of a black conservative, or the false claim that Midtown Manhattan isn't safe for a lone woman at 10pm. Or compare to the token performative outrage at Musk putting out ads calling Harris a "C-word" - again, it doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know.

Within 24 hours of Tony's joke, I saw the Kamala campaign go all-out with some rhetoric to help/'save' Puerto Rico. Like they saw this as a moment to seize and run with, but it just radiates opportunism and desparation.

There's an insufferable, overprotective maternal vibe the Dems give off when talking about blacks or LGBTQ or whatever else. Extending that act to a stale PR joke is quite a look, and I don't know anybody who is impressed with it.

At least I am consistent because I hated the Puerto Rico thing and I hate this. I hate it even in a “well, these are the rules the Democrats made so now we’re just making them honor those rules” sense. It’s all so stupid. Biden can’t speak coherently. He showed that in the debate. That’s why he’s not running for president. It’s also disgusting because people can’t even pretend that they themselves are upset. They’re just trying to convince stupid people that they should be upset.

Biden did this on purpose. He has over the last month or so popped up at just the wrong time for Harris and said just the wrong thing. He is trying to sabotage her. No one is talking about her “closing statement.” Biden got what he wanted. As he said, no one fucks with a Biden.

Not really, because Biden’s disfluencies left the door open for another interpretation (that doesn’t have your problems) and thereby created a scissor statement that won’t get traction. At most, it will extend Puerto-Rico-gate for another news cycle, which probably marginally benefits the Democrats in PA and other swing states.

Since we're on the topic of the election, a question about betting odds from an almost complete n00b on the topic. Paddy Power is one of the biggest bookies in Ireland and the UK, and they're offering odds on the election outcome:

  • Trump to win - 1/2
  • Kamala to win - 13/8
  • Kamala to win the popular vote - 8/15
  • Trump to win the popular vote - 6/4
  • Kamala to win the popular vote and Trump to win the election - 6/4

Am I tripping, or is something not adding up here? If they're placing Kamala as the favourite to win the election, surely any derivative bet from that conditional should also be the favourite, and vice versa. Why do they apparently think "Kamala wins the popular vote but Trump wins the election" is more likely to happen than not, but "Trump winning the election" is less likely to happen than not?

EDIT: Disregard, I get it now.

Just use Polymarket. It's way more intuitively expressed as percents instead of bookie returns.

1/2 means you get half of your stake as winnings if you win, meaning it's roughly 66% to happen after the bookmaker's margin. Trump is currently the favorite to win the election.

Harris is favorite to win the popular vote but due to the US electoral system that is not the sole qualifier.

Yep, I get it now, I had it all backwards in my head because I'm very new at this. Thanks a lot!

You have to bet 2 dollars to win 1 for a Trump to win.

Wake up babe, new "basket of deplorables" just dropped.

Various Biden friendly transcribers have done a reasonable steelman of his words with clever punctuation (not least of which is the white house's):

"And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Well, let me tell you something. I don’t — I — I don’t know the Puerto Rican that — that I know — or a Puerto Rico, where I’m fr- — in my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been. "

There's a few other clever transcriptions around culture war Twitter which try to make it look like he was only talking about the comedian (sorry I can't find any easily, but I've seen them out in the wild).

The video is pretty damning if you take it as face value, but it could be taken as a senior moment if a viewer was going to be charitable.

I think Team Trump is making hay out of it with a Deplorable/Facists/Garbage meme at the moment (again no link sorry), reinforced by the positive Trump tweet.

tldr; I think this will shift the needle slightly, but the speed of the culture war is moving so fast right now, it might all be forgotten by tomorrow as the next event hits.

The video clearly has Biden saying "supporters (period)" It was the end of the sentence. His voice tone went down. He took in a breath after. The words "garbage" and "supporters" were both emphasized and Biden was linking the two.

How on Earth do people fall for this? "An expert transcriber told me it was actually an apostrophe-S. Trust the Experts!" What is wrong with people?

Suppose Alice is having a picnic at the pond with her parents. Her parents are clumsy eaters, and their plates and utensils get blown into the pond. A local cop sees the trash floating in the pond and asks Alice, “why did you dump your garbage in the pond?” Alice replies, “The only garbage I see floating out there is my parents’.” This is a completely normal way to use possessives in colloquial American English. It’s not the most likely interpretation of what Biden said, but it is a reasonable interpretation.

For that to be a reasonable interpretation, there would already have to be a referent to "hatred" or another idea. Instead, the referent is to Puerto Ricans, "people." I know what people are trying to twist it into, but it's obviously not what he said.

"They [Puerto Ricans] are good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see out there is his supporters."

There is already reference to an idea, the 'garbage' - as in the garbage his supporter(s) are putting out. Put without using an apostrophe, 'the only garbage I see floating out there is that of his supporters'. As above not saying this actually is definitely what he said, but it's definitely not impossible.

Have you listened to the clip and do you actually believe that's what he meant?

The tonal context of the statement says exactly what he meant.

I think the intonation is definitely consistent with "the only garbage I see out there is his supporters'", as in the garbage of his supporters in terms of rhetoric in reference to Puerto Rico or just generally.

Even trascripts are not be trusted. I already knew that when Donald J. Trump's speeches that contain asides weren't transcribed to include punctuation, making them seem even more rambly than they are, but this is more egregious than the ACLU misquoting RGB. The latter at least included square brackets, this transcript of Biden doesn't contain any clue it is altered.

That transcript is not grammatically consistent. So it doesn’t make to assume that is what he meant.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats