site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1mo ago (text post)   27150 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

If you're a U.S. citizen with voting rights, your polling place can reportedly be located here.

If you're still researching issues, Ballotpedia is usually reasonably helpful.

Any other reasonably neutral election resources you'd like me to add to this notification, I'm happy to add.

15
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If true, this is incredibly fucked up. It means they are voting as a block.

Also, you have to LOL at the incompetence. The Harris campaign let those people exercise veto power over their VP pick, and then lost their vote anyway.

Notably, (caveat about hindsight 20/20 of course) it doesn't currently appear as if Pennsylvania alone would have delivered Harris the presidency, so this is a moot point. Shapiro vs Walz was only ever going to deliver a single state at best, VP picks just don't do anything beyond that.

The Harris campaign let those people exercise veto power over their VP pick

Uh, when has Walz ever openly opposed Kamala on support for Israel? Wasn’t he boldly (some would say falsely) proclaiming his military background/support for the global American empire?

The rumor is that Shapiro was nixed for being Jewish

One of the frontrunners for Kamala's VP pick was Jewish.

Ah yeah, I forgot about that guy. Good point; I stand corrected

Block voting is the optimal thing to do when you're a relatively small minority. Even if you're 10% of the population if you consistently block vote and no other groups do you can be the kingmaker effectively every single election. Main party A and Main party B may get to win half the time each but through promising your votes off to the highest bidder (the party that pledges to give you the most stuff) and effectively guaranteeing your chosen side victory you get to win basically every single election. Pretty sweet, isn't it?

This is just the correct way to play the democracy game under the ruleset of the 21st century. Don't hate the player, hate the game. If you don't like it, do away with "democracy".

This is the wages of identity politics, unfortunately.

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