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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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Your question presupposes legitimacy-by-default of the existing, highly complex political system, when the system's fundamental legitimacy is the question at hand.

When the system's legitimacy is being questioned because of people exercising their right to vote, I think it's reasonably to ask why.

Convince a large, reasonably cohesive slice of the population that the system is not capable of delivering acceptable outcomes, and they will not necessarily argue indefinitely over where exactly the system is going wrong

Why are they convinced of this?

The other guy points out that his dice win too often to be fair.

The other guy claims that, but considering the other guy wins about half the time, we have to question whether or not his objection is in good faith or he is just being a sore loser.

When dealing with vast, complex systems, people observe outcomes and judge the system thereby. Our current system has delivered unacceptably bad outcomes from a Red perspective, and it's done it long enough that there's no reasonable hope that the problem can be corrected within the general processes and norms of that system.

What outcomes? Reds win half the time (frequently despite having less than half the electorate). If you mean the culture war, it turns out there's no vote you can cast or election you can win that will make your kids respect you.

When the system's legitimacy is being questioned because of people exercising their right to vote, I think it's reasonably to ask why.

You are the only one in this thread arguing that "the system's legitimacy is being questioned because of people exercising their right to vote". I'm pretty sure that you insist on this argument because it is one you think you can win. But in fact, what I and @Butlerian are claiming is that "there's no vote you can cast or election you can win that will make your kids respect you". You are willing to make that argument when it is convenient to you, and are not willing to recognize it when it is made against you.

Laws and votes are not the basis of a functional society. "your kids respecting you" is an overspecified description of the actual basis of a functional society, which we might generalize as "cooperation and compromise based on mutual respect and shared interests between a supermajority of the population". That happy state is the precondition for the votes and the elections to actually work their magic. But you don't appear to want to talk about that, so you keep attempting to collapse the discussion down to "people exercising their right to vote". I consider this dishonest, but hardly surprising at this late date.

I can't stop you from sticking your fingers in your ears and chanting "people exercising their right to vote". I can only note that such narrowly specified heuristics observably go away when the vote doesn't go the way your tribe likes; see the general angst over the electoral college, which you yourself hint at above. So it's all about the rules when the rules are convinient, and it's all about the principles when the principles are convinient, and as long as you're the umpire, you win every argument. And that's well enough, only you aren't actually the umpire. There isn't actually an umpire. There's just tribes, and conflict between them.

The other guy claims that, but considering the other guy wins about half the time, we have to question whether or not his objection is in good faith or he is just being a sore loser.

Two people can play dice, each win half the rolls, and still have one person clean the other out: simply have the one person's wins be big-stakes, and the other person's wins be small stakes. Simple stuff. "you've won half the rolls, it's just that I win the rolls where there's actually money at stake" is not a persuasive argument for keeping the game going.

What outcomes?

Too many for the margin to contain, but to list a scant few: The difference in outcomes between Obergefell and Heller, as a case study for the inequities of the courts as a remedy generally. The manifest inability to control school curricula, even when you win elections, as a case study on the inadequacy of electoral remedy. The collapse of "free speech" norms and ideology once they became inconvenient to Blue Tribe culture as a case study in the general inadequacy of informal norms as a social remedy. Blue Tribe economic warfare against Red tribe as a case study in the inadequacy of economic remedy.

Blue tribe is determined to crush Red Tribe in every facet of social, economic and political life. When Reds object, Blues point out that what they're doing isn't illegal. When Reds point out that some of it actually is illegal, Blues point out that selective enforcement of the laws isn't illegal. The lesson to be drawn from this sequence of events isn't to try to draft laws better, it's to stop treating the law as though it were worthy of respect as an impartial, shared institution.

You are the only one in this thread arguing that "the system's legitimacy is being questioned because of people exercising their right to vote".

How else shall I interpret Butlerian up when they say:

I was of the more prosaic mind that they were trying to lower the effort bar so as to improve turnout rather than literally fake turnout. One is technically illegal cheating, the other is technically legal cheating

So far, no one has furnished an explanation as to why legally lowering the effort bar so as to improve turnout is cheating. You dismissed the legal concern and raised the prospect of a moral objection, but danced around providing any specific moral objection. Simply repeating "people no longer feel their interests aren't being represented and are questioning the legitimacy of the system" isn't useful because it's not in dispute. Very clearly people are questioning the legitimacy of the system. The question is why, and in particular why the point raised above undermines their perception of legitimacy.

see the general angst over the electoral college, which you yourself appeal to above

The point of bringing up minoritarian structures in American democracy (I was in fact referring to Congress and to state legislatures far more than to the EC) is not to claim they are illegitimate but to point out that conservatives claiming the system is rigged against them is wildly at odds with reality, where they enjoy strong political geography, a dominant position in the courts (where they can point to a string of judicial victories), and a huge news media ecosystem that plays to their tastes.

The point of saying "it turns out there's no vote you can cast or election you can win that will make your kids respect you" is that conservatives' core issue has very little to do with political power (which they have plenty of) and everything to do with the very rapid loss of cultural hegemony.

the actual basis of a functional society, which we might generalize as "cooperation and compromise based on mutual respect and shared interests between a supermajority of the population". But you don't appear to want to talk about that

One of the core elements of cooperation and compromise based on mutual respect and shared interests between a supermajority of the population in a democratic society is that you don't threaten to flip the table when you lose.

"you've won half the rolls, it's just that I win the rolls where there's actually money at stake"

I see no basis for thinking this is true. If someone wins half the time but insists their wins don't count and your wins are cheating, they're probably just a sore loser.

Too many for the margin to contain, but to list a scant few:

The difference in outcomes between Rucho v. Common Cause and Shelby v. Holder as a case study for the inequities of the courts as a remedy generally. The manifest inability to control police misconduct as a case study on the inadequacy of electoral remedy. The collapse of "free speech" norms and ideology once they became inconvenient to Red Tribe culture as a case study in the general inadequacy of informal norms as a social remedy. Red Tribe economic parasitism of the Blue Tribe as a case study in the inadequacy of economic remedy. I could keep substituting in liberal grievances, but I don't really see the point. Sometimes you lose, even when it feels like you ought to have won. That doesn't mean the game is rigged.

The point of saying "it turns out there's no vote you can cast or election you can win that will make your kids respect you" is that conservatives' core issue has very little to do with political power (which they have plenty of) and everything to do with the very rapid loss of cultural hegemony.

"Cultural Hegemony" is political power. Elected offices and Judicial benches and Laws passed are means to an end: the shaping of the society and culture we have to live in. It doesn't matter what the laws you pass say if people just ignore them. It doesn't matter what Rights you have rights on paper if the system won't protect or enforce them. Alternatively, you can skip the paper and simply go straight to the enforcement. Mandatory legalization of abortion nation-wide did not require a Constitutional Amendment; Judges simply asserted it into law. Meanwhile, the Second Amendment is a dead letter, even when the same court delivers decisions upholding it; suddenly the Judges' assertions have no force beyond the doors of their chambers. This leads to the inescapable conclusion that the power in question is not held by the Supreme Court, but is in fact held and wielded through "cultural hegemony".

Cultural hegemony, as you've noted, can't be voted on. It can only be fought over. Therefore, we need to fight over it if we wish to see our values upheld. We need either cultural dominance or cultural independence. Without them, the formal structures are useless.

Sometimes you lose, even when it feels like you ought to have won. That doesn't mean the game is rigged.

By itself, no, it doesn't. To get to the conclusion that the game is rigged, you need to look at how and why you lost. It's possible you did something wrong, chose the wrong strategy, just hit a run of bad luck, whatever. But we have many decades of evidence to look at, and my assessment of that evidence is that the game is, in fact, rigged. Power does not actually work the way the purported rules of the game claim it should. The law says that it's illegal to get a gang together and beat your opponents in the street when they attempt to exercise their first-amendment rights to free speech. Only, local governments can simply order the police to stand down, and the justice system can employ "prosecutorial discretion", and the press can selectively ignore the violence of its partisans, or even lie about who committed it. The law says you can employ self-defense against people attacking or threatening you, but those laws can be ignored and you can be prosecuted regardless.

Law is a coordination mechanism, and not even the most powerful one. The same goes for elections, judicial benches, and so on. No law gave Blues the right to riot and burn their way across the country in 2020, but they did it anyway, they derived significant benefits from the exercise, and they suffered no significant punishment. That's what power looks like, and that power is not shared with or accessible by my tribe under the existing formal system.

One of the core elements of cooperation and compromise based on mutual respect and shared interests between a supermajority of the population in a democratic society is that you don't threaten to flip the table when you lose.

Unfortunately for this argument, we have the actual history of table-flipping. Weather Underground bombers attempted to flip the table, and were rewarded with tenure. Black revolutionaries attempted to flip the table, and were rewarded with tenure. Blacks as a community have repeatedly attempted table-flipping, and are rewarded with their policy preferences being cemented into law. 2020 was the culmination of a widespread, highly coordinated exercise in table-flipping, and it was rewarded with vast cultural and political power.

Your argument is that the respect comes first. This is not the case. Values come first, and if they are compatible, a basis for mutual respect and shared interests exists. Blues engaged in open-ended self-modification of their values, and the result is that their current values are flatly incompatible with those of my tribe. We do not share a common understanding of the good, of what's right, what's legal, what's acceptable. Their current values make them a serious threat to my tribe, and they are evidently unwilling to leave me alone. They will facilitate lawless violence against me. They will attempt to destroy me economically and politically. They will weaponize "shared institutions" against me. They will do these things, because they have done them, and loudly declare that it was good to do them and that they should do more.

I am not under the impression that any of this is persuasive to you. I learned a long time ago that internet arguments don't persuade people, and as you demonstrated with your closing paragraph, selective framing can arbitrarily assign "victim" and "victor" status regardless of the facts. It's entirely possible that this is what I'm doing above, that I'm dead wrong or even lying, and it's not actually possible to prove otherwise. One can present the argument, make predictions, and observe results. That's all.

My prediction, as it has been for some time, is that the above narrative is decisively persuasive to Reds, and will continue to be for the forseeable future. The Supreme Court will never deliver an actual cultural victory to Reds. Cooperation will not bear fruit, and what successes they gain they will gain by fighting for them, by breaking institutional norms and structures, by going outside the existing system. Conflict will continue to escalate, leading to worsening crises. Norms and institutions will go on degrading and collapsing, because there's no foundation to sustain them.

So far, no one has furnished an explanation as to why legally lowering the effort bar so as to improve turnout is cheating.

Because the point is partisan advantage, not shared ideals. Why this rule? Why now? If the answer is "because it helps them win elections", and if that answer generalizes to norm-breaking generally, people lose trust in the norms. It's not what they're doing, it's why they're doing it. Appeals to sacred values don't help, because we've long concluded that the stated sacred values are a sham.

When the system's legitimacy is being questioned because of people exercising their right to vote, I think it's reasonably to ask why.

Here's a hypothetical scenario: in the near future someone discovers that superpowered mutants exist. But they're willing to cooperate with the government and we don't get X-Men style mutant persecution. Now, the government hires a mutant to drive through the streets of the city using his precognitive powers to discover who's sleeping late, but would vote for the Democrat if woken up and reminded to vote. Then, only those people get reminded to vote. Republicans who sleep late don't get reminded.

Would this be fair? After all, all that's involved is people exercising their right to vote, and the ones who aren't woken up could have woken up if they weren't so careless.

Would this be fair?

Of course not, because of the partisan selectivity. But that isn't really the case for mail-in ballots etc. They're mostly Democrat in many places, sure, but conversely that must mean in-person voters tilt Republican. In which case, by your estimation polling by in-person booths is unfair too because it leans towards one set of people.

The existing laws provide a set of standards thtat we've chosen, that ensures that some mostly-Democrat and some mostly-Republican groups both vote. Arbitrarily changing the rules lets you manipulate the result fo the election.

In-person booths is not manipulation of the election because the rules for in-person booths were part of the existing process that was decided in the agreed upon manner. Suddenly adding new rules for mail-in ballots is outside of that process.

Well all rules that change have to be changed at some determined point in time. And expanding mail-in voting is hardly any more arbitrary than keeping it restricted. For a long time the secret ballot was not a feature of British elections. Does that mean some MP who lost his seat because of the introduction of the secret ballot could complain about the 'arbitrary' changes made to the voting procedure? Under your argument the electoral system now has to stay the same literally forever.

By this reasoning, new voter ID laws would be just as illegitimate, since these also change the rules. Is that a conclusion you're comfortable with?

This is of course even more true if the voter ID laws are deliberately written so as to include forms of ID that Republicans are likely to have (such as gun licenses) and exclude forms of ID that Democrats are likely to have (such as student ID).

No, because it depends on the question of "what process was used to add the new voting ID rules".