site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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.

16
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Very helpful! I'm not sure why it took this much time and effort, and this far down thread to get you to answer a basic question about your argument. Having done so, the assumptions you are relying upon are much clearer:

  1. RNC uniquely cares about preventing election fraud, more so than or the exclusion of other parties

  2. The consent decree prohibited the RNC from sending poll watchers

  3. The inability for the RNC to send poll-watchers hamstrung efforts to uncover voter fraud

  4. RNC is the only organization that can plausibly coordinate poll-watchers for Republicans

  5. Law enforcement does not really care about investigating voter fraud unless someone brings them evidence

  6. Law enforcement avoids investigating voter fraud because of politics

#1 is just...what? Simply asserting that only/primarily the RNC cares about voter fraud does not make it so. #2 is false, the consent decree did not prohibit sending poll watchers. #3 is arguably false, but either way relies on the previous premises both being true. Even assuming #1 and #2 are true, it's not obvious how exactly the lack of poll watchers would handicap voter fraud investigations, as the judge in the consent decree discussed (see starting on pg 44 of the 2009 opinion). #4 is debatably true, but also requires #1, #2, and #3 to all being true. #5 is plausibly true (I know cops are lazy) but again relies on #1-#4 for this to matter. #6 is a bizarre claim to make about prosecutors, a group that is explicitly political and leans conservative.

Either way, I really appreciate the transparency. This was a markedly less frustrating comment to respond to because you took the time to lay out your assumptions clearly.

#1 seems clearly true on the intended interpretation, namely that the RNC uniquely cares about preventing election fraud against the RNC.

I don't understand, if #2 isn't true then why does the DNC seem to think it is? Per Politico: "To extend the decree, the DNC needed to show that the RNC violated the terms of the pact. Democrats pointed to a series of incidents during the 2016 election in which they alleged people who claimed or appeared to be working for the RNC were engaged in poll watching."

On #3, the idea is that poll watchers serve to deter and potentially spot shenanigans as they happen, but either way I don't see how having partisan observers all over the place wouldn't greatly increase the odds of catching someone out compared to not doing so.

#6 also seems true, since as you say, most prosecutors are elected and prosecutors elected in blue states or counties are not going to generally be incentivized to investigate voter fraud against their opponents' political party.