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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
This has been talked over and over and over and fucking over and I'm beyond tired of it. So I'll be brief.
the absolute hysterics about the suggestion of voter ID. You'd get laughed out of the room in Europe for even suggesting elections can be secure without, at least, state issued photo ID.
the inherent untrustworthiness of mail-in voting
motor voter laws in illegal heavy state that opt-in people by default ? You joking.
the various vote dump anomalies, batches of ballots that were 99% or even 100% pro Biden, the fact there's a wide delta between when counties report votes, allowing for fraud.. ... you can go back to these discussions and read it again.
In short, unless you insist on strict, EU style or even stricter measures for running elections you are not a serious person. Your country is falling apart and the one thing you should all insist on is elections that are as secure as possible. Yet here you are, no doubt almost certainly opposing Florida-style measures. (seems to take it most seriously from what little I've researched)
This post is one I agree with:
Is your argument that all of these vulnerabilities were addressed in between 2020 and 2024, which is why Trump got in in 2024 and not 2020?
My argument is that it's some combo of
-enough of them were addressed and that also
-Biden was so horrifically bad and the democrat party such a trainwreck that it's entirely possible they also failed to organise the steal properly.
Still, a lot of work to be done before people from countries where elections aren't disbelieved but simply annulled (when result is not pro-American enough) can look at yours and say "seems to be ran in a sensible manner".
If Trump had won in 2020, what would your conclusion have been?
Do you think Trump was elected legitimately in 2016?
This is like "if the evidence still pointed to this suspect, but he didn't do it, what would you conclude?"
No, I'm sincerely asking the hypothetical. I find it deeply suspicious how many people claim an election was rigged when it doesn't produce the outcome they want, and insist that it was perfectly legitimate when it does.
If the evidence pointed to a suspect, but it turned out he didn't do it, I'd conclude that I was mistaken about this particular suspect but that relying on the evidence was still a reasonable thing to do in a world where it's impossible to be 100% certain about things.
And actually, Trump isn't even that situation. A suspect is innocent or guilty, but rigging elections can happen to a greater or lesser degree. It's quite plausible that the Democrats tried to rig the elections, but they weren't able to rig them by enough to affect the outcome.
Of course, the real problem isn't the Democrats rigging the elections, it's having a broken system where if the Democrats did rig the elections, you'd never be able to see it, because it's a broken system which makes the elections easy to rig undetectably. If a side supports a system which lets them cheat without evidence, the presumption is that they cheated even if there isn't any evidence. We don't know how much the Democrats cheated, and the way it was set up, they made sure we never could know.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link