site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   23932 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 17, 2025

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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Why aren’t Democrats physically occupying government buildings?

I’ve been reading and watching a lot of left-wing content lately. A big topic of conversation is what exactly Democrats could do to slow down or stop Trump. The “mainstream” opinion is that Democrats can’t really do anything except sue, since they control zero branches of federal government. I disagree.

DC voted 90% for Kamala. Pretty much every federal employee is in danger of losing their job if Trump successfully consolidates power. They could collectively decide to simply not comply with Trump’s orders. He would have to blow all of his political capital on calling in the national guard while his allegedly illegal orders get litigated.

Look at this video from the other week purporting to show Congressional Democrats being “physically blocked” from entering the Department of Education. They aren’t even really trying to get inside. They could totally storm in if they wanted!

Has anyone chained themselves to their desk? Or better yet, to one of these mystical “servers” containing so much sensitive personal data? We saw more effective civil disobedience over Gaza than we are seeing over our own government.

I have two theories for this incompetence, but am eager to hear more:

  1. All of the organizations and groups that typically organize and support these types of protests blew their entire budget on the presidential campaign. Then, money dried up as rich donors feared getting on Trump’s bad side.

  2. After January 6, the Democrats focused their self-image around the idea of “procedure” and “doing things the right way”. This calcified to such an extent that anyone in a position of leadership is now incapable of forming and executing plans which do not conform with the collective PMC understanding of what is allowed or “proper”.

I guess they are feeling defeated and correctly don't think it would help, until a more organised #resistance forms? I also think a good contingent of Dems will be looking askance at how much wild stuff the Trump administration is doing and thinking their best bet to keep quiet while their opponent is maybe making mistakes. There could be all kinds of bad fallout from so much action so fast, and it's better to attack that when it happens than be seen as hysterical yet again for e.g. noticing that Trump is a fascist (he is, but there is little profit left in saying it so the only option is to try to criticise him on specific bad consequences of his executive orders).

He would have to blow all of his political capital on calling in the national guard

Would he be spending or gaining on that? I mean, if the left tried a full-on coup now and failed, thats a big gain for Trump and would propably mean some serious Sulla activity. The legal challenges now are somewhat costly for him. Somewhere in between it flips, and they dont want to find out.

For your typical government employee/Democrat activist you underestimate how much privilege they are used to. Even judicious prosecutions (think 1/10th of J6ers) would be considered incredibly oppressive compared to what they have received for stunts in the past. With the precedent of J6 hanging over their heads plus the new AG likely being quite happy to take up the good cases, such people are looking at the prospect of actual consequences for such an action.

For a class that has been exempt from consequences for most/all of their lives that must seem like an extremely daunting risk.

On top of that, would such a thing be effective? Unlikely. DOGE and associated efforts are working (kinda) largely because they are popular. Defending unpopular programs with unpopular tactics isn't usually that great of a political tactic. I can work for a while if the media is running cover, as with the BLM summer riots, but without control of Twitter, and the rest of social media somewhat freed from oppressive left wing pressure from inside the DOJ and IC, they cant guarantee anything like that sort of propaganda control.

Maybe they all live in a different cheaper state now due to WFH.

What do you think they'd be accomplishing by such protests? Surely protesting Trump shutting down the Department of Education by occupying the Department of Education so it can't function would be counter-productive. Are you suggesting the individual federal employees that are fired... keep working, treating their firing as illegal and asserting they still have jobs?

There's certainly been calls from the left for the Democrats to do more. But obstruction and destruction of the federal government is what their opponents want; it very unclear what they could do that wouldn't just be helping the Republicans. Maybe physically obstructing DOGE employees and thereby forcing arrests, to make it look more serious? That's still just handing more power over to the Republicans (by reducing Democratic congressional votes), as discussed down-thread.

keep working, treating their firing as illegal and asserting they still have jobs?

The "I'm out of work, but I identify as an employee of the federal government" jokes write themselves.

Okay, I'll admit I laughed.

They won't fight back without power for the same reason that they wouldn't fight when they had power. "They" (the former establishment) are a bloated, hollowed out husk. They lack the ability or the consensus to take decisive action. I say this as someone that would have partially preferred that they stayed in power just for the stability it would have provided (Trump's actions will have huge unforeseen consequences - both positive and negative, even his most ardent supporters have to admit this). A competent "They" would have thrown the full power of the state against Trump the second he lost power the first time. Either that or used media manipulation to turn the page on him. In the end, they lacked the resolve to do either. They waited until it was clear he wasn't going away on his own, then launched a last minute, poorly orchestrated series of legal assaults that did little more than boost his popularity. Things that are too weak to defend themselves die. That's the way of the world.

A competent "They" would have thrown the full power of the state against Trump the second he lost power the first time. Either that or used media manipulation to turn the page on him. In the end, they lacked the resolve to do either. They waited until it was clear he wasn't going away on his own, then launched a last minute, poorly orchestrated series of legal assaults that did little more than boost his popularity.

You can argue that 'they' tried and failed, but not that they waited until the last minute.

The Mar-a-Lago raid, which was on August 22, was among the start of the legal cases against Trump, timed in part with the New York business fraud case where Trump was sued by the NY AG in September 22. However, the Fulton County legal case was launched in February 21, and the prosecutor team was coordinating with the White House by at least May 22' when Nathan Wade went to DC for a conference with the White House counsel, which was a period where the Democratic-aligned cases were implicitly being coordinated. The '22 legal offensive, in turn, was not only timed for the summer at a time that would create maximum pressure on the Trump wing of the party in the mid-terms, but staggered / set in such a way that the 2023 indictment stacking set the initial stage of the Republican primary season (where it might have been used by anti-Trump factions against him), and with the potential convictions for the '24 election (where the 'Trump is a felon' line would be used as planned).

The legal cases, in turn, were the supporting strategy after the Democrat's initial main effort, which was a coordinated effort to try and help the Never Trump wing of the Republican party, represented/led by Liz Cheney, retake control of the Republican Party via the medium of the January 6 hearings. This was in play in 2021, not only with the second Trump impeachment, but also by July 2021, when House Speaker Nancey Pelosi pulled rank and refused to let the Republican House Minority Leader seat his Kevin McCarthy seat his selection of Republican members, while keeping seating- and prime (and favorable) media coverage of the anti-trump remainders like Liz Cheney, who was used to promote the hearings bi-partisan and in turn received glowing coverage from the Democratic party-media alliance in an attempt to boost her and her faction in the inter-Republican leadership struggle that was building after Trump's loss. During this period, the Democratic Party was going all-in on the January 6 investigations and prosecutions as the way to discredit and delist Trump.

The issue for this 'Plan A' was that it failed on two fronts. First, Liz Cheney lost the Republican leadership struggle, decisively, and ended up getting the Never Trump wing of the party more or less branded as controlled opposition. Second, the January 6 hearings were timed to coincide with summer 22', and thus shaping the lead-in for the fall mid-term elections, but did not actually get the political impact the democrats were hoping for.

So, in timeline review-

2021 - Initial Reaction year Jan 6 line of effort: Initial shock reaction / reconsolidate control of government / start building the narrative Legal line of effort: Second Trump Impeachment, begin legal case building on both Jan 6 and non-Jan 6 lines. Republican party line of effort: Start never-Trump alliance with dissident faction of Republican party

2022 - Mid-Term year Jan 6 line of effort: Summer hearing fiesta, intended to establish dominant narrative for mid-terms and history Legal line of effort: Coordinate, begin initial suites, summer Mar-a-Lago raid kickoff Republican party line of effort: Attempt to leverage never-Trump splits, Trump association for mid-term advantage

2023 - Republican Primary year Jan 6 line of effort: Hearings largely concluding with Republicans retaking House, drawing down hearings Legal line of effort: Stacking indictments by summer, setting stage for '24 convictions Republican party line of effort: Attempt (but fail) to support Nikki Haley in Republican primary

2024 - Election year Jan 6 line of effort: Line of effort broadly expended; voters not responding well to it Legal line of Effort: Secure New York conviction, attempt ballot bans off of Insurrection theory Republican party line of effort: General election strategy

The lines of effort might have failed, but this was because they had largely burned out by 2024, rather than because they started at the last minute.

I think you're vastly underestimating what throwing the full power of the state at someone looks like. If you have full control over institutions, and the other side is going to pretend whatever you do is akin to killing babies, it basically means you have cart blanche to do what you want as long as you keep your base somewhat appeased. Trump seems to understand this. The old establishment didn't.

Media games/hearings to soften up support are a milquetoast response. Especially if your survival is on the line.

While I am glad you've now moved your position to 'it was milquetoast' rather than 'it was last minute,' your starting premise is still incorrect- the Democrats did not have full control over institutions, which is why building public support is a requirement, especially when survival is on the line.

The state is not actually a monolith of power. The state is an abstraction for groups of people each with their own host of powers, and 'the full power of the [group of people]' hinges on the ability of those component groups of people to agree to work together. But the flip side is that is you are too hostile to the sorts of power centers in the state, i.e. groups of people already within the state, then the state is in conflict with itself. And in the case of the United States of America, the state is deliberately designed to be able to shut down the power of the state.

When the Democrats came into power in 2021, they- rightly and wrongly in different ways- perceived they were not in full control of the entire system. They did not, in fact, control the Judiciary- hence the numerous proposals to pack the Supreme Court. They did not, in fact, control the entire bureaucracy- much as they were able to do Resistance activities from within the government, there were/still are substantial parts of the behemoth of state that are not firmly or uniformly Democrat. This is particularly true for the security state apparatus. And, finally, the Democrats were not in total control of the Legislative branch- they had a majority, but a fragile majority, and it only would have taken a handful of Democratic dissidents to paralyze the Senate and thus the ability to legislate.

To utilize the 'full power of the state' against Trump, the Democrats leading anti-Trump efforts didn't need to keep their base appeased, they needed to keep their political rivals appeased as well, because their rivals- not only Republicans and Red Tribers but also Democratic party rivals- are part of the state whose power / assent / cooperation is required to use the 'full power of the state.'

Hence, in turn, the attempts in 2021- from the very start- to establish a managed opposition relationship with the Never Trump Republican wing of the Republican Party. Because if the opposition party leadership were to be on board, then that would be a whole host of powers of the state additionally available.

A competent "They" would have thrown the full power of the state against Trump the second he lost power the first time.

Again, they did. They took thier shot (both literally and figuratively) and missed.

The cynical answer would be that with USAID gutted and the FBI/DHS under the microscope, the funding and institutional support for "activists" is suddenly a lot less forthcoming.

We'll find out in a few years at least. The government funding behind the "unicorn riot" antifa group vanished: they went from 3+million in 2020 to a few hundred k in 2022 according to their tax filings.

By 2027 we'll know if there was another peak this year or not. I suspect the green brigade got all the money after the IRA, and they're more about using the money to build themselves a "passivhaus" than buying riot weapons.

There may have been a logic to the Blitzkrieg beyond what we can obviously see.

So the entirety of the “cathedral” that governed all of western civilization was reliant on a few billy from the US foreign aid budget and the FBI? Seems unlikely.

It sounds like too little, but thats been observed before.

Why is it so unlikely? It seems that a large amount, perhaps even a majority, of the Democrats advocacy apparatus is at least partially funded by the US government. That plus donors still feeling the sting of dumping record breaking amounts of money into the Harris campaign debacle probably means the number of paid protestors is fairly low right now.

One thing I have been disappointment by is the lack of the "center left" pundits like MattY and @TracingWoodgrains writing long thinkpieces expressing outright embarrassment about how this whole apparatus of grifting off the feds is to them and their general movement.

Throw in The State Department, The Department of Education, Health and Human Services, The National Science Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, plus all the other grantmaking institutions in the federal government I can’t think of, and you can start to see how the power brokering and control of elite opinion might suddenly become a lot less lucrative once the money spigot shuts off.

I’m still surprised they aren’t fighting harder to keep the spigot on.

Because it would look (and be shamelessly) corrupt. When you shine a light in a dark place, the cockroaches scurry - not from any intellect, but from billions of years of survival instinct. Being quiet and hoping the bear eats you last is the play here: making a scene just makes you a priority target for the vengeful Trump administration.

I think watching the democrats, it’s fairly clear that they don’t really believe the stuff they’re telling the public. If they believe that this is the prelude to a coup, or tge destruction of these institutions as a permanent thing, or that Trump is setting up a fascist system, they’d absolutely be doing those kinds of things. They’d absolutely filibuster in congress so no congressional actions would be possible. What they’re actually doing is … nothing. And the mismatch is pretty obvious. Especially when you compare the actions of people in the know (administrative people and Congress) with the people outside the system who believe the rhetoric they used.

It’s certainly possible that they’re wrong and we actually are poised on the brink of a fascist dictatorship. But when the people in the know are acting like it’s all fine, I can’t take the idea seriously.

they’d absolutely be doing those kinds of things.

I think they’d actually turncoat very fast.

Or they’d be quitting and running. Of course they’re not doing that either.

I think there’d be plenty of warning to flee to Canada(and after that, further abroad) much closer to the time it actually became necessary if so.

Alternate hypothesis, that I simply want to be true, and it's pure vibes.

The Democrats know they have committed horrendous crimes. There is no longer any uniparty firewall between Trump and the proof of their crimes. No former CIA backstabbing Mike Pompeo as secretary of state. No more hostile FBI and other intelligence agencies that just want to investigate Trump and sabotage his admin versus validating the claims he makes about others. Even the DOJ seems more willing to bring the full weight of the federal government against his enemies, in much the same way they were brought against him, and it's not unlikely they'll actually find something. They might even investigate the claims of voter fraud versus dismissing them out of hand like Barr famously did.

A possibility exists where Democrats know exactly what they've done, and also know there is little that can save them at this point. They're in shock, and they are going through the motions. The anxiety of when the hammer will finally drop is killing them.

At least that's my fan fiction. Could probably use more guns and tits.

I get the impression that the election results have been deflating for the Democrats, not just because they lost, but because of who they lost.

Democrats REALLY liked the idea that, regardless of the vote totals, the voters who would make up the future (minorities and young people) were overwhelmingly on their side. And so losing young men, and having a severe dent put in Hispanic votes, has been really demoralizing and disorienting.

And it's specifically demoralizing in the context of taking radical action. "We have to take direct action because, even though old white Fox News voters have a slight voting edge, our base of marginalized voters, full of righteous fury, demand it - they can't wait any longer!" is a great motivator to direct action for a certain kind of progressive. "White middle aged upper middle class Karens are super pissed and are going to take to the streets after being repudiated by their sons", on the other hand, is... I don't know. Whatever it is, it's not at all the same kind of moral justification story.

All of which is to say, I think its finally sinking in that certain aspects of left-of-center radicalism are REALLY unpopular to a much bigger part of the voting base than had been previously accepted, and its unpopular with groups that left-of-center types don't feel as comfortable writing off. And yet those same people are still, also, uncomfortable with crossing the radicals in their coalition, too. So they are left in a bind about how to respond to the current moment.

Also, I think there is also a sense in those circles that their media / communication situation is much more damaged than they had realized. To make protesting valuable, you need favorable coverage that reaches the kinds of audiences you care about, and that requires a favorable media apparatus with serious reach. I get the sense that Democratic thought leaders, right now, have a sense that they've lost that, with legacy media having less and less reach and less and less trust, and with new social media like Tik-Tok and X and huge bro podcasts being less than sympathetic at this point. And worse still, the corners of social media that are more sympathetic to them, the corners that actually have audiences, are also often steeped in the Pro-Palestine / Anti-Israel stuff that massively fractures the Democratic coalition by driving Jews crazy.

Those are some thoughts, anyway.

@FiveHourMarathon pointed out that, in Trump's first term, the Democrats kept hammering in the message that Hillary won the popular vote (something something electoral college reform etc.). This was electorally meaningless, but psychologically important to maintain the narrative that Democrats represented the real will of the country.

Losing the electoral college and the popular vote in 2024 (albeit only by a 1.5% margin) must be profoundly psychologically disorienting.

I think you’re right that losing the emerging democratic majority is deflating but it’s also just that democrats don’t have a single ideology. Chuck Schumer no doubt is theoretically very progressive but probably he’s not entirely comfortable with trans. The radical activist wing is not able to execute radical solutions but that might be specifically the radical activist wing.

Chuck Schumer no doubt is theoretically very progressive

Said no one, ever.

Chuck Schumer is a generic liberal who has repeatedly acted to limit the influence of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

And it's specifically demoralizing in the context of taking radical action.

This would imply that they took the sort of radical actions OP is describing in response to Trump's first term, where he didn't have this sort of delegitimizing gain amongst important demographics and Russia hysteria was at its peak.

I don't think they risked felonies even then.

This would imply that they took the sort of radical actions OP is describing in response to Trump's first term.

They did.

Trump's first term was typifified by a series of escalations by the progressive wing of the Democratic party starting with disrupting senate hearings and government officials tweeting about joining the #resistance in 2016, and culminating with the "firey but mostly peaceful" protests and an election that a plurality of Americans are convinced was rigged of 2020.

A lot of these things were radical if viewed from the outside, but didn't put them directly at risk.

I would think the employed and well-off progressives were the ones providing cover in the NYT by shutting down things like Tom Cotton calling for a national response, not the actual people burning down cities (and even there there was more cover because some local authorities simply refused to use a strong hand).

OP is talking about them risking felony charges from a Trump-led government by trespassing on federal property or trying to bodily prevent Trump-appointed people from access. It's one thing to bully editors from your company discord for covering riots. But that is a different level of skin in the game.

The 70 year-old politicos aren't going to give anyone a chance to arrest them. The middle class bureaucrats aren't going to risk jail either without some cover.

The actual play would be to stoke enough rage amongst the general public and underclass for them to do it or provide cover for people with more to lose, at which point people can come out with the excuses used during BLM/Luigi frenzy: obviously it isn't ideal but there's a legitimate reason behind all of this we need to talk about, "language of the unheard" and all of that.

The problem, I think, is that significant swathes of the public simply don't care that much about minutiae around government departments. What this election seems to have shaken is the notion that these sorts of people actually represent the groups in whose name they seize power . Apparently it's taking them a while to find the rhythm again.

Even the drugged-out lumpenproles taking to the streets in 2020 were mostly acting because they knew they had official cover. Police that wouldn’t open fire on them, shady mystery funds that would immediately post their bail, political DAs that would recommend sub-minimum sentences, and a news media that would paint them as heroes. And I suspect many of them were receiving a salary for it.

You forgot 3.- USAID was paying the bills for left wing protestors, they’re incapable of being effective without it.

Of course, realistically, there’s tons of factors involved. Musk locked a bunch of these people out of buildings, for one. Lots of tactics short of arrest to use to break up these sclerotic and uncoordinated attempts.

Occupying government buildings to coerce a political outcome was merely planned by the Proud Boys and they got decades in jail for it.

They're only out now due to pardon, the laws are still on the books and available to the Trump DoJ.

“Man carrying things” parodying the vibe change:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LWPhZu0EeXg

Then there was this posted by Cenk Uygur (the not so young anymore Young Turks guy):

https://x.com/cenkuygur/status/1892057431179477251

Yesterday, @nytimes had a story about Democratic donors fleeing the party. That explains why the Democratic leaders look like deer in the headlights. Since the donors are gone, there's no one left to give them orders. So, they're like robots frozen in place, awaiting commands.

Didn’t have time to find the nyt story yet.

Pretty sure he is referencing this article. The Angle:

  • Donors believe money was not well spent in 2024
  • Donors are reevaluating the party and its priorities ("donate to people, not party")
  • Advocacy orgs are cited as making cuts and layoffs. The Times believes these would be spearheading resistance to Trump otherwise.
  • Major donors fear retribution from the Trump administration.

The last point is highlighted throughout.

Advocacy orgs are cited as making cuts and layoffs. The Times believes these would be spearheading resistance to Trump otherwise.

There might be something to this. Channeling Scott from his "Dark Money in Almonds" piece, it's kind of remarkable how small amounts of money in politics make a big difference. Kamala's campaign was uniquely wasteful, but she still only spent a couple billion.

So I think there might be something to the USAID cuts being able to kneecap advocacy.

Let's say that $50-100 billion annually leaked from the federal government into partisan NGOs. That money might be earmarked for nonpartisan things, but it freed up other money for the NGO to pay protestors, buy ads on social media, etc... Even $1 or $2 billion spent on those activities might move the needle a lot.

Now, those same NGOs need every dollar they have to avoid laying off staff. The money for paid agitation is just gone, kaput.

So I think there might be something to the USAID cuts being able to kneecap advocacy.

I would just make a point that even modest cuts can paralyze many sorts of organizations.

A 10% cut in resources isn't just 'you can do 10% less.' While the deadwood theory of waste is that if you cut off the waste (and some small part of the good) the rest of the body can grow / work better, in a lot of contexts a 10% reduction in the ability of healthy parts of a system to operate creates complications for other, also, healthy parts. Due to how responsibility loads tend to flow (you hyper-specialize roles to certain people), this can create administrative/logistical chokepoints with non-linear effects.

To give a vague example, going from, say, 2 officials to 1 on Job X does not mean the 1 takes twice as long to do the same amount of work- it can mean 2.5x as long, since the burden-sharing between two allowed better efficiencies / redundancy / surge capacity / so on unavailable to the 1. Particularly when 'flat' requirements that apply to a administrative unit (at least 1 person from each directorate is represented at a meeting' are constant, which in turn takes up a larger % of the single person's man-hours.

Eventually the system may rebalance and be better, but depending on the compliance requirements for the remainder, you can sometimes cripple organizations by making them just barely able to sustain themselves, with little ability for organized efforts. Like a skeleton without muscle that was lost in the name of cutting fat, it can exist, but not necessarily move.

I read you article

Much of the concern centers on legislation in Congress that would remove the tax-exempt status of nonprofit groups that are found to be supporting terrorist organizations.

I partly understand the concern. Legislation may be much different from how it is described. Nevertheless "tax breaks for terrorists" is bad optics. Does any-one know the story behind this? The article discusses various groups

Groups that support L.G.B.T.Q. rights, promote gender equity and champion other progressive causes have cut staffing and announced that longtime leaders are leaving.

but doesn't join the dots on how accusations of "supporting terrorist organizations" could be weaponized against the groups mentioned. Perhaps there are other groups, not mentioned, that are more at risk?

Based on the groups involved and the act, my guess is that people in those organizations had some dealings with Palestinian charities. Being charitable, my guess would be that they did less than enough investigation into them, and are realizing that they might be in big trouble.

After January 6, the Democrats focused their self-image around the idea of “procedure” and “doing things the right way”. This calcified to such an extent that anyone in a position of leadership is now incapable of forming and executing plans which do not conform with the collective PMC understanding of what is allowed or “proper”.

I think this is part of it, but I also think there is just a lack of physical courage among most people on the left (and people on the right, to be fair.)

I am genuinely not trying to caricature or strawman the left, but they do tend to attract a more effeminate, intellectual type of person as of late. Note that this CERTAINLY isn't true of the left historically, but seems to be the tendency today. Young men are at historic lows for the Democratic party, the group who tends to have the most physical aggression and willingness to go occupy a building or storm a castle. Combine this with the fact that physical courage seems to be dropping across the board, and you have people who simply aren't willing to put themselves at risk or take bold physical action in this way.

Combine this with the fact that physical courage seems to be dropping across the board

"Lying flat" is a type of strike/collective bargaining. It's not generally recognized as such because the people in power and the people who are thought to be on the side of collective bargaining are the same people, which is why China tries to suppress it.

the group who tends to have the most physical aggression and willingness to go occupy a building or storm a castle

Young men need to have an incentive to do that. They haven't had such a thing for 2 generations now- things have gone downhill for them since the '80s due mostly to enclosure by the old (through various justifications- environmentalism and safetyism being the most popular). In places that have less enclosure, people are doing better- TFRs are higher, wages are higher/costs of living are lower, the police force actually functions, military recruitment remains very high, R&D budgets are high, etc.

Now, young women generally benefit from that because young men will generally compete and distinguish themselves more for access to young women. But they've just discovered that the reward they offer to do those things- that being themselves- is insufficient. Their social credit card has been declined, and if you've spent the last 20-50 years forming your entire identity around having limitless social credit (and men fighting for the privilege to pick up your tab)?
Yeah, I can see how that could be existentially demoralizing. The lies stop being fun to tell when people stop believing in them.

Combine this with the fact that physical courage seems to be dropping across the board

The old also actively punish young men for exercising this virtue. If you remove them and create institutions that reward this it'll come back, but that's going to take some time and require investment.

Writing in 1844, Karl Marx describes the power of money sardonically

The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power. Money’s properties are my – the possessor’s – properties and essential powers. Thus, what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness – its deterrent power – is nullified by money. I, according to my individual characteristics, am lame, but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet.

Time has concealed the meaning of twenty-four feet, but Marx has already quoted from Goethe's Faust

“Six stallions, say, I can afford,
Is not their strength my property?
I tear along, a sporting lord,
As if their legs belonged to me.”

so we know what he is getting at. He needs young men to join his anti-capitalist revolution, so he makes it clear that Capitalism involves the young man standing in the gutter while his girlfriend rides by in a six horse carriage, being pawed by the ugly rich old man who owns it/her. Such powerful rabble rousing! Marx knew human nature and how love could be used to harness young men to his cause.

But 1844 is a long time ago. Would Marx use the same trick today? I doubt it would work. He talks to red-pilled young men and they tell Marx the received wisdom of today's youth: "She's not yours, its just your turn." In today's hook up culture, there is lust, but not love. Marx hoped that young men would die for love. But nobody dies for lust.

My social credit card has been declined? That’s news to me. Do you have evidence that young men compete and distinguish themselves for access to me?

Do you have evidence that young men compete and distinguish themselves for access to me?

No disrespect intended, but this is common knowledge to the point that it defies belief that anyone would not know this (kind of like if you asked someone to provide evidence that people die if they stop breathing). If you're young enough you may not have realized it yet, I suppose. But young men spend vast quantities of effort to try to get attention (and especially sex) from women. It's the #1 thing on their minds, and a lot of things they do can be traced back to "showing off for the girls".

Or, as Chris Rock memorably put it: "Women are offered dick every day. Every [woman] gets offered dick at least three times a week. Three times a day, shit! That’s right, every time a man’s being nice to you … all he’s doing is offering dick. That’s all it is. ‘Can I get that for you? – How about some dick?’ ‘Could I help you with that? – Could I help you to some dick? – Do you need some dick?’" Yes he's a comedian and he's playing it for laughs, but it works because both he and the audience know how true it is.

Yes he's a comedian and he's playing it for laughs, but it works because both he and the audience know how true it is.

What else are they going to offer? Pussy?

(Actually, come to think of it, there are some exceptions to this: cougars are what women-offering-dick looks like, and "male-offering-pussy" is the trap archetype. 'Masculinity' and 'femininity' are derivatives of this, but they mean different things to each gender.)

My impression is that she's a trans woman. Things like putting "and no I am not a man" in her bio, and talking explicitly online about her UTI, and the proportion of posts about gender vs everything else.

On the other hand, no, being offered "dick" three times a day isn't exactly a positive experience, even if accompanied by some other performances.

My impression is that she's a trans woman. Things like putting "and no I am not a man" in her bio, and talking explicitly online about her UTI, and the proportion of posts about gender vs everything else.

Funny, my reading was just that she was a troll, especially because her bio has "[...] you can call me a troll until your throat hurts." My money would be on "cis male troll" before it would be on "good faith trans woman", but only because a username like "just a woman" feels like something neither a cis nor trans woman would make, and certainly not in this space.

I also clocked that. Normally, I don't think it matters what your identify is, only the content of your thought.

But if you're going to make your whole thing about gender, I do think it matters a lot whether you are trans or not. Especially if you're going to ask for "sources" that men want sex from women. The experience of a trans woman is not the same as a biological woman. It's just not.

Who knew my biggest struggle on this site wasn’t debating hobby horses it was convincing people I’m a biological woman. I even put it in my name to make it easy. If you want a picture of my tampon stash all you gotta do is ask.

Strangely, those are the sorts of details that suggested trans to me.

(I have given birth to three children, could probably have another, and have no tampon stash)

More comments

I want to make a Yaniv joke, but it's probably against the rules somehow -- so let's just say that on the modern internet, not only does nobody know that you're a dog, but nobody can be sure that you aren't a dog either.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog.jpg

More comments

I even put it in my name to make it easy.

There are a surprising number of corners of the internet now where P('biological woman' | 'explicitly and visibly states is a woman') is lower than P('biological woman' | 'NOT(explicitly and visibly states is a woman)').

(Alas, it is essentially impossible to gather proper statistics on this.)

I’ve been called a lot of things, but being trans has gotta be a first. That was a good giggle for me.

Edit: Also hey you try going five days in a row with barely any sleep from feeling like you gotta spend a penny 24/7 and NOT talk about it.

It wasn't based on much, so I'm willing to believe I'm just wrong about that.

I can assure you I have 100% organic home-grown cage-free open-field breasts.

I mean, I didn't say it was. Just saying everyone i know (women included) is well aware that young men spend crazy amounts of effort on catching the eye of young women. Whether it's sexual or not (it isn't always), young men are thirsty for female attention and chase it very, very hard.

The fact that their first instinct to oppose him is to open up a lawsuit is telling. It may have been more effective in a previous era, but it relied on a high-trust society which saw the institutions of government as legitimate. They really have absorbed the Asimovian morality of 'violence is the last resort of the incompetent', but hoping that historical forces give you victory isn't strategy. It's not even tactics. It's assuming that the universe will award you with moral victories without developing virtue.

I imagine that filing a lawsuit to overturn an executive order is a delicate business. If an ordinary lawyer tries it, their case will be promptly dismissed. Only the top, expensive lawyers get hearings for fancy legal theories leading to restraining orders against government actions.

Expensive lawyers. These lawsuits may become rare if the dark money from USAID and elsewhere dries up.

Has anyone chained themselves to their desk? Or better yet, to one of these mystical “servers” containing so much sensitive personal data? We saw more effective civil disobedience over Gaza than we are seeing over our own government.

This kind of behavior would require actually committing to have one's own skin in the game, quite literally. That is not something most people who do white collar work are accustomed to or desiring of. If they lose their comfy government jobs, maybe they have to go on welfare or whatever at the worst case - though that seems likely to be rare, and I'd guess the median and modal result is finding a less desirable job that pays less/offers less security/offers less status. If they storm the DOE or chain themselves to their desk, the worst case is getting killed while being arrested, and I'd guess the median and modal result is spending some time in jail or even prison. The proportion of people who work comfy white collar jobs who believe so much in their principles that they would risk the latter when the former is right there as an option seems likely to be very small, from my experience living among such people.

maybe they have to go on welfare

You misunderstand. The government job is the welfare.

It is in the best interests of the people receiving the welfare that a significant fraction of the public perceives them to have been removed from the dole without cause to maximize the chance of being back on the dole if and when welfare is expanded again. That's a much harder sell if they're removed for cause.

This is instinctual behavior, which is why it doesn't require any tho(ugh)t-leader on Twitter to say "just comply with it, don't resist". Compare parents who tend to be cowed into submission should CPS threaten to take their children away.

This is also partially why removing the probationary welfare recipients is probably a sounder tactic than it would seem at first- people who aren't used to it yet are [politically] easier to wean off of it than people that are.
And the people that have been there for a long time aren't going to be employable once they're fired because, like a coal miner in his late 40s, his skills won't transfer no matter how smugly you say "learn to code"... which is why, when the mine's shutting down, you offer the motivated ones several months' severance so that they may buy and attend training for a different job, move to another area, or leave the workforce entirely- the other reason being that, because they're competent, they can throw their weight around much more effectively if the reason the mine's closing is a political decision on the owner's part; if you're going to purge a group, and the group will 100% find out before it occurs, it's best to offer favorable terms of surrender to the ones that could make a real mess before the purge occurs (obviously blind-siding everyone costs less, but democratically-elected politicians can't do that for obvious reasons).

Compare parents who tend to be cowed into submission should CPS threaten to take their children away.

Or use as a threat ‘CPS says we’re hitting you too much, you’d better start behaving or they’ll take you away.’.

I have a feeling this calculus is understood by the Trump team and is the fulcrum of their attack: ain't nobody gonna do nothin about it!

theory 2 might hold weight if they believe any kind of storming of a building is now an insurrection

I feel like that would fit my theor that the Dems have been hoisting flags and wearing belief that force them into ever smaller corners. They can't act because they, through their own speech, have outlawed the beliefs needed to act.

Republicans in Congress have such a slim majority right now that Democrats cannot afford anyone to be arrested for any period of time. They already have to convince 5+ Republicans to get a majority, they don’t want to sabotage themselves and make it 6+ because one of their own congressmen pushed through the National Guard to get into his office and was arrested on the spot. Republicans are counting on them to resist so that they can lock up the congressmen and drag out the proceeding legal fight so the congressmen are too busy trying to get out of jail and can’t vote on legislation.

I highly doubt the Republican party wants to actually lock up Congressmen, seems like this would be a huge waste of political capital. Well perhaps they want to, but they know it would be a foolish move strategically.

This seems like a bit of a paranoid fantasy from my perspective. If anything the Republicans have been far less willing to use lawfare against their opponents than the last Democratic president.

They would cite Santos precedent and kick the person out of congress (which would be justified)

The Republican party released a video of migrants in chains and called it ASMR. In my opinion it’s not a reach that the cruelty can stretch to that, and that they believe they have the political capital to do it, seeing as, in my opinion, their base has supported every cruel executive order made so far.

link? (not a pun)

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/02/18/white-house-x-immigrants-deportation-shackles-asmr-video.html

Democrats have such a slim majority in Congress right now

Democrats are in minority in both the House (215 D / 220 R) and the Senate (47 D / 53 R).

Your observation still stands.

Oops mb

Umm….republicans have the majority (unless the joke is that some rep are actually Dems)

I guess that’s “the joke”? In my opinion, the Democratic strategy is that not all Republicans are the same. The Republican majority is slim, so there is wiggle room convince only a few to not vote on legislation.

There's an argument that Trump/Elon have disrupted the left's nexus of command and control: a combination of social media/mainstream media/NGOs who could be mobilized to astroturf protests or to fan the flames of existing protests. In this model, a "movement" might start on Twitter with a hashtag #DCsitin and then mainstream media would report on it favorably, people would turn out in the streets (including paid protestors), and the government would feel pressured to do something to make it go away. Some have called this the "color revolution" playbook. I think this is a bit conspiratorial but maybe descriptive of a system that evolved organically.

Note: On a meta level, sorry for posting my top-level comment right after yours. When I see a stale front page I sometimes get motivated to write something. Next time, I'll double-check that no one posted while I was writing.

I mean, this is very much the thesis that Mike Benz keeps putting forward. USAID and it's network of NGOs functioned to almost completely manufacture reality. He's so far down that rabbit hole, he believes that almost everything we perceive about politics and where the consensus lies is a carefully constructed lie by USAID and NGOs.

I had an article once, I can't find it now, talking about the nuts and bolts of how these protests work. Which is basically that a network of like minded (the article doesn't go into funding) activist embedded in various organizations start working the phones and collaborating with each other, and they do so with such speed and behind the scenes deft, the entire effort seems natural. The "community organizer" calls their local representative who calls a friendly reporter. At some point the perfect "victim" with a sob story is selected. Sometimes it's even true! The reporter is networking with the totally doesn't exist anymore Journo Pros mailing list to get their little set piece national coverage. A local affiliate goes out to get the B-Role footage that every cable news network is going to use. And the key to this whole thing is speed. Within 4-8 hours of whatever event occurred that could boost a narrative it's been done. A layman might think it was totally organic, when in reality it was just a rolodex of numbers.

And possibly a bunch of USAID funding...

IF USAID funding was such a key part in all this, it being cut off says a lot about why the Democrats seem completely adrift and feckless. During the Summer of Floyd, Maxine Water's used to be able to nakedly call for violence in the streets, and next thing you knew a mob was harassing random diners in Baltimore. Now, it's like someone took away whatever causal mechanism turned Democratic politician's speech into flashpoints on the streets and then national news stories that bolstered their narrative.

I mean, maybe the nation just isn't feeling it anymore. Maybe 4 years of Biden's "The adults are back in charge" just destroyed something in people's minds about how responsible D's are versus R's. Maybe the skill level of the D leadership has fallen off a cliff and they forgot how to do this shit. Maybe more than just SV billionaires defected to Trump.

Maybe it was USAID the whole time. It's a convenient explanation.

Whatever it was, it seems like the Democrats have lost their mojo.

The "community organizer" calls their local representative who calls a friendly reporter.

I have started almost completely writing off news stories about filed lawsuits for this reason. The bar to file is so low that except in situationally interesting cases (IMO: raises novel legal questions), I just can't be bothered with "patient says doctor didn't tell them about side effects" or "plane crash survivor sues airline". It genuinely seems to me like many of these articles are really (goodeffective) lawyers exercising networks with journalists to put public pressure on their counterparties to settle, or, less often, to raise the prominence of their clients. It'd be one thing if the articles had substantive analysis and outside facts, but they typically lazily repeat one party's claims from the filing.

The most hilarious theory I’ve heard is that Gaza caused democrats to purge the Jews from their leadership and replace them with incompetent black women. Don’t know if it’s true though.

That sounds like nonsense. The Democratic organizational base has been Black women for decades. That's why the party hasn't moved left as much as the very-online contingent of progressives want it to. Those Black women are a lot more conservative (both in the "further right politics" sense and in the "less willing to shake up the status quo" sense).

In other words, Black Women Are Less Likely? (Slate Star Codex, February 2015)

That's why the party hasn't moved left as much as the very-online contingent of progressives want it to. Those Black women are a lot more conservative (both in the "further right politics" sense and in the "less willing to shake up the status quo" sense).

This is news to me, I thought it would have been Black men who'd be the more conservative type.

Sure, men tend to be more conservative than women. But community organizer types are mainly women not men.

Blacks as a whole tend to be overwhelmingly Democrat to a stupid degree - it's why the various polls over the recent years showing movement at the margins tend to result in such concern from the Democratic party as a whole.

When you've spent decades having a solid block of voters and not having to expend any resources to keep said voters, the moment you start to notice a ground-shift often results in panic.

Maybe the skill level of the D leadership has fallen off a cliff and they forgot how to do this shit.

Speaking of compelling theories...

There's been some chatter going around X about how the Democratic Party is a casualty of Hamas. I think the logic goes something like this:

  1. A large percent of Democratic Party operators are/were high human capital Jews

  2. After 10/7, the left wing of the Democratic Party became anti-Semitic

  3. "Jew" is now a slur in leftists spaces. Jews are denied leadership opportunities or simply leave.

  4. Within the party infrastructure, Jews are replaced with low human capital DEI hires

Result: complete incompetence, Kamala Harris, Karen Bass, etc, etc..

"Jew" is now a slur in leftists spaces. Jews are denied leadership opportunities or simply leave.

The slur is "Zionist" (to gives them the veneer of plausible deniability)

The second half of 3 as well as 4 presuppose that “leftists” control hiring, and promotion to leadership positions within the Democratic Party infrastructure. Is that in fact the case?

In a sense, it's trivially true in that Democrats are the leftist party.

But, yeah, I think there has been a bigger emphasis on DEI over competence within left-ideology. Hard to imagine that doesn't spill over into the party itself.

My point was, there are (as in any big-tent party) multiple wings/factions within the Democrats. The hardcore idpol progressive leftists—the sort who are alleged to be antisemites who care more about DEI bona fides than competence—are one such wing, but there are at least 2 others: the anti-idpol class-first leftists (roughly corresponding to Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren supporters) and, for lack of a better term, “The Blob”, aka the centrist PMC/technocrat wing who may pay lip service to DEI but remain staunchly pro-Israel (basically Clinton and Biden supporters).

It’s not obvious to me that the idpol-left faction has taken over the Democrats to such an extent that they can purge competent Jews as mentioned above.

The black political machine is another important wing for the democrats.

So you have a minor class-first wing, an establishment blob wing, a far left wing, and a black machine politics wing. I’m guessing the blob can’t carry the other three on it’s own.

Man, hearing you break out the various political machines made me wonder how much the other competing rackets in the DNC coalition treat the black political machine. Especially when time after time, under the slightest amount of public exposure, they turn out to be literally retarded.

But instead it got me thinking about how much of politics is just ritual. It doesn't matter that people like the Philadelphia mayor are nakedly retarded. At some point a consultant will give her the magic words that say "I'm electable". The press will go "She said the magic words that make her electable". And all the voters will think to themselves "Well, the priestnews said she said the words that mean I should vote for her". So she's mayor. Apparent illiteracy aside.

And I single the black political machine out for their politicians just nakedly being unable to speak properly, display a 5th grade level of education (see above), or provide believable explanations for their preposterous behavior. If machine politics weren't at play, it's hard to imagine how these people could have ever gotten anywhere close to the positions they hold.

I mean, here we are, this lady couldn't spell Eagles despite it likely being somewhere right in front of her, I doubt it will impact her electability one iota. Howard Dean's political aspirations were destroyed by one awkward scream. "What's Aleppo?" will haunt Gary Johnson in his nightmares until the day he dies he was beat over the head with it so many times. Overwhelmingly the priest decide what matters and what doesn't, and their congregation just receives that opinion.

Obviously, politics as ritual is responsible for people like Mike Pence too. All I ever heard about him was that he was "electable" despite not knowing anything about him, or anything he's ever said, or any accomplishment he could ever lay claim to. There is very clearly a ritual to rightwing politicians as well, with different magic words and a different priestly caste conferring "electability" unto them.

Which is clearly what drives many of these people completely fucking insane about Trump, and now many of the people who have rode his coattails in his new coalition. These are bipartisan heretics one and all. They don't ritualize the right words, the priestly caste has excommunicated them, and none of this was supposed to happen god damnit! It was the end of history!

In theory, there should be a DNC bench of outcast that could take over the DNC just as hard as Trump and 8 years of Trumpism took over the RNC. But instead, Trump stole many of their best outcast too (RFK Jr, Tulsi, Elon).

It's going to take a new DNC to have any hope of keeping up with the new RNC. If rumors of the Black Political Machine filling in the gaps left by a withering coalition are true, jeeze.

More comments

You're forgetting intersectionality.

Ironically, the ideology that presumes to be about collectivist organization is, in practice, extremely individualist. There are no factions, not in the traditional sense: but thousands of extremely self-interested individuals who have been handed a superweapon to destroy the 'pale, male, and stales' in their way of sinecures and political power.

When you get cancelled, the factions cease to have all meaning.

All of their hands are stained with this blood. Internally, they are just as paranoid as Stalinists. They may internally not believe in idpol but they are forced to because there are hundreds of people after their jobs. They are all replacable, mediocre nobodies that can have everything taken away from them because all they have was given and that is by design.

I thought it was very convenient: "race and IQ poaster concludes problem is race and IQ". But it is interesting to see the left-wing version from Cenk Uygur posted above. Both sides seem to think Democrats lost or alienated important human capital.

Note: On a meta level, sorry for posting my top-level comment right after yours. When I see a stale front page I sometimes get motivated to write something. Next time, I'll double-check that no one posted while I was writing.

Don't worry about this. I for one welcome more and more top level posts.

Those tactics are for show; they only work when there's real power behind them. Federal employees deliberately defying him would just get fired for cause. Those occupying buildings would be arrested by Feds who remained loyal (even if that meant using CBP for it). And Trump wouldn't "blow political capital" doing that; he'd probably gain it.

Why risk 35 years of comfortable sinecure because of 2-4 years of mild discomfort?

Trump wouldn’t be blowing his political capital. This stunt would increase his capital. People generally don’t like sit ins. Columbia wasn’t popular.

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