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 -
Here is why I think Nate is wrong:
Actually, that is what happens when Republicans try to shut down the government when a Democrat is President and his cronies are running all of the departments. This, combined with the mainstream corporate media being overwhelmingly Democrat-aligned means this generates a very effective public pressure campaign that gets all but the most rock ribbed Republicans to soil themselves and cave.
Given that Musk has already been going around chopping off bits of the government without affecting anyone not employed directly by those programs, we have a proof of concept that a Republican-run shutdown could easily be ignored for months by the general public. THAT is a disaster for Democrats. If Trump were a Rand Paul level deficit hawk (which Silver correctly notes he is not) he would have intentionally played this chicken game HARD, and probably won decisively. As it is, he got a minor win without taking much risk.
Concurred. Nate is thinking from a polling / historical repetition perspective, but not a policy / 'what might have been learned from history' perspective. Schumer recognized the distinction, including the difference of who is in what position of power between now and the last major shutdown-sequestration in 2013.
One of the lessons learned from the Great Government Shutdowns of past was that sequestration- what happened in the US during in 2013 shutdown when government agencies had to lower spending to much lower caps- should not be executed as a 'everyone takes an equal hit' untargeted dynamic. The decision to do so was a policy choice, and generally considered a mistake, because not all things suffer equally by taking the same sort of untargeted cuts. It allowed high-profile / high-political-cost programs to dominate the perception of the cuts, while also disrupting uncontroversial efforts. That is what provided the polling / perception results Nate alludes to.
However, anyone going into another sequestration-shutdown should not expect that to repeat if the party who makes the decisions on what to cut actually wants to cut things (the Republican position), as opposed to wants to avoid any cuts (the Democrat position). Any future administration should, at the least, expect prioritization of most-desired programs and agencies, unless the goal is to maximize the political pain of an across-the-board sequestration (i.e. an untargeted approach).
An untargeted-sequestration is a tool to use across-the-board program disruptions to push back against a Congress that wants you to request less money, It was a tool presenting cuts as 'this is what you want, right?' It works by making Congress bear the burden or arguing that the government actually does not need the money it's clearly suffering from a lack of, which can provide the Executive leverage to argue for higher funding than the Congressional-cutters want it to ask for.
A targeted-sequestration is a tool to label unwanted programs as unnecessary and cut them down against a Congress that wants you to spend more money than you want to. It is a tool presenting the non-funding as 'this is what you want, right?' It works by making Congress bear the burden of arguing that the government actually does need the money it's not-as-obviously clearly suffering from a lack of, which can provide the Executive leverage to argue for lower funding than the Congressional-raisers want it to ask for.
Similar archetypes, but substantially different implications.
I think you duplicated one of your paragraphs near the end.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link