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 -
In the spirit of 'what American culture war development aren't we talking about because of the Trump tariffs,' might I offer...
Trump Goes After the (Largely Democratic) Federal Government Labor Unions
On 27 March, Trump signed an executive order titled the "EXCLUSIONS FROM FEDERAL LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS PROGRAMS." That is pretty vague, and I wouldn't blame anyone who doesn't recognize what it says inside either.
The (very) short version is that this executive order formally determines various executive agencies "to have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work." This is the criteria that allows an exception to normal public sector union formation rights and so on. (You don't want the military or CIA to form a union in case it decides to strike, after all.) That might make sense in principle. What may raise eyebrows are some of the additions.
Newly added agencies determined to have a 'primary function' as national security work or otherwise, include-
...and you hopefully get the gist. A number of not-usually-considered-national-security departments and agencies have gotten determined to be so. Which, by the law as written, the President can do. Which means also that the public union rules and rights don't apply.
Who does this matter?
Well, for one, public sector unions political action committees (PACs) donate overwhelmingly to the democratic party. $12.5 million vs. $1.6 million in 2023-2024. That's small in absolute political money terms, but shows a significant difference in union institutional support.
But more importantly, about half of all union members in the United States are public sector union members. That's about 7 million public sector members versus 14.3 million total. Further, the ratio of unionization is completely lopsided. Only about 5% (1-in-20) of the public sector employees in the US are unionized. About 33% (1-in-3) of public sector employees are unionized. That's all public-sector unions, mind you, not just the federal government. There are only about 1 million federal public union employees, so 1-in7 of the public sector employees. That's about 14% of public sector employees, or 7% of total union employees. And not all of those will be caught in this recategorization.
Still- last week Trump put in motion a wrecking ball that seems primed to take a major chunk out of what was once a foundational pillar of the of the post-New Deal Democratic party alliance. It seems also likely to defang / weaken some potential internal resistance organizers within the Federal government, which I suspect was the more immediate motive as Trump attempts to shrink the federal work force. But as far as far as the union implications...
Well, not everyone likes public sector unions. Arch-MAGA personality Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned against public sector unions, on grounds that the government couldn't negotiate with itself. The case against public sector unions has been made for many decade. I'll let people read those takes and have their own opinions. What's more important is that these arguments are not new, but have never made significant traction... until last week.
Reactions have broadly been overwhelmed by the media coverage of last week's tariffs and other Trumpian news cycles. The right-leaning City Journal lauds the effort thought it conceeds some of the classifications are a stretch.. The left-leaning Jacobin calls on unions to make a "militant" response. Somehow, I don't think that will exactly dissuade trump, but we will see.
Will this go to court? Already has. Are plaintiff unions liable to find sympathetic judges in the DC district court, where 11 of the 15 district judges were appointed by Obama or Biden? Probably.
Will they win? I don't know.
But I think this does add another bit of evidence that Trump's chaos has some deliberate intent that often gets lost in the media chaos that follows him.
$12M vs 1M — besides being lopsided, that’s just peanuts. It’s all barely a rounding error.
More options
Context Copy link
It seems worth noting that private sector unions are also decreasingly onboard with the DNC.
More options
Context Copy link
Wait, the
War DepartmentDepartment of Defense isn't usually considered a national security department? If that isn't, one wonders what is.This isn't raising eyebrows to me because a lot of this stuff seems trivially correct.
Stuff that has more gradual bad outcomes, like the Department of Education (not listed in this order), would be more of a stretch simply because their negligence degrades the country over long periods of time, not potentially overnight.
The ultimate problem with Trump II is that he's a reformer in a country that has hit the Snooze button on reform since late 2001 for some or other distraction- blowing up 10-dollar camels with 2 million dollar missiles, causing 30% inflation because some people couldn't be bothered to wear masks, whatever the fuck Trump I was, and Yes We Can discover that black Presidents are just as useless as white Presidents.
I have to admit that I'm a little jealous, since European countries are actively cracking down on reform parties and jailing their members for something everyone does (they're far more progressive-traditionalist than the liberal Americans), the UK public actively prefers Two-Tier state policy, and the Canadians are too busy bitching about checks notes being offered a vote on policies that affect them to bother with reform (which would make it more likely they survive as a whole country).
Really? Arguably one of the defining aspects of 'reform' in the traditional sense is it's opposition to special and entrenched interests, and a believe in a Chadwickian scientific governance. Free trade is in many ways the paradigmatic reform cause, as it stands against the special protection of a subset of society (manufacturers) in favour of the entire nation of consumers - most of the great reformers were free traders.
By contrast the whole ethic of Trump II seems to be that some of the nation deserves special status and protection (literally), and some of it (the public and service sectors) deserves punishment.
Yes. Really.
Who are "the Swamp" if not "entrenched interests"? Much of complaints about Trump being erratic and not listening to the experts reads to me as "special and entrenched interests" frustrated by Trump's refusal to "stay bought".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is the death blow to the Democratic party nomenklatura: if it goes through then it will be Trump's Great Purge, utterly destroying the federal government as an institution for generations. Even if Vance loses in 2028 there will be nothing left to rebuild. No one will make a career that can be destroyed on a whim every four years. We will see a return to the spoils system where government appointments are cycled in and out with every new administration as payoffs to supporters.
It does unfortunately seem as if one of the themes of this Presidency will be 'making all the mistakes which the nation learnt to avoid by lessons of experience it has since forgotten'. Given the company he keeps perhaps he'll start asking for a return to the gold standard next.
More options
Context Copy link
Every regulation has a corpse behind it. In the case of the Pendleton Act granting civil service protection, the corpse is a Republican President. You do not want to go back to a spoils system.
Luévano v. Campbell turned civil service appointments into a racial spoils system in 1981. America has already gone back to a spoils system.
More options
Context Copy link
The current system very nearly offered up the corpse of a Republican President not a year ago. The spoils system was very corrupt, and produced many results that were undesirable, but we cannot be locked to the whims of civil servants forever. And if we're going to be, let's stop calling it democracy and design our autocracy properly.
More options
Context Copy link
This is a fully general argument against repealing any regulation. The idea that we need a fourth unaccountable branch of the Federal Government to prevent assassinations by jilted wannabee civil servants is ludicrous.
One obtains a stronger rebuttal by pointing to the dynamics.
Stage one: Politicians seek out and appoint competent administrators to civil service jobs
This isn't formalized and the incentives for politicians are to game the system, leading to stage two
Stage two: A spoils system where government appointments are cycled in and out with every new administration as payoffs to supporters.
The disadvantages of this become increasingly apparent, creating pressure for reform and eventually the Pendleton Act
Stage three: A permanent civil service. This provides a reservoir of experience, damping down swings of the political pendulum. But it is also a source of inertia (perhaps I mean viscosity?) which leads to stagnation. Which tendency will grow with time, leading to the downfall of the Pendleton Act?
Neither. Ambitious men are always seeking power. Traditionally by standing for election. If they win, they have limited time to do something before standing for election again. Ugh! Perhaps there is more power to be had as a member of the permanent bureaucracy. Ambitious men game the new system created by the Pendleton Act.
Stage four: The civil service the fourth branch of the Federal Government, and answers to on-one.
A new President is elected to change the course of the nation, away from the iceberg, towards the rocks :-) But he finds that the fourth branch insists on steering towards the iceberg, and the Pendleton Act gives them real power.
Stage five: err, I don't know
The point is that we should expect bad reforms to fail because they are bad. And we should expect good reforms to fail because of the passage of time. Good reforms work well, curing the problems caused by people gaming the old system; that is what we mean by a good reform. But a good reform changes the system. It may take a generation before people work out how to game the new system, but game it they will. We should expect that no reforms withstand erosion by human cunning.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Hey, just like the late Roman Republic!
Trump came too early in the decline of the USA's one. He would have made a decent Nero or Caligula.
Would Nero or Caligula have had the full support of the Evangelical community, tho?
No but on the other hand they would have gotten on a lot better with the Europeans
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