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 -
You're an Australian, correct?
Trump is the current favorite to win the next election @ $2.40 (Roughly 41.6%). You can bet 1000's of AUD currently on this not to happen at 58.4% (with a minor commission, taking you to about 56% implied) on the Betfair exchange. Tax-free winnings as an Australian hobbyist, too. As you think Trump is 85% to get jailed here, surely that makes your number of him winning the election a lot lower than 41.6%. Can even bet against him to win the Republican nomination at 81.3% with similar liquidity. No counterparty risk there.
I think that price probably is already incorporating a high probability of his legal problems derailing him. 41% is really low considering how big his polling leads are against all his opponents.
It's very unclear to me how many people will abandon Trump if he goes to prison, or even if the political effect will be negative at all. Somehow he's only increased his support as he's been found to have committed sexual assault, fraud, and insurrection. Maybe this time is different, but maybe the country has just decided "joke's on you, I'm into that shit".
He's increased his support in the Republican primary, but the primary voters switching to him in response to the indictments are die-hard partisans who were going to vote R in the general no matter what.
538 isn't publishing a poll tracker for the general yet, but the Biden and Trump approval polls have been pretty flat since before the indictments, and anecdotally Trump has consistently been a nose ahead of Biden in head-to-head polling.
More options
Context Copy link
He hasn’t been found to have committed sexual assault (the juror returned a really weird verdict), the fraud claim was a judge citing property tax value as real value which shows the absurdity of the holding, and another judge “found” he committed an insurrection despite that being entirely dicta (ie the judge could have found that Trump was literally satan but it would be irrelevant).
The verdict was that he committed sexual assault but not rape.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
To be clear, I think this is actually a good and normal response from a nominally democratic nation's regime jailing the primary political opposition. Even if I didn't like the someone's policies, I would want them to win against an obviously tyrannical regime attempting to deny an electorate a free choice, particularly with as flimsy of grounds as him supposedly causing a riot at the end of a year when riots were egged on all over the country by politicians on the other side.
And I'm again reminded of the various things I've read arguing that this is in fact the proper, "democratic" thing to do, to defend Our Democracy against the terrible threat of "authoritarian populism," and that refusing to provide the electorate the choice they want is just about morally obligatory.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'm presuming by the "committed sexual assault" you mean the E. Jean Carroll case? Which is a dreadful example if you're trying to convince anyone that it's the truth of the matter. The claims are very hard to verify - he went into a changing room with her in a department store and assaulted her, but nobody else heard a thing? No shop assistants? No other customers?
And while she was talking and writing about it for decades, she never went to court over it. And the case was, in fact, not for rape but defamation, and it was in a second lawsuit that she added in the assault charges. Which had lapsed due to the statute of limitations, but very helpfully New York State legislation was passed to permit adult survivors of sexual assault to bring cases after they were statute-barred - so long as the case is brought between November 2022 and November 2023.
Now, the act wasn't specifically for Carroll, but it sure turned out convenient timing for her. Well, nothing more than that, maybe.
But compare the Tara Reade allegations against Biden which were pooh-poohed immediately by the same people who were devoutly nodding along that Brett Kavanaugh was a rapist and Trump was a rapist and everyone ever accused of anything was indeed a rapist. If Reade's allegations are nonsense because of where and when they are alleged to have happened, what about Carroll's allegations? The conviction on the basis that "okay, over the years she told a lot of people it happened, so it must have happened"?
Again, I'm not defending Trump's sexual conduct, but this is a very shaky "he said/she said" conviction that is as much, or even more, about politics as anything else.
I actually agree with you that Caroll doesn't seem credible. I have a strong suspicion that Trump would have won that case if he had a better lawyer and listened to their advice. The Serious Trouble podcast ran a demonstration of what a better cross examination might have sounded like and it was brutally effective at painting her as a fantasist. Unfortunately for Trump his lawyer did a terrible job.
Okay, but with that opinion, the best you can muster is apparent bafflement that "somehow" his support increased anyways? Do you, as a human being, dislike people to a greater degree when you honestly think they were railroaded in court because they didn't have the top lawyers? I would assume that like most people, you would be sympathetic, and perhaps more likely to believe that they have been railroaded unjustly in other ways as well. I do not believe that you find this puzzling at all.
More options
Context Copy link
It's lacking evidence, is the trouble. Could it have happened? Sure. Did it happen? Who knows? Presumption of innocence should have quashed the case - if it weren't politically relevant.
Though I find it black humour sort of unintended consequences that, per Wikipedia, the Adult Survivors Act ended up with a lot of New York politicians and public services caught up in the trawl for "get yer prosecution in before the deadline":
More relevant I think is the fact that it was a civil trial so there was no presumption of innocence. The jury decided on the "balance of probabilities" standard rather than "beyond reasonable doubt".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It can be hard to get the best lawyers when that can be a career blackball for them.
And it really doesn't help when the client is notorious for both refusing to pay his lawyers and bad-mouthing them after they quit.
More options
Context Copy link
Also when you don't pay them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Or perhaps more charitably, the only effective way to defeat crocodile tears in the marketplace of ideas begins and ends with ignoring them. If you're being interrogated in bad faith- whether it's by the actual police or the moral police- engaging in that context is literally never a good move; you make your case directly to the judge(s) only.
As opposed to what his opponents have been up to the last few years, perpetrating institutional-level assault (sexual and otherwise) by intentionally refusing to prosecute crimes based on skin color, defrauding the public with respect to the seriousness of the uncommon cold (especially financially- that 20% reduction in nationwide life savings was definitely worth the 0.0001 QALY that reduction ended up buying), and burning, looting, and murdering their little hearts out in every major urban center a few years ago.
It seems natural that the political faction responsible for those things should face electoral consequences.
More options
Context Copy link
I learned to tune out this sort of misrepresentation of the opposing view points, it's par for the course for the modal progressive, but I'm mildly surprised to see you engage in it. Assuming your assessment of his chances of being convicted is accurate, you really honestly cannot think of another reason why his support might go up as a result?
I was obviously being flippant. I can concoct all sorts of reasons why someone might think anything, but it's all speculation. Maybe there's a ton of people for whom a conviction would remind them what a good job Trump did standing up against the obviously rigged election. Maybe some people will think "Good, he breaks the rules and gets stuff done". Maybe some people think that every conviction is further proof of the deep state conspiracy against him. Maybe all those people are vastly outnumbered by those who think the prosecutions are political nonsense but think the courts can be trusted to acquit him and are in for a rude shock. The point is, I have no idea how the public will react when it happens.
More options
Context Copy link
Well you can always rationalise any outcome if you're deeply committed to Trump, which is the entire problem really. If Trump is jailed, then Ok some people will say that he isn't actually guilty and the blob/Democratic establishment got him on phony charges, but if he isn't convicted then those same people will say that it proves the charges were fake and politically motivated in the first place. There is no result anymore that would possibly change the view of any committed Trump supporter.
You're still missing a few options. The institutions accusing him have lost all credibility as far as I'm concerned, but I'm actually agnostic as to whether or not he's guilty of one transgression or another. I just think that barring some Epstein-level scandal, you should still vote for him.
Well then even if 'into that shit' was a mild exaggeration, you're more or less agreeing with the sentiment that for Trump supporters his being guilty of insurrection is not something that would notably dissuade them from sticking with him.
I see where you're coming from, but that's not quite true. Simply put there's a "under present circumstances" missing from that statement, which I think is important to include, or else it implies I'm ok with it in the abstract. If the 4 years of Trump caused a reaction of the establishment comparable to the 8 years of Obama or Bush, I would not say you should vote for him either way.
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