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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024

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A bit of heat generated by Trump dubbing Nikki Haley "Nimbra", a butchering of her Indian birth name:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4420434-trump-on-mocking-haleys-birth-name-its-just-something-that-came/

I'm not sure who the media controversy is aimed at. His base is absolutely going to love it, the normal Repubs have no choice but to vote for him, and his enemies can't hate him more than they already do.

I predict if her numbers continue to climb, he's gonna mention her daughter's married to a black guy. Way too tempting for a guy like Trump.

On that, a surprising number of the establishment Republicans have kids married to black people. Haley, McCain, Boehner, etc. What's with that?

  • -11

On that, a surprising number of the establishment Republicans have kids married to black people. Haley, McCain, Boehner, etc. What's with that?

Because they're not Aryan race warriors. Nor are other normie republicans.

No bet on mentioning the daughter.

As for the marriage rate, a lot of prominent Republicans are from the South. There are a lot more black people in the South. Case closed?

At least if this graphic is to be believed, the Deep South has pretty low intermarriage rates.

On the other hand, I'm not even sure the premise that an exceptional number of GOP figures have black in-laws is correct.

a lot of prominent Republicans are from the South

I would've thought that would be anti-correlated with likelihood to intermarry.

Being a liberal, this might blow your mind, but states with higher rates of integration have higher rates of intermarriage. Contra the popular narrative, New York and California are substantially more segregated and stratified than states like Florida Alabama and Georgia are these days.

Is this true? This is what I could find online:

  1. (via Wiki) This paper from the 90s claims based on census data that between the 60s and 80s intermarriage rates between blacks and whites were much higher in the Western US than in the South. In 1980, 16.5% percent of all marriages involving a black person were with someone from another race on the West Coast in comparison to just 1.6% in the South.
  2. This map by Pew shows no obvious trend in the South. Metro areas in Texas and Florida have high rates, but basically the same as SF or LA and not that far above Chicago or NY. Elsewhere in the South it looks like average or slightly below to me. (caveat: this is for all races, not just black-white, and it's just urban areas)
  3. As a proxy for intermarriage, although 56% of all black Americans live in the south, just 41% of mixed-race Americans with black heritage do so. Naively, this seems to point to higher intermarriage rates outside the South, although this might be skewed by internal migration.

Is this true?

Anecdotally, as in go to a middle-class sportsbar in Atlanta or Gulfport during football season and compare the demographics of the patrons to a similarly middle-class sportsbar in Boston, Denver, or Sacramento, absolutely. It is not even close, and I would be deeply skeptical of any source claiming otherwise. As the old saw goes, there are three sorts of lie, lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Not really- there's not a lot of evidence that post-1990 Southern Whites are any more racist than Northerners, and historically Southern racism has been less concerned about maintaining distance and more concerned with the hierarchy anyways.

Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India, was born in South Carolina as Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. She has always gone by her middle name, “Nikki.”

The Hill liked this line so much they copied it verbatim from their last article on this. But the article prior to that was different:

Haley, the former South Carolina governor, was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, as Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. She has always gone by her middle name, “Nikki.”

It's a good thing The Hill is here to remind everyone of the racial angle, since Haley so stubbornly refuses to.

I’m rather surprised, if this was him trying to find an insult rather than him just screwing up her name, that he didn’t just go for the obvious “Nimrod Nikki Haley” which sounds very Trumpy.

He's called her "Nimrada" before. It's clever, but not actually effective, and didn't stick, which is why nobody remembers it.

Yeah nimbra seems kind of weak for Trump, it sounds like he flubbed the line even. And nimrod would have been great. I think any appearance of hostility between them is just campaigning - Haley isn't going to be president and wants in on the administration and Trump may or may not want her back, but he knows she's a good politician and wants her on side.

Trump is too well versed in Greek mythology to make such a low brow reference.

Nimrod is probably the biblical name for Sargon of Akkad and has nothing to do with Greek mythology.

He probably is vaguely aware that "Nimrod" is not an insult, or maybe he was going for that and misremembered the word.

On that, a surprising number of the establishment Republicans have kids married to black people. Haley, McCain, Boehner, etc. What's with that?

I mean, more or less than 13% of all establishment Republican kids?

The percentage of white Americans with a black spouse is surely much less than 13%.

I'm reminded of the Wojak meme where the pink haired lesbian is ranting about mixed race marriages and a white guy with black girl is like "what's "mixed" about it? I'm a 'Bama Fan, she's a 'Bama fan, and we've known each other since the 6th grade. It's not like I married a Tennessee girl you heathen."

That would be higher than average because people tend to marry intra-race at a higher rate than the population mix.

I predict if her numbers continue to climb, he's gonna mention her daughter's married to a black guy. Way too tempting for a guy like Trump.

I think it's very unlikely he will do this, simply because neither Trump nor most of his supporters care about this. I think you are making the same mistake as the media by assuming "Nimra" is a racist dogwhistle. It's not, it's serving a different set of purposes:

  1. It calls attention to the fact that she doesn't use her real name, which makes her seem fake and insecure.

  2. Like all Trump nicknames, it's a power play. If you can give someone a nickname and make it stick, it reveals a kind of power you have over them. And I think it's clear that Haley could not do the same to Trump in reverse -- all prior attempts at nicknames (Drumpf, Cheeto, etc.) have failed to stick.

all prior attempts at nicknames (Drumpf, Cheeto, etc.) have failed to stick.

Yeah, it is interesting. I think it’s that most attempts (which, to be fair, often did stick amongst Democrats; you still see plenty of Drumpf/Cheeto mentions in Reddit and Facebook/IG comments) on Trump weren’t really insults, just kind of babyish name stuff. ‘Crooked Hillary’ at least kind of implies why you don’t like her, ‘Cheeto’ doesn’t.

I think if I was an opposing politician and had to pick some kind of insult for Trump it would just be calling him “fatty” or something. Just go ultra-low, “shut up fatty” in the debates tier. People might laugh, who knows? The second you go from “moron” to “orange moron” you become le epic cheeto cringe etc.

Rule 1 of fighting nationalists - don’t let them become proxies for their supporters. Lots of Americans are fat, lots of them have bad tans.

Nicola Sturgeon, erstwhile head of the Scottish Nationalist Party, withered away very quickly when it became known that she was embezzling donated funds. Attacking her for being too left-wing, too vague on the details of separation, or anti-English did nothing, because so are her supporters.

Likewise, Boris Johnson collapsed because he lied and went to parties during lockdown. For a populace which considers fairness and playing by the rules one of its defining traits, that immediately re designated him from “one of us” to “other”.

Rule 1 of fighting nationalists - don’t let them become proxies for their supporters. Lots of Americans are fat, lots of them have bad tans.

Exactly. You can't call him "fatty" because that's endearing and relatable to many Americans. You have to call him "gold toilet" or "Epstein island" or something. Something that makes him seem out of touch and elitist.

(which, to be fair, often did stick amongst Democrats; you still see plenty of Drumpf/Cheeto mentions in Reddit and Facebook/IG comments)

It's like saying "DEMONcrats" or "RepubliKKKans". People who say such things, unironically, show they have such bad taste they cannot be taken seriously. People who say "Drumpf" or "Cheeto" or "Mango Mussolini" look ridiculous. This doesn't happen with names that do stick, to name a few: "The Iron Lady," "Slick Willie," "Dubya," "Governor Moonbeam," "Tricky Dick," "Old Hickory," "Honest Abe," "Landslide Lyndon," "Papa Doc," "BoJo," "The Gipper".

Consider the following comparison: "Moscow Mitch"; "Cocaine Mitch". Both of those names are in use, but only one has "stuck". The other makes the speaker sound like a hack. I need hardly say which.

Trump himself is pretty good at this. His epithets stick. It helps that he comes up with so many of them and most of them aren't very good. But consider: "Little Adam Schiff," "Sleepy Joe," "Little Marco," "Rocket Man," "Pocahontas," "Ron DeSanctimonious". "Lyin' Ted" was has never gone away. "Low Energy Jeb" was so powerful it effectively ended Jeb's political career. "Crooked Hillary," however cornball and unserious it is, worked.

I've often thought Trump could have ended the primary months ago and cornered the Zoomer vote by decisively calling DeSantis "No Rizz Ron".

In all serious DeSadness would've been way better than DeSanctimonious, that was one of his weakest yet.

It doesn’t stick because they came directly from comedy TV. It’s not organic it’s something that they heard on TV and repeated. Drumpf came directly from Last Week Tonight and is the last name that the Trump family had from immigration to America from Germany. It’s not only uncreative but it’s astroturfed.

It's not really funny, the only insult in it is that it vaguely sounds a little like 'Dumb' (but not much).

Trump himself is pretty good at this. His epithets stick

Because Trump is willing to repeat them ad nauseum as a supposedly serious candidate. He has zero shame. Democrats and Haley fail for the same reason: they're in the wrong genre.

They try for gravitas and authority - "when they go low"...- instead of just being funny and hammering the joke in. It's Head of State, not House of Cards.

I get your point. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine any Democrat pol would’ve been able to make “Drumpf” stick no matter how many times he repeated it.

"Drumpf" has the additional constraint that it's not as good as any of Trump's bangers in terms of playground insult succinctness and is pretty weird for the pro-migrant Democrats to try to make happen.

The problem is that most Americans are fat.

I think if I was an opposing politician and had to pick some kind of insult for Trump it would just be calling him “fatty” or something. Just go ultra-low, “shut up fatty” in the debates tier. People might laugh, who knows? The second you go from “moron” to “orange moron” you become le epic cheeto cringe etc.

I would go for "Deadbeat Don". Four bankruptcies and all that. "Deadbeat Donnie" if I was taller than him.

Natural hilarity overshadowed by Trump’s, but still a regularly entertaining fellow.

What's with that?

As a general rule, Republicans do not share the Democrats' fixation on race essentialism.

What, just Charles Murray and this board? Doesn't feel plausible.

  • -21

I'm currently at a fairly conservative educational institution. I spend practically all my time around intelligent young conservatives.

I'd be very cautious about bringing up anything HBD-ish to others (to date, I don't think I have). Racism is not viewed favorably, and I'd have to be pretty cautious to avoid pattern-matching onto being a racist. Keep in mind that this caution also that this is despite everyone in sight being in favor of free speech. I suppose this might not be perfectly representative, because most in my social circles are more religious. But you really can't just think that because people are conservative or Republican, they're therefore acquainted with or in favor of Charles Murray. There is one person who told me that he likes to read Steve Sailer (I assume there are some others, but I don't know them), one person who I know wishes the south won the civil war (but is against slavery), and that's about the extent of things that could be classified as some variety of racism that I am aware of.

I do expect it to rise in commonality a little—the popularity of Substack along with Musk purchasing twitter should, I imagine, raise the prevalence of HBD-ish ideas, by putting them in places where people will actually read them. Not sure how I feel about that—it's probably good for us not to be under the delusion that differences are still due to oppression etc. But it may well lead to a revival of more distasteful garden-variety racism that has been largely removed from the united states for the last few decades, which is unfortunate.

To be fair, I forgot to mention that some people do make racist jokes.

There are varying degrees of racist jokes, and there are varying degrees to which different races are allowed to be made fun of, e.g.. What are you considering "racist jokes" here?

I don't even remember, and can't generate a suitable one off the top of my head, but someone said something that prompted me to add that.

You need to remember that most of the posters here are not Republicans, they're Gilfoyle-style Silicon Valley satanists. They like Trump for accelerationist reasons and because they find him entertaining, but if there were a serious threat of a Republican president actually enacting a socially conservative agenda most of them would swing so hard into the Democrats' camp that they'd make you look like the second coming of Ronald Reagan in comparison.

Describing the negative attributes of "most" posters here is fraught, given that it's a one-way ticket to an argument about the thread meta, with attendant accusations of consensus-building. If you have a disagreement with specific posters, why not take it up with those posters? If you don't want to take it up with them directly, why not just go with "some"? Do you think "most" people here are going to look at this description and think "yeah, that's an accurate description of me, fair play"? If not, what sort of response are you expecting? The point you're making can be entirely legitimate, but the way you're making it seems like you're looking to start a fight.

You've been wracking up a lot of reports lately, and while most of them haven't been slam-dunk objections, a lot of your comments have been pretty marginal. "low effort" and "antagonistic" are a spectrum, and there has to be a line somewhere, but you've seemed inclined to ride the line lately. Your recent record is a string of warnings and temp-bans, and while you did make an effort-post recently reported for AAQC, the slack that buys is not infinite. The ban is going to be three days this time, and it will escalate if you continue making a habit of low-effort potshots. Please find a better way to channel your insights when you return.

From the outside, that was maybe more true under this place's prior home, but I think there are far more just out and out right-wingers or more accurately, people who have become more right-wing over time. Sure, there are some Grey Tribe or whatever people still here, but many of the comments here, policy-wise, when American politics come up, are just a more erudite version of the comments under any National Review or Federalist article.

Color me skeptical.

I believe that our more vocal wignats would all flip on a dime if a real threat to the gay agenda or the H1B visa regime were to present itself because as much as they might hate black people and the establishment, I imagine that they would hate their own ox getting gored even more.

In what possible way are H-1B visas a wignat's ox? In your fervor to put 'everyone who isn't a conservative who won't do anything but retreat until they can retreat no more and then wait for the eschaton' into the same box, you've come up with a lot of ideas that don't make any sense at all.

Ha ha no. I consider the obligatory parts of the Republican conservative agenda somewhat like the obligatory parts of the Islamic conservative agenda, only much less so. Instead of growing a beard, giving up alcohol, and mouthing some prayers 5 times a day, I just have to go to church once a week, beard optional. Oh, and abstain from drugs (wait, I already do that), infidelity (ditto), abortion (not equipped), stealing and murdering (again, already accomplished), etc. I suppose I'd have to cut down some on swearing, at least in polite company, but I'm rarely in such company anyway. I am, or perhaps was, a libertarian, but I'm not a libertine and most of the restrictions Republicans would impose would sit rather lightly, unless they went full Amish or police-state or something.

You say that but per your own words it is also "better to hold your nose and vote democrat than be mistaken for a faux news watching drumpf supporter".

Like I've said the last 3 times we've had this conversation, Kolmogorov Complicity is just Complicity.

You say that but per your own words it is also "better to hold your nose and vote democrat than be mistaken for a faux news watching drumpf supporter".

I said that (though I can't find it now) but I wasn't speaking about myself.

Like I've said the last 3 times we've had this conversation, Kolmogorov Complicity is just Complicity.

And I still haven't disagreed with you about that.

I can’t speak for the Silicon Valley comparison, but you are wrong on the second part. I’d prefer nearly anyone over Dems or neocons, and actual social conservatives of non-Islamic flavor are nowhere near the bottom of these preferences.

Eh, while most posters here aren't exactly fundamentalist Christians, they mostly know they'd adapt well enough to spending an hour or two a week in church.

Why do you think Amy Coney Barrett adopted Haitian children if there was no fixation on race? There is obviously a virtue signaling element to that kind of decision, which is tied to the racial dynamics at play. She is leaning into those dynamics rather than rejecting them.

You can have virtue signaling without race.

Why do you think Amy Coney Barrett adopted Haitian children if there was no fixation on race?

Catholicism.

ACB is a wealthy catholic woman and Haiti is a majority catholic country with a surplus of catholic orphans in catholic orphanages in [current year] where US child services tend to frown upon faith-based adoption in general and that of Trad-Caths in particular.

that of Trad-Caths in particular.

While the Trad-Caths(to which ACB is adjacent, although not actually technically one- Thomas and Scalia both were/are AFAIK) are sometimes a trial balloon for liberal democrat "let's try to crack down on conservative Christians for not being progressives" policies, there aren't actually any Trad-Cath adoption agencies. The three or so adoptions a year coming from Trad-Cath mothers(as it turns out making large families a status symbol and not allowing unmarried women unsupervised time with the opposite sex does a number here) find a recipient family without going through an agency through a whisper network.

Agreed, however, that the religious Catholicism is the reason for adopting Haitian children; having a large to very large family is a necessity for a woman in her social milieu and orphans from Haiti are easy to get if you don't care about race.

Agreed, however, that the religious Catholicism is the reason for adopting Haitian children; having a large to very large family is a necessity for a woman in her social milieu and orphans from Haiti are easy to get if you don't care about race.

This is actually not true though, the entire process was extremely expensive, difficult, and shady to say the least. It was absolutely not the path of least resistance for adopting children, they really wanted Haitian children.

there aren't actually any Trad-Cath adoption agencies.

Only because any agency that refused to toe the liberal line on abortion and sexual orientation got its' ass shut down 20 years ago. The purge of church-run orphanages and adoption agencies, ostensibly for the children's protection, was a whole thing during the late 90s and early 2000s. CCB was the last holdout, and they closed their doors in 2006.

Sure, but also IRL Trad-Caths don't need any adoption agencies, although I suppose underclass hispanics would line up to use theirs if available; when you have high ingroup cohesion and practically no fornication the handful of children a year that need to be adopted out can just be handled by a whisper network and you use a secular agency after the deal's already been made if applicable law requires it.

Ok that makes more sense, I think I misread/misinterpreted your previous comment as suggesting that Catholics weren't big on adoption to which my knee-jerk reaction was basically "Say Whut?"

Also, while this doesn't apply to someone as wealthy as ACB, for normal people who want to adopt there are far more non-white babies available than white

for normal people who want to adopt there are far more non-white babies available than white

That, and it's possible to inspect the merchandise before purchase rather than simply ordering and accepting it sight-unseen.

For a good that costs that much, even more so because these items are sold as-is with no warranty or return policy, I'm not surprised that even people wealthy enough to afford this kind of item are more interested in purchasing from a store that doesn't take multiple days to get to.

I agree, though I don’t think it’s mostly about virtue signaling to the left. It also seems (admittedly I have no firsthand experience) that a lot of those southern megachurches have a big fixation on fundraising for Africa, African famines and so on, and about Haiti. They have church groups that travel to these places, they spend a lot of money on political activity in these places. The left is often complaining about alleged American Christian involvement in eg. Uganda’s laws on homosexuality. Traditional Catholics also seem to hold Haiti as especially important (I suppose unsurprising given it’s a Catholic country), ACB’s adoption decision clearly wasn’t random.

Traditional Catholics also seem to hold Haiti as especially important

No we don't. Traditional Catholics are regularly in mainland Latin America(Columbia, Peru, Mexico, etc) doing stuff but rarely discuss Haiti.

It also seems (admittedly I have no firsthand experience) that a lot of those southern megachurches have a big fixation on fundraising for Africa, African famines and so on, and about Haiti.

It's bang for your buck. Africa is a big place and you'll see the focus is on "Christian" sub-Saharan Africa because the countries are pretty open to interventions. Same with Papua New Guinea as apposed to Western New Guinea. Also map interventions that were former British Colonies because then you need less language skills. Haiti does speak French but it's also rather close.

On that, a surprising number of the establishment Republicans have kids married to black people. Haley, McCain, Boehner, etc. What's with that?

Those people happened to find that a black person was the right person for them to marry. Why the heck would there be anything else?

I predict if her numbers continue to climb, he's gonna mention her daughter's married to a black guy. Way too tempting for a guy like Trump.

I'll absolutely take the opposite on that bet. When has Trump ever implied this kind of animus toward black Americans?

I'll also take a bet on Nikki's numbers "continuing to rise" if one's available (she'll lose New Hampshire and have to concede).

I feel like this is a good example of the two-screens thing. Not because of the real estate cases or any specific evidence, but because of how this action gels with one’s mental model of Trump.

My gut instinct was that yeah, an off-the-cuff mention of race is the exact sort of remark trump is known for. Nothing derogatory—he’s not going to get caught with a Martha Stewart hot mic. Just his usual rambling on a subject which happens to meander past his opponent’s family.

On the other hand, if one is very used to hearing accusations of dog whistling, this probably comes across as the same sort of attack, and is easy to dismiss. Trump has definitely avoided showing that animus.

I think you’re right on Haley, too.

I don’t see trump mentioning or taking notice of that- he’s going to ramble on about her infidelity, but anti-black racism has never been a hobby horse of his.

A lot of Trump's remarks exist in this casual blase dual-screen world where each side parses them differently. I don't think Trump just said anything racist or meant anything racist. I understand why someone primed to see things that way, or operating on a different definiton of racism, would disagree.

However, in this case, I think predicting Trump will attack Nikki's daughter for marrying a black man is wildly off-base. That's not some ambiguous remark that cuts across different ideas of what constitutes racism. That's suggestijg Trump just believes black men are inferior and it's risable to date them. Where would that even come from?

I’m saying the Trump skeptical screen doesn’t require him to believe/say that. He could just “mention her daughter’s married to a black man,” no commentary, no animosity.

He could say “lovely family” and Trump haters would take it as a dog whistle, proof of seething racism, a personal threat. Some subset of racists would also take it as a dog whistle, and chortle about how their guy Notices these things and obviously that means he cares for their cause in particular. Both of these groups would be reading too much into it.

The important thing is that might-be-controversy is kind of a hallmark of his campaign. Every time he opened his mouth, it got interpreted in three different ways. Does he hate veterans, or just McCain? Is he a misogynist, or was it all locker room talk? He’s a living Rorschach blot, and he’s very good at finding those situations. That’s why I found it plausible that he would make Haley’s son-in-law newsworthy without ever saying an explicit word about him.

When has Trump ever implied this kind of animus toward black Americans?

In 1973, in 1989, in 1992, and very often in between and since then?

I have to sometimes remind myself the most people didn't grow up in New York, and didn't have Trump as a looming political and cultural figure in their life for many decades before he showed up on The Apprentice or a ballot.

When you ask questions like that, it just strikes me as ignorance, of the type anyone who grew up with Trump in their local news on a regular basis would be baffled by. Yes, he has a long and well-documented history from before he started making campaign speeches. Yes, a legacy of racism, both structural and verbal, has been a part of that history since the very beginning.

  • -24

Between this and your cheap shots elsewhere, you’re generating more heat than light. Take a day to cool off.

As for @Dean and @Rambler: yes, we know. Please refrain from attacks based on reputation. If you think someone is acting in bad faith, report it.

Copy that.

The awareness is for the members, not the moderators. The moderators are aware of Darwin's years of bad faith polemics and cheap shots, just as they are aware he will continue to continue them again after repeat offense whatever double or triple warning it is after triple or quadruple digit reports by now.

It's other posters who need to be aware of Darwin's well-worn character to best avoid engaging and responding in ways that provoke moderator punishments against them, as has more than occasionally happened in the last. Darwin is one of the classic cases of evaporative cooling, where bad-faith actors who tend to get more people who engaged with them riled and moderated than they themselves do. Per the failure state, the best way to mitigate the heat by such people is to warn others to not engage, and why, so they do not engage and get emotional in the face of bad faith.

The most succinct warning is what was given: guesswho aka Darwin is a progressive who is here to wage the culture war, and the level of quality has been characteristic.

Those three links are two stories. One of them is about some people at a Trump company who discriminated against a black guy one time. The other is about a long-disputed case from the 1970s (!) in which Trump never admitted guilt, and claimed he was not the only party sued. A reporter from the Washington Post is brandished to offer his interpretation of events as a fact-check. By this logic, since Biden said some racist remarks in the 70s, I predict he'll say the N-word live on TV. Maybe while wearing a sombrero and kissing Nick Fuentes.

When you say things like that, it just strikes me as stupidity. I think you have to be seriously illiterate to read the room and think Trump is about to attack someone's daughter for marrying a black man. I think that's hilarious.

Guess who is Darwin from the old site.

This is one of those "you don't hate journalists enough, you think you do but you don't" moments for me honestly. I sometimes forget that I have to retroactively apply my hate for journalism into the past, and this is a good reminder. Journalism as a whole really never was much better, it was just harder to see how bad they were. This is regarding the 1992 article of course.

guesswho is a long-term progressive cultural warrior, and this level of evidence is extremely typical of him.

On most forums, if you're a bad actor waging the culture war, it's probably a decent strategy to post a bunch of links like this that are ridiculous non-sequiturs. Most people are too lazy to follow them and have the (usually reasonable) assumption that what's said in them is being accurately represented. Fortunately, I think The Motte is better than that. Looking forward to guesswho's inevitable (re-)permabanning. We need good leftist posters, but he's not one.

I believe the semi-official position once upon a time was 'better a bad leftist poster than no leftist poster,' or something along the lines as a balance-of-ideology argument.

Leftist affirmative action was explicit policy at some point. I don’t think it’s been discussed recently, and I can assure you it’s not defining our relationship with guesswho.