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 -
Not trying to, and not trusting anyone who pushes for it with any degree of power.
'Equalizing' presidential influence is not a good goal for the same reason equity-driven politics are bad for treating people equally, as it's a non-standard extremely open to abuse and manipulation as any President whose coalition is not politically dominant on the court can claim that they are not yet equal, and thus entitled to further reshape the court to their influence. It's a license for un-equal influence in the name of establishing an outcome, not a consistent process, with the state of said outcome being defined by the people in power with all the opportunities for bias and self-interest it implies in self-justifying why they should get away with more.
By and large* I am not a fan of having executive- or party-controlled replace their predecessors, and while I am also not a fan of the executive having no influence whatsoever, the modern movement to equalize presidential influence of the court is part of a more banal effort to establish partisan control of the courts by a political party that for decades has viewed itself in historically determinist terms as the inevitable majoritarian ruling party, and more recently the only legitimate party of governance. Said party's think-piece networks and partisans openly muses other efforts to gain partisan dominance of the courts, ranging from explicit court packing to pressure campaigns to create new vacancies, with enough variations that I have no faith of any broad sincere desire to equalize presidential influence over the courts, only to equalize their influence on the courts on the way to re-establishing partisan dominance and deference previously enjoyed.
*One of the few exceptions I tend to have is for court systems established by external/illegitimate powers (such as occupation authorities, colonial authorities, or coups) and/or which self-select their own successors without executive and/or legislative input (which creates insular captured-interest blocks of whoever dominates the internal replacement process). Even then, I'd far prefer that a new administration allocate a share of new appointments with the opposition, and not grant themselves direct majorities. Yes, I am aware this basically never happens.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is your reminder that Joe Biden was one of the specific leaders who introduced 'Borking' to the American lexicon, and that Democratic federal and Supreme Court politics have only escalated since then.
Adversarial court politics was not always the way, and it did not have to be the way, but it was the result of choices, specifically of the Democratic Senate leadership generation deliberately deciding to employ and normalize character assassination, appointment allocation, and other techniques to try and shape court composition. From Borking and other slander campaigns to the Bush-era Federal appointment stonewalling to arranging protests outside of judges houses or inside the Senate working areas, if there is a lack of goodwill to appointing Democratic judges, I'd wager it has some slight thing to do with Democratic conduct toward their peers on the topic.
None of your proposal address this very contemporary and living history, nor is there a reason why- in the face of very real and very earned distrust- a 'reform' that hyper-concentrates the ability to abuse judicial appointments in the hands of a party with a contemporary history of defecting on judicial norms that expects to be the primary beneficiary of the reform would be a beneficial thing at a constitutional level.
More options
Context Copy link