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 -
If it's true that Democrats are cheating, then, as someone generally opposed to the Democratic Party, I have two responses:
Republicans should not concede illegal results
If this is uniquely democracy-destroying, and unacceptable, then: Republicans need to cheat harder.
Since in many ways (2) is worse than (1), I'm skeptical of any argument that supposes that conceding a rigged election is the healthy and adult decision.
I'll throw a bit of a wrench in this.
This process usually helps the Republicans. 2020 is a bit of an exception.
Let me explain what I'm talking about here. I've been interested in this subject since say, 2000-ish, when I came across some local articles talking about how local civic groups (generally red coded) were actually paying to upgrade local voting systems. And then the whole Bush V. Gore thing happened, and shit hit the fan and it got ugly. But it got me interested in the subject regarding Margins of Errors, and their effect on elections.
The short version is that MoE rates differ based on different forms of voting, and this difference I believe can swing close elections. I also argue, again, that generally this process helps Republicans.
What happened in 2020? Truth be told, I think both sides just played lawfare more than anything, and the Democrats won in such a way that may have swung the election. Trump wanted to discredit the mail-in votes, Biden wanted to maximize their counting. So you had a situation where the way a lot of Democratic voters were voting, actually was a way that ended up having a much lower Margin of Error than what it normally would have, because they were maximally counting all votes.
I don't believe there are any good guys in all this, to be clear.
More options
Context Copy link
The nuance here is that (1) we don't know if the election was rigged, and (2) that, by itself, is the problem. Every week I hear people say there is no evidence that the election was rigged. That is the wrong place to put the burden of proof. There is no evidence that the 1946 Russian elections were rigged either, but as Stalin said, "It's not who votes that matters, but who counts." The question is not whether there is evidence the election was rigged, but whether the election was conducted in such a way that there would be evidence if the election were rigged. I think the answer to that question is no -- because if it were yes, Democrats would say that and back it up instead of gaming the burden of proof a la Stalin.
More options
Context Copy link
Perhaps my final paragraph needs spelling out explicitly.
I think that there was a gentlemen's agreement that kept electoral fraud at a low level, just lone wolves doing too little to change the result. I think that agreement is breaking down, which is a bad thing. The two manifestations of the bad thing are (1) Too much electoral fraud, partly driven hyperbole and polarization (2) Senior Democrats liking, rather than resenting, the help they get from lower level Democrats spontaneously cheating, and the senior Democrats ending up complicit rather that opposed. Both are bad and need to be opposed.
More options
Context Copy link
I think his point, rather, is that insofar as there are tens of millions of Democrats voting, odds are that at least a couple are fanatical and stupid enough to attempt electoral fraud. The exact same thing is true of Republicans - there are so many of them that it would be unbelievable if literally none attempted fraud. The USA is massive and there are lots of dumb people.
Thus, even if you can find "a few nutters" cheating, that is not enough to invalidate an election, or even to conclude any particular malice or dishonesty on the part of their side.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link