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 -
We see a similar dynamic in Canada.
If you look at the polling numbers Pierre Poilievre's conservatives are on track for the largest majority in Canadian history and Trudeau's Liberals might drop to 3rd or even 4th place. It might be a Conservative Ultra-super-majority with a Bloc Quebecois official opposition.
And the Liberals and left seem to be doing nothing about it aside from jiggering the election date 5 days later so their government pensions vest before they leave office.
I torn between suspecting they think they have an apocalyptic event between now and 2025 that will make the polls irrelevant, or that they're just resigned to cashing out and letting the entire Laurentian Elite die under a hostile Alberta led government...
We have a similar dynamic in reverse in the UK where the Conservatives are heading toward a huge defeat. Ultimately Westminster system governments kind of sputter out after about ten years. They give up the ghost. It even happened to Thatcher eventually. Everyone in power knows the people want change regardless of type, so why try?
I've been Noticing lately that governments with any significant period of incumbency during the Covid period are tending to get hammered into the ground in the first 'dust-clears' election available. I suppose it's too much to think hope that voters are putting 2 + 2 together on the 'sky-money + forced business closure --> inflation + impending doom' thing -- but the 'inflation + impending doom' thing does seem to be enough.
I guarantee you that almost every swing Tory-Labour in the UK, Liberal-Conservative in Canada, or Labour-National in the New Zealand hasn't suddenly decided COVID policies were the wrong way to go.
They think, "it was good we got checks and didn't go crazy like the American's did opening up so soon, but bad prices rose."
Meanwhile, part of the reason, outside of general two party dominance that despite his current not great approval ratings, Biden is still outpacing most other incumbent world leaders is because regardless of what the Right and Left both think, the economy is currently the best in the world and inflation is amongst the lowest.
True -- but they are also Noticing that things kind of suck ATM and seem likely to get worse before they get better; this is what I mean by the electorates' inability to put 2 and 2 together at least not hindering them in making sure the incumbents reap what they've sown.
Note well that this isn't really a left-right thing -- the British Conservatives are probably getting hammered by a Labour party which in it's Blair iteration was to the right of the current Canadian Liberals -- who are set to be hammered by a Conservative party that is a bit incohate at the moment, but certainly very left wing by American conservative standards.
Sure, but if those parties had done what people here would've wanted on the pandemic, they would've likely lose elections in the 2020/2021 era, so at worst, they got three extra years in power, so they got to do what they likely thought was right, get celebrated for it politically, but then they lost as all politicians do.
Like, I know parts of this site likes to engage in conspiratorial-type thinking, but in reality, most politicians actually say and do what they believe on the big stuff. Poltiicians are actually far more honest today in 2024, worldwide, than they ever have been in history, because there's more feedback loops than anytime in history.
If you were a random Dixiecrat from North Carolina in 1966, you could go to DC, actually work well with your African-American colleagues in the Democratic party, vote for big-time spending bills that pushed a lot of money to inner cities, but also your district, then go back to your district, say some race-baiting stuff in some speeches, go to the opening of the bridge you got money for, slam the spending in Harlem, and easily win reelection, because nobody cares about a random House race in North Carolina.
Now, for good and ill, no politician can really pull that two step.
Most of the parties in question pulled snap Covid elections to cement their mandate (despite the dEadLY pANdemIC going on at the time) -- the timing in Canada anyways was such that a hypothetical politician with some shred of understanding about inflation could have hung in there with a Sweden-level response and reaped the rewards of a strong dollar (vs the US, always a political win) and low inflation.
You're right that most of these people probably believed in what they were doing, but the fact that the consequences were eminently predictible and they did it anyways leads me to believe (or hope at least) that some politicians might notice the correlation between "not believing stupid things" and long term electoral success/legacy. Politicians who go from 'strong minority govt' to 'scrabbling to maintain second place' are not generally treated kindly by the history books.
More options
Context Copy link
"Politicians tell voters what they want to hear, but don't follow up" is conspiratorial thinking now? Don't get me wrong, as an open conspiracy theorist this is welcome news to me. The issue I tend to run into is people saying "that's not a conspiracy" when I bring forward a documented case, so it will be nice to have a reference to possibly one of the most milquetoast examples of following incentives, being deemed conspiratorial thinking by an anti-conspiracist.
Depends on your definition of didn't follow up. Also, it's bad politicking to say, "if we get elected, and a big enough majority, and nothing changes economically, we're going to do x and y." This is true for Republican's and Democrat's - I'm not being partisan here.
Now, do politicians sometimes sign on to various things from pressure groups in a primary, then basically ignore or hope it doesn't come up? Yeah, but again, it's still better than in the past, when politicians were supposedly better. No, there's just more coverage of it than there was in 1986.
Like, personally, as somebody very rare here - a pro-Democratic Party partisan social democrat, I'm basically fine with everything Biden did, as everything he said he'd do, but couldn't was a combination of Manchin & Sinema, or factors outside of his control. Maybe is there stuff at the edges, that lefties on Twitter sometimes claim he'd be able to do, but most of that is wishcasting.
Right, and if your electoral base really really wants X, which you are vehemently against, it's also bad politicking to not tell them "X? I love X! I will make the most X in the history of X!", and then coming up with excuses for not making X once you're in power. Or vice-versa for things they hate and you love.
It's not just that, they'll outright flaunt the entire reason they got elected. Approximately no one asked for the gender self-ID laws being passed in Europe, but we keep getting them. OTOH an end to mass migration, and having some semblance of a domestic farming / manufacturing base does tend to be popular, but we're just getting more globalisation.
Now hold on there, I never signed up for saying politicians were better in the past.
That's not even in the same orbit as "most politicians actually say and do what they believe on the big stuff".
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
I think it's just a general vibe of "things are not good -> vote out the incumbents"
Not the best, but I'll take it!
Agreed -- one would like to think that it might act as a lesson to politicians that it may not be the best idea to jump off a bridge just because everyone else is doing it, but hahahaha not likely.
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