Have you noticed this pattern on other issues here?
I haven’t noticed this pattern on other issues outside LW, so I don’t particularly expect to notice it within LW. Or rather, I have noticed the pattern on other issues, but all these issues involve, in practice, the same set of political enemies, so it isn’t really an independent set of things that people think are the worst ever.
Elsewhere you’ve claimed that this isn’t a hypothesis we should allow ourselves to even consider no matter how true it is
Sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Unless you’re blurring the distinction between “post here” and “consider”.
here it seems like you’re arguing that it’s basically wrong in the sense that increased partisanship in general rather than exceptional circumstances are responsible.
Of course it’s increased partisanship. The last time a non-Trump Republican was president was January 2009. That was before most of the rise of social media. The era of social media has made Trump a target of partisanship in a way that was just impossible before now, not that nobody tried. And Trump is only a year into his current term, and for obvious reasons, the start of his term is going to lead to a lot more anti-Trump partisanship.
And if you’re asking specifically about why things got worse in January 2026, see above: I don’t believe they have.
I think I’d basically have to lie to someone to convince them that Trump is actually completely fine and totally in line with what they should expect, to the extent that breaking communication norms to mention his mistakes is escalatory.
No, what you should say is “it doesn’t matter whether Trump is totally fine.” You shouldn’t be breaking norms because someone is really not-fine. That allows one-sided norm breaking where the more you can work yourself into a frenzy, the more you have permission to do things that your opponents have no permission to do back unless they defect too and say that your side is the worst ever. The incentives created by “if it’s really bad, you can break norms” are their own kind of bad.
All right. So, if I’m reading this correctly, by partisanship you don’t mean partisanship (something everybody agrees has increased in the US), but instead some bizarre phenomenon which shares some characteristics with partisanship but is only capable of being realized as broad anti-Trump sentiment? And we (by “we” I mean LW in public, of course individuals can draw their own conclusions, sorry if I wasn’t clearer about this before) should refuse to speak clearly about certain issues, because if norms are more fluid that has some bad incentives (and what about the incentives of being unable to discuss certain topics? Well, it would be norm-violating to acknowledge those!) But also, it’s “of course” your preferred explanation—conveniently, it doesn’t matter whether you’re right or wrong, but you’re obviously right. And why is it obvious? Well, you can think of one plausible mechanism by which you could be correct, modulo the fact that your definition of partisanship is for some reason impossible to apply to Biden or Zohran, whom plenty of people think are the worst thing ever, even on here. And, well, sure there are other explanations, but considering those other explanations would be norm-violating, so, no more thinking needed. Is this really what you mean when you say “of course it’s partisanship”? Because I can’t think think of another way to form what you’ve said into an argument for your position.
It seems like your pattern of argumentation is: take a position, think up one single way that position could be true, then assert that any alternate explanations are damaging to the community to discuss. Surely you understand the difference between an argument being difficult to challenge for social reasons and that argument being convincing, right? You can’t Emperor’s New Clothes your way into political consensus. I don’t think you’re doing this on purpose, but I strongly recommend trying to stop doing it on purpose.
Of course, you could stop trying to make political arguments entirely and only make meta-arguments, that would be more respectable. If you really think there are no circumstances whatsoever under which LW should talk about politics, you can say that, you’ll just have to explain why you think the bad incentives that produces are more bearable than those it eliminates. But that would also mean giving up on the other arguments you’re making here—if people shouldn’t be allowed to argue that Trump is genuinely exceptionally bad regardless of its truth value, then you’re also not allowed to argue that those people are overreacting regardless of it’s truth value. You don’t get to have it both ways.
but is only capable of being realized as broad anti-Trump sentiment?
Partisanship in the US could be something other than anti-Trump sentiment. There’s no logical necessity for it to be that, after all. It just isn’t actually separate from anti-Trump sentiment. (Outside the lizardman constant.)
Surely you understand the difference between an argument being difficult to challenge for social reasons and that argument being convincing, right?
I have no idea which argument you’re referring to.
if people shouldn’t be allowed to argue that Trump is genuinely exceptionally bad regardless of its truth value, then you’re also not allowed to argue that those people are overreacting regardless of it’s truth value.
First of all, you are demanding that you can attack all you want, but nobody gets to defend. No. This is like the difference between initiation of force and self-defense. If you’re going to argue that Trump is uniquely bad to the point where norms can be violated to tell everyone how bad he is, then everyone else gets to say that you are overreacting. You started it.
Second, my point is “you shouldn’t post about it here regardless of whether you’re overreacting.” It doesn’t matter how genuinely bad Trump is; you (and the OPs) shouldn’t be posting about him either way.
Partisanship in the US could be something other than anti-Trump sentiment. There’s no logical necessity for it to be that, after all. It just isn’t actually separate from anti-Trump sentiment. (Outside the lizardman constant.)
Anti-Obama sentiment was not partisan? Anti-Biden sentiment is not? Anti-Zohran sentiment is not? Anti-ICE sentiment is not? Anti-DEI sentiment is not? Anti-Somali sentiment is not? Antisemitism is not? Do you actually believe this?
I have no idea which argument you’re referring to.
The paragraph beginning “of course it’s increased partisanship” was my main target here.
First of all, you are demanding that you can attack all you want, but nobody gets to defend. No. This is like the difference between initiation of force and self-defense. If you’re going to argue that Trump is uniquely bad to the point where norms can be violated to tell everyone how bad he is, then everyone else gets to say that you are overreacting. You started it.
Of course, I did not start it. (Indeed you’ll notice that I’ve been extraordinarily careful not to make any claims like this in our discussion, even though I think they can be justified, because I respect your desire to keep those discussions off of LW. EDIT: To clarify I’ve stated my position, what I mean is that I haven’t argued for it or tried to provide any reason to believe that I’m correct.) I challenged you on what you claim is your point, you decided proactively to jump down from the meta to the object level at that point. But someone somewhere did this, so you’re allowed in “self-defense” to make this pivot when talking to me. I wonder if you’ve thought about the bad incentives this behavior produces? Or is that the sort of thing only your ideological opponents are supposed to concern themselves with?
Second, my point is “you shouldn’t post about it here regardless of whether you’re overreacting.” It doesn’t matter how genuinely bad Trump is; you (and the OPs) shouldn’t be posting about him either way.
I have been trying to get you to argue for this, but you’ve refused three times now! Do you actually believe it to be true that, entirely regardless of how bad they actually are, nobody should ever talk about political figures on LW? Like, if Satan himself were president of the United States and was killing a million people per day, eliciting celebration from his supporters, would you still think discussion was not justified on the grounds that it’s political? If so I’d like you to defend that belief rather than just stating it, as I am now asking you to do for the fourth time. If not, I’d like you to explain what criteria you’re using to decide whether discussion of political figures is acceptable (of course you don’t have to draw hard-and-fast lines, but at least tell me what the relevant methods of evaluation are), and admit that deciding whether norm-breaking is justified will require at least a bit of discussion of object-level truths.
It is literally partisan, but it was nowhere near the same degree of being partisan that’s involved here.
I wonder if you’ve thought about the bad incentives this behavior produces?
The incentives that being able to respond to political rants create are that such rants become less useful (since they don’t go unopposed) and people would be less likely to make them. I find these incentives acceptable.
Like, if Satan himself were president of the United States and was killing a million people per day, eliciting celebration from his supporters, would you still think discussion was not justified on the grounds that it’s political?
Thousands of people are being killed in Sudan—certainly more than Trump has killed—and we’ve managed to go without LW being full of discussion about it. So yes.
I haven’t noticed this pattern on other issues outside LW, so I don’t particularly expect to notice it within LW. Or rather, I have noticed the pattern on other issues, but all these issues involve, in practice, the same set of political enemies, so it isn’t really an independent set of things that people think are the worst ever.
Sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Unless you’re blurring the distinction between “post here” and “consider”.
Of course it’s increased partisanship. The last time a non-Trump Republican was president was January 2009. That was before most of the rise of social media. The era of social media has made Trump a target of partisanship in a way that was just impossible before now, not that nobody tried. And Trump is only a year into his current term, and for obvious reasons, the start of his term is going to lead to a lot more anti-Trump partisanship.
And if you’re asking specifically about why things got worse in January 2026, see above: I don’t believe they have.
No, what you should say is “it doesn’t matter whether Trump is totally fine.” You shouldn’t be breaking norms because someone is really not-fine. That allows one-sided norm breaking where the more you can work yourself into a frenzy, the more you have permission to do things that your opponents have no permission to do back unless they defect too and say that your side is the worst ever. The incentives created by “if it’s really bad, you can break norms” are their own kind of bad.
All right. So, if I’m reading this correctly, by partisanship you don’t mean partisanship (something everybody agrees has increased in the US), but instead some bizarre phenomenon which shares some characteristics with partisanship but is only capable of being realized as broad anti-Trump sentiment? And we (by “we” I mean LW in public, of course individuals can draw their own conclusions, sorry if I wasn’t clearer about this before) should refuse to speak clearly about certain issues, because if norms are more fluid that has some bad incentives (and what about the incentives of being unable to discuss certain topics? Well, it would be norm-violating to acknowledge those!) But also, it’s “of course” your preferred explanation—conveniently, it doesn’t matter whether you’re right or wrong, but you’re obviously right. And why is it obvious? Well, you can think of one plausible mechanism by which you could be correct, modulo the fact that your definition of partisanship is for some reason impossible to apply to Biden or Zohran, whom plenty of people think are the worst thing ever, even on here. And, well, sure there are other explanations, but considering those other explanations would be norm-violating, so, no more thinking needed. Is this really what you mean when you say “of course it’s partisanship”? Because I can’t think think of another way to form what you’ve said into an argument for your position.
It seems like your pattern of argumentation is: take a position, think up one single way that position could be true, then assert that any alternate explanations are damaging to the community to discuss. Surely you understand the difference between an argument being difficult to challenge for social reasons and that argument being convincing, right? You can’t Emperor’s New Clothes your way into political consensus. I don’t think you’re doing this on purpose, but I strongly recommend trying to stop doing it on purpose.
Of course, you could stop trying to make political arguments entirely and only make meta-arguments, that would be more respectable. If you really think there are no circumstances whatsoever under which LW should talk about politics, you can say that, you’ll just have to explain why you think the bad incentives that produces are more bearable than those it eliminates. But that would also mean giving up on the other arguments you’re making here—if people shouldn’t be allowed to argue that Trump is genuinely exceptionally bad regardless of its truth value, then you’re also not allowed to argue that those people are overreacting regardless of it’s truth value. You don’t get to have it both ways.
Partisanship in the US could be something other than anti-Trump sentiment. There’s no logical necessity for it to be that, after all. It just isn’t actually separate from anti-Trump sentiment. (Outside the lizardman constant.)
I have no idea which argument you’re referring to.
First of all, you are demanding that you can attack all you want, but nobody gets to defend. No. This is like the difference between initiation of force and self-defense. If you’re going to argue that Trump is uniquely bad to the point where norms can be violated to tell everyone how bad he is, then everyone else gets to say that you are overreacting. You started it.
Second, my point is “you shouldn’t post about it here regardless of whether you’re overreacting.” It doesn’t matter how genuinely bad Trump is; you (and the OPs) shouldn’t be posting about him either way.
Anti-Obama sentiment was not partisan? Anti-Biden sentiment is not? Anti-Zohran sentiment is not? Anti-ICE sentiment is not? Anti-DEI sentiment is not? Anti-Somali sentiment is not? Antisemitism is not? Do you actually believe this?
The paragraph beginning “of course it’s increased partisanship” was my main target here.
Of course, I did not start it. (Indeed you’ll notice that I’ve been extraordinarily careful not to make any claims like this in our discussion, even though I think they can be justified, because I respect your desire to keep those discussions off of LW. EDIT: To clarify I’ve stated my position, what I mean is that I haven’t argued for it or tried to provide any reason to believe that I’m correct.) I challenged you on what you claim is your point, you decided proactively to jump down from the meta to the object level at that point. But someone somewhere did this, so you’re allowed in “self-defense” to make this pivot when talking to me. I wonder if you’ve thought about the bad incentives this behavior produces? Or is that the sort of thing only your ideological opponents are supposed to concern themselves with?
I have been trying to get you to argue for this, but you’ve refused three times now! Do you actually believe it to be true that, entirely regardless of how bad they actually are, nobody should ever talk about political figures on LW? Like, if Satan himself were president of the United States and was killing a million people per day, eliciting celebration from his supporters, would you still think discussion was not justified on the grounds that it’s political? If so I’d like you to defend that belief rather than just stating it, as I am now asking you to do for the fourth time. If not, I’d like you to explain what criteria you’re using to decide whether discussion of political figures is acceptable (of course you don’t have to draw hard-and-fast lines, but at least tell me what the relevant methods of evaluation are), and admit that deciding whether norm-breaking is justified will require at least a bit of discussion of object-level truths.
It is literally partisan, but it was nowhere near the same degree of being partisan that’s involved here.
The incentives that being able to respond to political rants create are that such rants become less useful (since they don’t go unopposed) and people would be less likely to make them. I find these incentives acceptable.
Thousands of people are being killed in Sudan—certainly more than Trump has killed—and we’ve managed to go without LW being full of discussion about it. So yes.