DCUM Weblog

The list of most active threads over the weekend was heavily dominated by political topics and all of today's topics are from the "Political Discussion" forum. The most active thread of all was the presidential debate thread that I've already discussed. The most active thread after that was titled, "As a Democrat, it all feels hopeless.", and posted, of course, in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster says that in light of President Joe Biden's poor debate performance it appears that Republicans will "sweep to victory". But, even if that doesn't happen, the Supreme Court has already severely limited the possibilities of implementing liberal policies. Meaningful gun control is not going to happen, efforts to protect the environment are being set back and will be even more difficult after the reverse of the Chevron ruling. In addition, the boundaries between church and state are being erased. The original poster asks what there is to be happy about. This thread is 43 pages long and, as such, I am unable to read much of it. What I did notice is that almost immediately those responding engaged in two behaviors that I have seen dominating more and more threads in the political forum lately. The first is related to the expression, "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." There are a number of posters who seem to respond with their own pet diagnosis, regardless of the specific topic. Early in this thread, for example, posters fixated on age and seemed to blame much of what is happening today on those who are over 60 and suggested things would not improve until those folks were no longer with us. This response is much like the knee-jerk reaction to blame everything bad on "boomers" that we see across DCUM. A second behavior, related in many ways, is to not only bring up a pet issue, but an off-topic pet issue. An example of this was a complaint about the Democratic National Committee not allowing more primary choices. But, with regard to off-topic posts, that was just the beginning. The thread is basically a collection of general gripes and talking points that posters want to share which mostly have no connection to the thread's topic at all. I agree with the original poster that now is a very dismal time to be a liberal Democrat. But to undertand how we got here, I think we need to take a wider view of things than posters in this thread seem to be doing. For instance, I have my own pet issue. One of the most significant changes over the last 20 years or so has been the vastly increased wealth disparity. An ever-increasing amount of the world's wealth is being accumulated into the hands of an increasingly small number of people. This disparity interferes with the proper working of all other systems on which our political and economic systems are based. That disparity has allowed billionaires such as Harlan Crow to essentially purchase multiple Supreme Court justices. It allowed Elon Musk to purchase what was not long ago the World's most influential social media network and turn it into a haven for Nazis. The attitude of billionaire class appears to be to exploit our world for every penny that can be squeezed out of it and then fly off to Mars. People over 60 and the DNC's influence on the primary are small potatoes relative to this. And, yes, the fact that those influencing events have little interest in anyone's well-being other than their own does not inspire much hope. 

The most active thread by a very considerable margin yesterday was titled, "Official debate thread get in here and bring your smile" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Needless to say, this thread is about last night's presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former president, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. The interest in this thread was amazing and while it was only created just before 9 p.m. last night, it has already reached 85 pages and over 1,100 posts. Obviously, it is not possible for me to read a thread of that length. As for the debate, what can be said? The bar for Biden had been set so low that I didn't believe there would be any way that he would not exceed expectations. Clearly I was wrong. Biden, whose voice was raspy apparently as a result of a cold, was difficult to understand, he repeatedly lost his train of thought, he constantly appeared confused and lost, and, perhaps due to camera angles, almost always seemed to be looking out into space. It's not so much that that Biden didn't reach the low bar that had been set, but rather that he precisely met the expectations that Republicans had set for him. The Republicans claimed that Biden is a feeble, tired, old man who lacks the mental capacity for the job. That is likely exactly how most viewers perceived Biden last night. Republicans are obviously overjoyed and practically dancing in the streets. Democrats, who panic even when things are going well, are completely beside themselves. The airwaves, as well as this thread and at least one additional thread, focused on how Biden might be replaced as the Democratic candidate. As I said in a recent post, replacing Biden is not straight forward and I have generally held the position that it is not going to happen. One hurdle that I don't hear mentioned very often is Ohio's deadline to be on the ballot that is earlier than the Democratic National Convention. The current Democratic plan is to formally nominate Biden through a virtual vote held before Ohio's deadline, in which case the convention would be purely ceremonial. It would take a true act of back room politics to convince Biden to bow out and then agree on an alternative candidate before Ohio's August 7th deadline. This would be an amazing feat and I am not sure that there is anyone in a position to make it happen. Of course Democrats could sacrifice the Ohio ballot position and choose a candidate at the convention, but there is an important Senate race in Ohio and Democratic turnout might suffer if there were not a meaningful Democratic presidential candidate on the ballot. Democrats might even be forced to run a write-in campaign for their candidate. Objectively, Biden had his moments during the debate. But by the time those came along, I think most people had already come to their conclusions about his performance. Moreover, the negative impressions will snowball as they are repeated incessantly over the next few days. While Biden clearly lost the debate, there is still a question of the debate's impact on the election. Plenty of posters in this thread were adamant that Biden could even do worse than he did and they would still vote for him. If polls over the next few days don't show a decline in support for Biden, the interest in replacing him will likely decrease. But, any significant drop-off will create additional impetus to find a new candidate.

The most active thread yesterday was again the Fairfax County Public Schools boundaries thread that I've already discussed. The most active thread after that one was titled, "Young Men are Becoming More Sexist - It's About Status", and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster quotes from transcripts of a podcast discussion about attitudes toward women held by young men around the world. According to the discussion, young men are becoming more sexist than older men. This is somewhat of a contradiction because by most measures, young men are more supportive of women's equality, being more likely to support women pursuing any job or holding elected office. Young men are more likely to recognize that women have equal capabilities. But, according to the discussion, there is increased resentment towards women among younger men than among older men. This is attributed to young men's desire for status represented by such things as college education, purchasing a home, and having a pretty wife or girlfriend. Women have been out-performing men educationally for sometime now and the difficult housing market is obviously effecting young people, both male and female. But, it is the last factor, finding a girlfriend, with which young men struggle the most because greater financial and social independence among women has resulted in less pressure among them to find a mate. In short, women are now able to be more picky and young men resent them for it. Moreover, when those resentful young men turn to the Internet, they find welcoming communities eager to encourage and feed their resentment. Topics of this sort have been fairly common in the relationship forum and I have written about several such threads that were among the most active. While I would never argue that the discussions in the relationship forum reach Socratic Club levels, they are head and shoulders above the level of discourse displayed here. Not for the first time, I feel like the political forum is nearly useless. It is filled with automatons able to do little more than repeat the handful of talking points with which they have apparently been programmed. For instance, it is disappointing but not surprising to see that among the first responses were attempts to turn the discussion into one about trans people. It takes a bit to unpack how the thread got there, but what you need to understand is that to some DCUM posters, it is not traditional sexist ideas such as women being inferior to men, their place being in the home, and their duty being to bear children, that threatens women's rights. Rather, it is offering support to trans people that is the real threat, and apparently in these posters' view, a much bigger threat in fact. Similarly, plenty of posters were eager to assure readers that liberal men are actually the biggest misogynists, their primary infraction being that they are not honest about their misogyny as apparently are conservative men. It is always possible to take any issue and wedge it though the prism of your particular political views — and plenty of posters in this thread do exactly that — but doing so does not result in a very enlightening discussion. As such, this discussion is not particularly enlightening.

Yesterday's most active thread was the thread about Fairfax County Public School boundaries which I discussed some time ago. The thread continues to be active with posters completely freaked out about rezoning plans that I am fairly certain don't actually exist at this point. The most active thread after that one was titled, "Is debate prep a waste of time?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster assumes that former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump will easily win tomorrow's presidential debate and wonders why President Joe Biden is bothering to prepare at all. This post, and a great number of the responses, really demonstrate the MAGA attitude toward knowlege. In short, they consider it better not to have any. Going back to Trump saying that he loves "the poorly educated", MAGAs are suspicious and distrustful of those who who are highly educated. The entire idea of getting prepared for a major event is contemptible to them. Another MAGA characteristic is amnesia. Not a single one of them seems to remember that Trump has also participated in debate preparation. Famously he infected Chris Christie with COVID while they were preparing for Trump's debate against Biden in 2020. This time around Trump is preparing in a less formal manner, but is still preparing. Like Trump, the MAGA posters in this thread can't quite make up their mind about Biden. On the one hand, they describe him as a feeble old man suffering from dementia. On the other hand, they are worried that Biden will easily exceed the very low expectations they have set for him. As a result, like Trump, MAGAs suggest that Biden will be drugged in order to have a good performance during the debate. They are also in full attack mode with regard to the CNN newscasters who will moderate the debate, accusing them of bias and predicting that they will favor Biden. Again, their amnesia prevents them from recalling that Trump and his team agreed to the moderators. Trump is orchestrating, and the DCUM MAGAs are participating in, a combination of referee-working and expectation setting. They seem to believe that if they accuse CNN's Jake Tapper and Dana Bash of bias frequently and loudly enough, the two will be intimidated into acting more favorably toward Trump. At the same time, this sets up a ready-made excuse for a poor Trump performance. If Trump does badly in the debate, it will not be because of his own shortcomings such as his lack of mental acuity, grasp of the issues, or failure of preparedness, but rather because the moderators were biased and Biden was on drugs. The MAGAs will not reflect on this thread and ask why Trump did not engage in more intense preparation, but rather will excuse his poor performance because Biden took a week to prepare, as if that is a bad thing. Trump famously when discussing immigration accused Mexico of not sending its best. When I see the quality of MAGA posters in threads such as this, I can't help thinking that Trump himself is not sending the best. Or, even worse, maybe these posters are among the best.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Would you rat out the neighbor’s kid?" and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster says that their neighbors went out of town leaving their high school sophomore son at home alone. At 7:30 a,m., the boy's mother texted the original poster asking if a specific car was at their house. The car belongs to the son's girlfriend and the original poster says that the car was there when she left for the gym at 5 a.m. The original poster says that her husband doesn't think that they should tell the mother about the car but the original poster does. She asks what others would do. After reading this thread this morning, I locked it because I believe the entire scenario is made up. I was already suspicious that anyone would immediately remember at 7:30 a car they had seen at 5:00. In some situations, sure, but I was skeptical in this case. But, what sealed my suspicion was a follow-up post the original poster made saying that at 7:40 a.m. her husband — remember the one who didn't want to tell — had texted the neighbor a photo of her home showing the car still there. One poster incorrectly suggested that this had occurred prior to the original poster starting the thread. In fact, the thread was started at 7:37, so her husband would have sent the photo after the thread was started. But the timeline provided by the original poster claimed that the original text from the neighbor was at 7:35. So, we are to believe that the original poster received a text, had a discussion with her husband during which they disagreed, and sat down to post on DCUM all in the course of two minutes. The real kicker, however, is that after her initial post and prior to providing the timeline, the original poster responded several more times. All of those responses were at 7:40 or later. In other words, according to the original poster's timeline, she posted multiple times after her husband sent the photo but she did not bothered to tell anyone what her husband had done. This despite many posts criticizing him for not wanting to tell the truth. That simply doesn't seem believable to me. As for the responses from others, the most common reaction is that posters would not go out of their way to tell on the neighbor's son, but since the neighbor had asked a direct and specific question, they would answer honestly. Some posters would find creative ways of not revealing that the car had been there at 5:00, particularly if it was not there when they were asked. Others said that the would either not reply or reply several hours later claiming not to have seen the text. Some posters theorized that the girl's parents might be frantically trying to find her and, therefore, being honest about the car might be important for them. The original poster had described the boy simply as a "high school sophomore". This led to a debate about whether he was 15, as most kids are at the beginning of their sophomore year, or 16 as kids tend to be when they finish their sophomore year. This was particularly relevant regarding the girlfriend given that she would apparently be old enough to drive. I think this is one more hole in the original poster's made up story. Given how she described her relationship with the neighbors, I doubt she would know exactly what year in school the boy might be or his exact age.

Many of the most active threads over the weekend were ones that I've already discussed and, therefore, will skip today. The first new thread among the most active was titled, "NFL quarterback's wife tells podcast she slept with his backup to make him jealous" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. The original poster embedded a TikTok clip of Kelly Stafford, wife of Matthew Stafford, the quarterback for the NFL's Los Angeles Rams, discussing her early relationship with Mathew. It isn't often that a thread on DCUM makes me downright angry, but this is one of those times. What upset me is that this thread was not posted in good faith and misrepresents the facts to serve the original poster's personal agenda. I am not sure exactly what motivated the original poster, but perhaps jealously. At any rate, in the TikTok clip, Kelly implies that while in college she and Matthew had an on again and off again relationship, saying "I hated him, I loved him" while Matthew was just trying to date casually. Kelly goes on to say that at one point she dated the back-up quarterback who lived in the same dorm as Matthew. She says that she did this to "piss him off" and "it worked." Seeing her car there, Matthew jumped in her car as she was leaving and told her that the backup quarterback was not right for her. It was left unsaid, but we can deduce, that this led to Matthew becoming serious about their relationship. They went on to get married and now have four children. Kelly obviously meant this as a cute and funny story. But the original poster is apparently outraged by this and made it a personal mission to disgrace Kelly to the fullest extent possible. Posting well over 20 times in the thread, the original poster described Kelly as "trashy", "jersey-chasing", an "idle rich housewife", having hit the "bimbo lottery", "shameless and shallow", and a "whore". In addition, the original poster repeatedly accused both Kelly and Matthew of being serial cheaters and also suggested that Kelly's mother had advised her about how to manipulate Matthew. The original poster did not bother identifying herself as the original poster and, as such, her numerous follow-up posts may appear to most posters as coming from different posters. But, having the ability as I do to distinguish the original poster's posts and read them all at once, they paint a picture of someone with a deep-seated psychological problem. Just for the record, in the TikTok, Kelly only said that she "dated" the backup quarterback and didn't detail what level of intimacy may have occurred. The original poster insists that Kelly and the other player had sex, which may be the case but certainly was not confirmed. Moroever, the original poster also made it sound like this occurred while she and Matthew were married, which it obviously did not. Basically, this thread was one person's effort to exercise her own rage over the fact that another women had reached a point in her life in which she could comfortably laugh at earlier behavior about which she may not be particularly proud. Personally, I can unequivocally say that in this thread Kelly Stafford comes off looking considerably better than the original poster.

Yesterday's first and second most active threads were both on the same topic, but in different forums. I didn't know there were two different threads until just now and, having discovered it, I locked one. Rather than discuss the same topic twice, I will combine the two and talk about them both at once. The most active of the two was titled, "Louisiana orders every classroom to display Ten Commandments" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The second was titled, "Ten Commandments at LSU" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The topic both of these threads are discussing is a bill recently signed into law by Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry that requires every public school classroom in the state to display a poster of the Ten Commandments. Civil liberties groups are challenging the law which they say is unconstitutional due to violating the Establishment Clause. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar law in Kentucky, ruling in the 1980 case Stone v. Graham that posters of the commandments violated the First Amendment. This suggests that the civil liberties groups are correct and will prevail in their litigation. Though, with today's Supreme Court, who knows? One justice, Samuel Alito, was recently recorded saying that the U.S. should return to a "place of godliness" and will likely support Louisiana. Justice Clarence Thomas has held that the Establishment Clause does not apply to states, meaning that he is also likely to support Louisiana. The Louisiana law attempts to frame the display of the Ten Commandments as being a document of historical value that is important to American history. One issue that I noticed with this law is that there is not a universally agreed upon version of the Ten Commandments. Catholics, for instance, have a different version than most Protestant denominations. Indeed, by my count, the version included in Louisiana's law actually contains 12 commandments. This may be an effort to appease both Catholics and Protestants. Probably the most disappointing aspect of both of these threads is that very few posters showed an inclination to adhere to values. In a perfect world, everyone would have a set of values. They might not be the same values — differences would still exist — but everyone would have some sort of code by which they lived their lives. An issue such as this would be measured against those values. Those who valued separation of church and state would naturally oppose it. Those who valued the spread of Christianity would support it. The two groups could debate in good faith. But that's not what happens in these threads. Instead, partisanship has divided folks into separate tribes and they they react on the basis of tribe rather than values. This is particularly evident among conservatives who normally claim tremendous appreciation of the U.S. Constitution, but in this case are willing to ignore or at least brush off the plain statement that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", the so-called "Establishment Clause". They argue that the U.S. is a Christian nation and, therefore, the Ten Commandments should be an acceptable document. Personally, I look forward to seeing how teachers who conservatives believe should never talk about sexual relations explain the commandment forbidding adultery to young children.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "What I’m noticing from millennial high achieving moms" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster describes herself as "mid age millennial born in 1990" and notes several characteristics of high-achieving, elite-educated women as they start to have children. Essentially, few of the women stay at home, they commonly have three kids, they travel a lot, and post on social media about their great lives. I am very confused about the purpose of this thread. Clearly, the original poster's observations don't apply to all millennials and or even to all high-achieving millennial women. Basically, this is a list of observations of the original poster's circle of acquaintances and has little significance outside that group. So what is the point? My confusion was apparently shared by others because the responses in this thread were disjointed, fairly random, and often gave the impression of artificial intelligence bots attempting to converse with each other. Rather than a discussion, this thread is more like posters simply typing out whatever thought immediately entered their minds and hitting "submit". Based on these responses, the only thing that you can say for sure about high-achieving millennial moms is that you can't say anything for sure. Despite the sparcity of stay at home moms in the original poster's circle, other posters say such moms are more the rule than the exception among their acquaintances. Whereas the original poster sees three or more children as popular, others say that one or even no children are common. Posters can't even agree on whether or not high-achieving millennial moms run marathons. Depending on the poster, that is either common or rare. In some cases, posters appear to be attempting to create stereotypes where none exists. Instead of stereotypes, what results are a series of archetypes. There is the doctor or lawyer married to another doctor or lawyer with three kids whose social media is filled with photos of their latest skiing trip to the Swiss Alps such as the original poster might have described. But there is also the Ivy League grad who put her investment banking career on hold to start a family and has no interest in returning to work. Then there is the hard-charging careerist who is at the top of her game professionally, has a single child, and wouldn't stay home if you held a gun to her head. True that all three are high-achieving millennial women, but that is about all that they have in common. Many of the observations in this thread are derived from social media. As such, it is likely that what these posters are seeing about others is not actual reality, but simply what those individuals want others to see about them. They are, therefore, creating stereotypes based on carefully curated images rather than what really exits. So again I ask, what's the point?

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Justin Timberlake arrested on DWI in Hamptons" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. Early yesterday morning, singer and actor Justin Timberlake was arrested in Sag Harbor, New York on charges of driving while intoxicated. The original poster started this thread to discuss the arrest, calling Timberlake a "loser" and saying that he clearly has a drinking problem. Most of those replying agreed with the original poster, having very harsh words for those who endanger others by drinking and driving. There was one Timberlake defender whose primary argument was that Timberlake is rich, though it is not clear how that was supposed to exonerate him. Some posters in the thread also took the opportunity to criticize Timberlake for his alleged treatment of Britney Spears during a past relationship. In Spears' recent book, she described having an abortion after Timberlake said that he was not ready to be a father. Posters were divided about whether Timberlake had coerced Spears into having an abortion or whether he had simply stated his feelings on the matter. Some posters argued that regardless of Timberlake's position, Spears was not ready to be a mother at that time either and terminating the pregnancy was for the better. A few posters were still angry with Timberlake because of the famous "wardrobe malfunction" that occurred between Timberlake and Janet Jackson at the 2004 Super Bowl. In that incident, Timberlake performed a choreographed move to remove part of Jackson's top and inadvertently exposed one of her breasts to the television audience. According to the posters who are upset with Timberlake due to the incident, Jackson suffered all the consequences while Timberlake had no repercussions. As is to be expected from any DCUM celebrity thread, there are posters who act like they know Timberlake's personal life better than he does and share what they claim is inside gossip. Most of that is likely false. In addition to the robust abortion debate in the thread, there is also a conversation about alcoholism. This includes a dispute about whether alcoholism — referred to as alcohol use disorder in academic literature and scientific studies — is or is not a disease. This thread demonstrates that at least on DCUM, Timberlake has few remaining fans and has been involved in enough controversies to provide a variety of reasons to dislike him. As such, DCUMers tend to dislike him though not always for the same reason.

The first of yesterday's most active threads that I will discuss was titled, "Shocked at how many families in nice DMV neighborhoods are living in relatives' homes" and posted in the "Real Estate" forum. The original poster says that she has a child who just finished kindergarten in an upscale DC metropolitan area neighborhood and has met "at least a dozen families" who are living in homes owned by elderly relatives. She has also met families in similar living situations in other upscale area neighborhoods and believes this practice is very widespread in the area. The original poster advises others who may be struggling to save a downpayment or afford childcare and who may wonder how others are doing it, that this is one of the ways. She further alleges that this practice is causing others to be shut out of desirable neighborhoods. The high cost of area housing, particularly in highly-desirable neighborhoods, has long been an issue of debate in the DCUM real estate forum. One factor driving up costs is the limited inventory of houses on the market in these neighborhoods. To the extent that elderly residents providing housing to younger relatives rather than selling their homes further constrains inventory, this would obviously limit the available homes for sale and contribute to price increases. Among those responding, there is a bit of a chicken and the egg phenomenon. While some posters, like the original poster, argue that adult child living in their parents' homes helps drive up prices, others suggest that adult children are encouraged to choose such arrangements due to the high cost of housing. A number of those responding are quite aggravated that these parents provide housing to their adult children rather than selling their homes. They consider this one more way in which "boomers" have made things more difficult for younger generations. Never mind that the exact same boomers are making life easier for the members of younger generations for whom they provide housing. Other posters, perhaps some of whom are among that second group who benefits from this practice, are all in favor of it. They cite a number of advantages from the arrangement, especially when parents continue living in the home. That provides either convenient childcare or eldercare as the case may be. Other posters are aware that adult children living in elderly relatives' homes is common in this area, but their feelings about it are heavily influenced by the attitudes of the adult children who are benefiting from this arrangment. In cases where the children are down to earth and recognize that they can only afford to live in the neighborhood due to their relatives' generosity, posters have no problem with them. But, in many cases, posters say that the adult children act entitled and don't seem to understand their advantages. This creates some animosity. The friction created by those who act snobbish despite not having earned their advantages goes beyond their simply being able to live in a nice neighborhood. Posters also complain about these individuals getting access to popular country clubs, often at a reduced rate. This discussion highlights a clear division between the beneficiaries of generational wealth and those who have had to work and pay their own way for everything they have achieved.