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 -
Trump just kicked Zelenskyy out of the White House after a public shouting match.
I've never seen anything like this. I sort of expected Trump to give him a hard time just for the cameras, but this seems to have legitimately hurt relations. Zelenskyy was in town to sign the much-anticipated minerals deal. From what I can hear the deal was not signed.
Ukraine needs the US much more than the US needs Ukraine. Could Zelenskyy not keep his pride contained for a few hours?
Worth noting that this kind of incident is very bad for right-wing parties in Europe and the Anglosphere. Trump is monumentally unpopular in Europe, the UK, Canada, and Australia, and support for Ukraine remains very high. Additionally, this kind of "Reality TV diplomacy" is generally poorly received outside the US. The result will be that right-wing parties in these countries will likely have to distance themselves from Trump, and even that may not be enough to restore their pre-Trump election hopes (witness the recent resurgence of the LPC, in no small a gift from Trump).
Even if American conservatives don't care about Ukraine, I assume some of them care about global influence and leadership, especially among their historical allies. Part of the key to achieving this is assisting in the political success of ideological conspecifics in these nations, whereas this kind of bluster entirely thwarts that goal.
Of course, there are some on the American right who would be only too happy to dismantle the post-WW2 alliance system in favour of a more narrowly transactional approach, even at the cost of global influence and leadership. Even setting aside that this is unlikely to be a long-term winning position ideologically with the American electorate, I would note that empires are hard to build and easy to lose. The consequences of a global geopolitical decoupling between the US and its historical allies could be significant: US defense contractors being excluded from arms deals, tariffs or barriers to US firms operating in the EU, a rise in Chinese economic influence in the developed world, and a sidelining of US interests in global forums.
Right-wing parties in Europe owe their popularity primarily to anti-immigrant sentiment. What Trump says/does won't affect that much.
No, but…
Most politicians, especially those who join fringe parties with little prospect of power, have at least a few genuine personal beliefs and aren’t willing to say literally anything to win.
This allows pinning people like Farage (or me) by forcing him to either lose 40% of support or else denounce Trump and MAGA and explicitly side with Ukraine. The latter would be explicitly going against his own judgement and also cut off Trump/Musk support. It’s also probably not a lie he could tell convincingly.
Farage saying that Russia had some reasonable motives for invading Ukraine seems to have massively reduced the number of seats he got in the election - the polls showed a big drop at that time which he never recovered from.
A lot of UK people are fanatical about Ukraine and they hate Russia. This is particularly true of the over 50s who form the main nativist support base in UK.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Why should Americans care what happens to right wing parties in Europe. They aren't even allowed to win. Even if they got the votes, they would just be retroactively banned as nazis and thrown in prison, assuming they're even allowed to get on the ballot in the first place. They'd probably be banned and suppressed well before then if their poll numbers got remotely close to winning.
And don't call uniparty parties like the Tories "right-wing." Name a single right-wing thing the Tories have ever done.
Why did Vance defend freedom of speech in Europe? Why care?
More options
Context Copy link
The anti immigration right wing populist parties have won elections in various European countries like Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and Poland.
More options
Context Copy link
For broadly the same reasons that the Soviet Union supported Communist parties around the world. Of course American citizens don't need to care about their ideological fellow travellers outside the US (to be clear, I'm mainly talking about Reform, FN, AfD, and so on - I agree that the Tory party are at best a 'post-ideological' organisation), and isolationism has always been and remains a choice that the US can make. If the US is happy to wash its hands of affairs in Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, or anywhere else, no-one is stopping them from doing that.
However, to the extent that US wants to secure markets for its exports, have influence on international organisations, gain intelligence on threats overseas, limit the rise of China, control immigration flows, and protect its allies, it will in turn need international partners. This will be far easier if they can help get some ideologically sympathetic parties into positions of power.
What I want is an American Empire in America. That is, north of Darien, west of Iceland, and east of Russia. I want Manifest Destiny, not overseas entanglements.
We're doing a piss poor job limiting the rise of China, mostly because the people in charge saw it as a way to make money, and sold out their country to do so. Apple doesn't become the most valuable company in the world without facilitating the rise of China, and the same could be said of most any successful "American" company in the last fifty years.
We just left four years of actively encouraging immigration flows in order to import a reliable voter base for Democrats. Nothing about Ukraine matters more than simply wanting it done, or want the country flooded instead.
The same could be said of Britain, or Germany, or France. Going to war in Ukraine isn't going to remove the Somalis from Minnesota or the Pakis from England. That requires the will to do it.
Literally our own history showed that we did the Manifest Destiny as far as we could (even going so far as to conquer Hawai'i, which is over a sea), and then like a couple decades after that, we decided to help push the Spanish Empire into the dustbin of history. If anything, Manifest Destiny probably led to the Spanish-American War, and I could 50-Stalins you and claim that the American Empire should not have gone west of Oklahoma or Texas.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
How are right wing parties relevant? Are they more sympathetic to the US than the left wing (excluding Trump of course)?
Trump might be burning bridges by spitting on the faces of others, but I don't see how the European right is relevant here. The US has been buddies with plenty of left wing regimes.
To be sure, if future US administrations want to hit the 'reset' button and go back to the old ways of doing things, then they can try to be friends with whoever they like, as they have done in the past, as you note. However, the mainstream European left, right, and centre is deeply committed to the Liberal International Order that Trump is crusading against.
That means a Trump or future Vance administration has to look to the fringes for real allies, and basically no Communist or radical left organisations would given him a look, not least because of his stance on Israel and Gaza (which frustratingly are the primary fixation for the European radical left right now). That leaves basically only one group of parties that would are openly to a close alliance (as opposed to a marriage of convenience), namely the non-establishment nationalist right - parties like FN, Fidesz, AfD, and Reform, all of who have relatively cosy relationships with Trump already. However, the more Trump acts in ways that harm Europe's security interests, the harder it is for these parties to maintain this relationship, at least without suffering political harm.
Rhetorically, perhaps, but certainly not when it comes to investing money and manpower in actually defending it. I'm pro-Ukraine, and not particularly pro-Trump, but I find myself frequently defending him against these sorts of accusations because they're so hard to take seriously.
Your statement also applies only if we consider the Liberal International Order to specifically encompass the region around Russia and Ukraine. For instance, much of the mainstream European political class is quite unconcerned with China's ambitions in the pacific, or Iran's actions in the ME, which aren't exactly in line with the idea of the LIO. These statements about the LIO are mostly window-dressing for standard geopolitical concerns - when it's happening close to us then it's all about high-minded values, when it's far away then it's not our business.
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
What "influence and leadership" does the U.S. have that is not transactional already? EU seems to believe U.S. "leadership" consists of them making decisions and us paying for it. Our "influence" in most other countries consists mainly of bribery in the form of foreign aid and trade concessions. This is all transactional already! What soft power we do have comes from cultural output completely independent of and irrelevant to our foreign policy establishment, and that has all gone to absolute shit anyways.
From my perspective it seems like we're the Sugar Daddy who is promised that we're really, truly, loved and fun to be with, so long as the wallet comes out. They'll say nice(ish) things about us exactly as long the checks keep flowing. One second later, we're monsters who are killing the entire world.
America currently spends a comparatively small amount of money in exchange for global hegemon status. This means that it has a huge influence in the foreign policy of most G20 nations. European leaders line up to kowtow to the new Big Man in The White House after every US election. If China seems to be making inroads into European markets, America can lean on domestic governments to have them barred or stymied. US arms manufacturers are prioritised for contracts across the free world. Its tech companies are given comparatively free rein. Its cultural products dominate cinemas and streaming services. Its navy and airforce can rely on a global network of old European bases for staging and resupply. It has an outsize seat at every serious international forum.
All of that currently relies on a 'package deal' with its allies - in exchange for security guarantees and a committee to upholding the LIO, it gets to be the Leader Of The Free World, with all the perks and privileges that entails.
The US can drop the package, and try to negotiate for these privileges on a line-by-line basis. My expectation, though, is that some of them will be outright off the table, while others will be a lot more expensive to purchase individually.
Most of our global hegemony comes from our military and technical capabilities, it’s not because we give out our money in random nice, but generally unappreciated gestures of good will. Iraqis don’t hate us less because we fund their version of Sesame Street. Africa doesn’t hate us less or love us more because we build the occasional school or hospital. Even the shipping lanes are mostly free for trade because we have a navy that protects all of that. Even if we decided to not fund all the things we fund and decide not to get involved in every war on the planet, I don’t see why any other country is going to say fuck you to the country that spends more on it’s military than the rest of the planet combined.
This isn't remotely true, even in purely nominal terms.
More options
Context Copy link
The US and Europe banned Huawei because it was used to spy on them by China. Europe uses a lot of american technology like facebook, and it is also used to spy on us, but you can notice it was never banned. Do you think this will last for long without NATO?
Maybe you think that the US technology is just better and we can't just avoid using it, but then you have to learn that FAIR is in Paris, that's where LLaMa models are trained. Europe might not be as useless to you as you think.
Can you name a single major tech that has come out of Europe in a decade? Their economy is terrible and they have no innovation.
Europe has a capital market problem but it has no innovation problem. So American companies use the research done in both US and EU and put it to the market (like they do in Facebook AI Research and DeepMind). Or do you think both labs are useless? Huggingface was also created in France untiel they had a need for more funding.
The inexistence of European Big Tech is at the US advantage (they get skills without a competition).
More options
Context Copy link
Deep reinforcement learning and voice cloning (Deepmind and Eleven Labs respectively). Deepmind is Google-affiliated now but weren’t when they made their initial big breakthroughs.
In general America poaches a lot of British innovation by having more permissive regulations and a lot more investment capital.
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
In the media? Sure, among the plebs? Not so much.
This is pure copium. If anything, Trump's shenanigans will be a boon to the various dissident right-wing parties in the EU.
In the UK, France, and Germany, Trump’s approval ratings are his lowest in basically the entire world, and even in the explicitly reactionary European subs like /r/badunitedkingdom, Trump is a very divisive figure.
This distancing is literally already happening.
A lot of American conservatives seem to be in blissful ignorance about how negatively Trump is perceived in Europe, especially given the bizarre events of the last month. I literally know more self-identified European fascists than European Trump stans. Of course, there’s no reason why Americans have to care what Europeans think, but when we’re literally talking about European public opinion, it’s important to get things right.
However, I don’t want to presume; if you’re a European, though, I’d be curious to know where you’re from (maybe Poland?) such that your perceptions of Trump’s reputation here are so different from mine.
Ultimately I think you're right, but it hardly reflects well on the people of these countries that they would reverse their positions on domestic and international issues entirely to maintain their self-image of being better and more enlightened than americans. It really shames me that I see this exact train of throught so clearly in my compatriots (Canadians). Our entire country's identity is just this.
More options
Context Copy link
A lot of American conservatives relationship with the outside world is mediated entirely by Donald Trump and an imaginary snooty Frenchman who lives rent-free in their head. If Trump says he's made America respected again on the world stage after Biden destroyed our reputation, they're going to believe him.
Americans don't have to care what Europeans think, but a lot of them take American global standing for granted and don't grasp that a world much less friendly to American interests is possible.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Any discussion is moot. The other side won't hear it , they are ideological fanatics pushed to the brink by the propaganda of an enemy state. The truth doesn't matter anymore , the only thing they understand is consequences. Close down NATO bases in europe , completely decouple from the US MIC , dissolve NATO and create a tight alliance with european states and arm up for the coming WW3. Force them to either accept that their insanity has a cost or to make a move so dumb that makes them pariahs ( like invading canada ). If you bow down now they will keep going and will just leave us in the dust the moment putin is ready to go after the baltics anyway.
Fun to think what European defense and industrial policy might look like in the event of a total breakdown in the post-war transatlantic alliance system (conditional on European leaders actually growing a pair, i.e., on hell freezing over). Here are some ideas that came out of a drunken groupchat with some security wonk friends tonight and summarised by R1:
Defense
• European Defense Force with Independent Command: Phased withdrawal from NATO integrated command structure while establishing a purely European military alliance with France as the nuclear guarantor and Germany providing conventional backbone.
• Strategic Defense Technology Embargo: Immediate moratorium on new U.S. defense procurement contracts with accelerated transition plan (5-7 years) to phase out existing U.S. systems. European defense contractors given emergency powers to reverse-engineer critical components.
• Military Base Sovereignty Initiative: Formal 24-month notice to terminate all Status of Forces Agreements with the U.S., with negotiated transition periods only where absolutely necessary for European security.
• European Nuclear Deterrent Expansion: Franco-German nuclear sharing agreement with French warheads placed under joint European command structure. Fast-track development of new European delivery systems not dependent on U.S. technology.
• Counter-Intelligence Offensive: Comprehensive review of all U.S. intelligence operations in Europe with expulsion of suspected intelligence officers and enhanced counter-surveillance against U.S. electronic intelligence gathering.
Economics & Industry
• Strategic Industry Protection Act: Mandatory European ownership requirements for critical infrastructure and technology companies. Forced divestiture of U.S. majority-owned assets in energy, telecommunications, defense, and advanced manufacturing within 36 months.
• Digital Sovereignty Enforcement: European internet traffic routing law requiring all European data to remain on European networks. Complete firewall system to regulate U.S. digital services with capability to block access if diplomatic conditions deteriorate.
• Energy Independence Acceleration Plan: Emergency powers for nuclear construction in willing nations with cross-border agreements to share capacity. German solar/wind expansion with French nuclear backup through enhanced grid interconnections. Phaseout of U.S. energy imports.
• European Technology Sovereignty Fund: €500 billion fund for European alternatives to U.S. technology platforms, semiconductor manufacturing, and cloud services with preferential procurement rules for European public entities.
• Space Independence Initiative: Tripling of European Space Agency budget with fast-track development of alternative satellite networks. Security review of all SpaceX operations in Europe with potential for forced technology transfer.
Finance & Diplomacy
• Euro Primacy Initiative: Requirement for all energy transactions involving European entities to be conducted in euros. Introduction of euro-denominated oil and gas contracts with major suppliers.
• European Clearing House: New European interbank settlement system isolated from U.S. financial infrastructure with capability to process transactions with sanctioned entities if determined to be in European strategic interest.
• Anti-Dollar Diplomacy Campaign: Strategic diplomatic engagement with BICS [sic] nations to create formal mechanisms for reducing dollar dependency in international trade.
• Counter-Sanctions Framework: Preemptive legislation authorizing immediate reciprocal sanctions against U.S. entities if sanctions are placed on European companies. Includes targeting of U.S. financial institutions operating in Europe.
• European Foreign Asset Protection Law: Legal framework to shield European overseas assets from potential U.S. seizure through complex ownership structures and diplomatic agreements with third countries.
Economic Countermeasures
• Reciprocal Tariff Authorization: Automatic trigger mechanism imposing 35% tariffs on U.S. goods in response to any U.S. tariff increases, particularly targeting politically sensitive sectors (agriculture, automotive, aerospace).
• European Export Control Regime: Restrictions on European exports that support critical U.S. supply chains, leveraging dependencies in areas like specialty chemicals, precision components, and industrial machinery.
• Intellectual Property Retaliation System: Framework for suspending U.S. intellectual property protections in Europe in response to economic aggression, with particular focus on pharmaceutical and entertainment industries.
• Corporate Tax Equalization: Special taxation regime for U.S. multinational corporations operating in Europe to offset advantages from U.S. economic policies hostile to European interests.
Europe already has a terrible economy. You would destroy it. I welcome Europe doing this and then come groveling back when their loser leaders are kicked out.
More options
Context Copy link
I do like me a good spite list, especially the sort that counters its own suggestions.
Like, any sort of 'phased NATO transition' matched with an immediate SOFA-termination isn't a phased NATO termination, its an immediate NATO transition, because said American NATO officers will be part of the SOFA-termination.
Similarly, a European phase out of American defense procurement corresponding with the immediate theft of American military technology isn't a phase out. You've just cut off the American resupply that would make a phase out work, without having had time to build a replacement, which is the point of a phase out.
The energy phaseout of American energy exports isn't a phaseout if you're requiring all energy purchases to be in euros. For one, LNG is a fungible export- it doesn't matter who you buy it from. Two, you're not actually weakening the dollar by demanding payment in Euros- you're paying a dollar premium for the conversion mechanisms with people who will go along with the Euro requirement, since they can demand higher prices for your stipulation.
The Counter-Sanctions Framework already exists in various forms. They failed not for lack of balls, but for the same reason the inter-European clearing house doesn't work as a way to escape dollar sanctions- European companies want to sell not only to the Americans, but companies and countries that sell to the Americans. Very classic 'Europe is not the world' moment.
As for the economic retaliation measures, it's always a good chuckle to see offers for the Trump-preferred trade dynamics be volunteered in the name of spiting him. Like, Trump is absolutely a fan of reciprocal and symmetrical tariffs- and he'd absolutely appreciate the assistance to the transition to economic autarky from a supply chain cutoff, since it'd remove a major lever of influence. (Most countries want others to be dependent on them). Similarly, corporate tax equalization would be trumpeted as a major win- Europe is a tax haven for American companies from American jurisdiction, and if Europe were to both equalize corporate tax rates internally and start punitive actions against American companies, pretty soon they'd not stay in Europe.
Good spite list, 4/5, would recommend more wine.
These excellent points all round. In fairness of the (admittedly already dubious) coherency of the groupchat that inspired this, there were six of us trading ideas, and I just dumped the logs into Deepseek, creating a particularly contradictory medley. However, that's on me for posting without vetting the consistency.
Would be curious to hear your thoughts on what a more focused and thoughtful European spitelist would look like, conditional on a continuing decline in Euro-US relations to the point where the consensus among European leaders is to classify America as a strategic competitors rather than allies.
Bottom line- a more focused and thoughtful European spitelist wouldn't be a spitelist, it would be a clinch-list. Rather than trying to punch the other guy in the face and get pinched back, try to get as close as possible to mitigate his ability to punch you.
A fundamental issue that is both causing the Euro-American rift and would be made worse by a spitelist is that the Europeans are not militarily capable of meeting what it views its security needs as vis-a-vis Russia. This is one of the foundational issues of the conflict with Trump- Trump called on the Europeans to do more, he was laughed at, and now he's in transaction mode. Worse, as bad shape as the Russian military is at the moment, it is still in greater position in the immediate-near term to pivot from any sort of Ukraine stop to do something in the Balkans or the Baltics than the Europeans alone are able to resist.
However, even if you think the US should be classified as a strategic competitor, this doesn't mean you want to start pushing away the Americans as fast as possible. Immediate American departure- especially on hostile terms- is the third-worst case scenario. (The second-worst case scenario is immediate American departure, followed by a Russian Baltic / Balkan crisis. The worst case is if the Americans can't be persuaded to come back.)
Instead, you want to build up your own strength before they leave, while still leaving the option for them to be there. Even if they aren't being relied upon to fight, there's no reason to make it harder for them to do so if they were open to it in the future, and kicking them out of the country means it's both physically harder to get them in, and much less likely.
Which means, in turn, that maybe you start your aircraft replacement program ASAP... but instead of kicking the Americans out of those bases, you cover more of the stationing costs. It's paying more, yes, but it's making them less likely to leave- and as long as they are in the country, that's still a deterrence value all of its own.
Similarly, cutting off European export supply chains to American critical industries is stupid. You want to maximize that shit. Invest heavily in certain shared benefits, so that IF something bad happens, THEN you can take it down, or threaten to.
Some things are relatively, and can be done at any time. There's never been anything preventing the French from extending their own nuclear umbrella across Europe. Other things have costs and are irreversible- if you announce a French nuclear shield for Europe, then the Americans may change their minds on the need of their own nukes in unit, and withdraw- and if those go, a lot of the political weight does as well. (After all, the American lives are there to help drive the use of American nukes- no nukes, less basis for Americans.)
But start going through these sort of considerations- and thinking in terms more than a decade away, well after Trump leaves office-
-and a spite list will be pretty shortsighted. You don't act solely out of spite of your strategic competitors, you try to coopt them to your own advantage, even when they do things you don't like.
This sounds pretty much exactly the kind of thing you'd do if you wanted to improve Europe's military and geopolitical relationship with America. I can see under some assumptions that's not unreasonable, in the same way that a woman planning to leave her violent and abusive husband might want to act like an even more loving wife than usual, right up until the point where she's out the door and has the restraining order in place. However, I guess I was more interested in hearing your thoughts on what it would look like when the wife actually leaves, rather than the part where she cooks her husband his favourite dinner and gets her hair done the way he likes it.
There are a lot of ways to try and use that wife metaphor in a counter-argument that come off as variously inflammatory or quibbling about the nature of the relationship. (Like- where is the violent and abusive husband coming from?) So I'm going to move past that after just noting the awkward metaphor.
If you're looking for sort of stupid histrionics an emotional and impatient actor would do, I guess I could point out that taking 50,000-60,000 hostages (the US military presence in Europe) to be held hostage and exchanged for all Europeans in the US and all Americans of European origin willing to immediately migrate over and begin long-term re-naturalization would be an idea. Maybe you can also pressure all European-based religions to excommunicate all American political officials who take positions against European interests, while conducting crackdowns on any churches based in America with branches in Europe. You could also invest into cybercrime, and try to just steal all the bitcoin to fund a European renaissance, while forging American dollars in the gajillions to fuel American inflation while buying all the things.
But you asked me what a focused and thoughtful actor would do. And what a thoughtful and focused planner would do is practice strategic patience and wait while building up strength until they are ready, because thought reveals the need (I am not ready), and focus delivers the patience (I will prioritize getting ready before acting for my own satisfaction).
If doing so also happens to give grounds for further strategic cooperation... that's not a humiliation. Or rather, it shouldn't be, unless there's an issue with having to entice a military alliance when you need one. But there's already that concession going on- just referring to Europe as Europe collectively.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link