site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025

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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So after Sec Def Hegseth denied posting classified info in the leaked Signal chat, the Atlantic has released more screenshots of him describing the full play-by-play warplan:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/signal-group-chat-attack-plans-hegseth-goldberg/682176/

Also, looks like it might have been Waltz's deputy Alex Wong who accidentally e-vited Goldberg to the chat:

https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/1904883964072124642

What gets me is that none of this even matters anymore, so I don't get the big deal made over it.

When you've refused to concede a national election, your supporters have stormed the central seat of government, and you've then not only been allowed to run again but been resoundingly re-elected, why would something like this be even a ripple? I'm surprised even right-wing rags like the NY Post have this at the top. What do they think will be the outcome of any of this? Trump already said he's not firing Waltz. The GOP will remain dutifully silent. The public sure as shit don't care.

Yeah, in 2012, this would've been career-ending for everyone involved, but these are different times. Absolutely nothing comes of this.

What gets me is that none of this even matters anymore, so I don't get the big deal made over it.

Because in the popular culture narrative the Republicans and Trump specifically went full retard over Hillary's private email server, and it was all a nothingburger. So now the shoe is on the other foot and liberals are having an orgasm.

Yes in actuality, Hillary's thing was not a complete nothingburger. The events are not really comparable and Hillary did some actual corrupt things around turning her emails over but that's why this is a big deal if you're trying to score points against red tribe.

actual corrupt things

What were they? I didn't pay attention at the time.

Something like

Authority: Clinton, you must turn your private email server contents over immediately

Clinton: I will have my lawyer do this

Lawyer: here ya go! sorry it took a bit

Authority: it looks like tons of emails are missing

Lawyer: oh, yes. Clinton has a bunch of personal email intermixed with official email, so I looked through it and only turned over her official stuff

Authority: no, give us everything

Lawyer: lol can't do that. I deleted everything that wasn't official business based on my criteria for what was official and what wasn't