site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Trump could EO himself a billion dollars and as long as he stops immigration, deports all the migrants here and stops all funding for the foreign wars / foreign aide I'd still vote for him. The country has just gotten bad enough that normal crime doesn't really matter. The threat is existential.

Personally I suspect that this sort of corruption was always happening, we just didn't get coverage of it because the uniparty was in control and they didn't want to release things that overly damaged trust in the system. Now the knives are out and all the dirty laundry gets aired. I mean epstein was getting dirt on mega rich businessmen and influential politicians way back in the late 90s.

(there should be disclaimers on hanania links so people don't give him traffic against their will, or use archives)

Trump could EO himself a billion dollars and as long as he stops immigration, deports all the migrants here and stops all funding for the foreign wars / foreign aide I'd still vote for him.

Well, hell, I'd at least think about voting for him if I thought he could or would carry out some of his grand promises. Every politician promises he will deliver incredible things, and if you vote for him and say "I don't care if he steals a billion dollar as long as he does all the things he promised to do" you are being taken for a rube.

Well, hell, I'd at least think about voting for him if I thought he could or would carry out some of his grand promises.

He did actually stop immigration, though...

Trump has temporarily gotten it back to the levels that Obama had. He's done almost nothing in regards to helping ensure that will continue long-term.

What you're saying is that it continuing long-term is entirely up to the next administration. If they want to return to open borders that will be their decision, not Trump's.

Trump could absolutely make the job of anyone seeking to explode immigration harder by changing the law, i.e. passing legislation, not just executive orders.

Yes, but if they reverse his policy, the responsibility for that is on them. If the non-MAGA politicians want to act like "adults in the room" they need to stop blaming the parents for not hiding the cookie jar out of their reach.

Sure, if they reverse the legislation that would be on them, but undoing legislation is much more difficult that just doing executive orders, which is how Biden basically got to defacto open borders via loophole.

It will be, in fact, perfectly in their power to just continue Trump's policy. If they don't want that, they will be entitled to their decision, but it will be their decision.

More comments