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 -
Rueters: U.S. states and cities that boycott Israeli companies will be denied federal aid for natural disaster preparedness
I've followed the politicization of FEMA grants through the Nonprofit Security Grant Program which overwhelmingly goes to Jewish organizations. The recent Israel supplemental bill included a $390M increase to the Nonprofit Security Grant Program with $230M available through Sept 30, 2026. Schumer is pushing for an additional $500M bringing potential 2026 funding to $730M.
The timing of this is interesting also because it's in the middle of a significant back-and-forth between Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. Tucker Carlson had Candace Owens on his show, where Tucker accused Fuentes of being a fed. To justify that claim, Tucker said that Fuentes accused Carlson's father of being in the CIA which was a fact that Carlson claimed to not know until his father's death in March.
Tucker also gave a line of criticism of Fuentes that Tucker himself gave in nearly exact words to Pat Buchanan in 1999.
How does this tie in together? Where is the pushback against the clear Israeli influence in the US government supposed to come from in the Right Wing? It's only coming from Fuentes and DR Twitter. Stuff like this gives Fuentes credibility regarding his criticisms of Israeli influence- it seems Tucker Carlson is trying to ride the fine line between providing an outlet for criticism of Israeli influence among the Right Wing but still gatekeeping Nick Fuentes from going further mainstream.
While in practice I'll accept that it's complicated, both sides of the aisle seem to have, in some cases begrudgingly, agreed that "discrimination on the basis of national origin" is verboten. Under the lens of the Civil Rights Act, a company saying "We won't do business with Israeli nationals" (note the number of dual-citizenships and US citizens residing in Israel, which is more than in Canada) is a pretty transparent violation.
It is a bit less clear that this applies to foreign companies: "we prefer to buy from domestic suppliers" is well within the Overton Window, even "would prefer not to buy from China" is probably not objectionable (and "do not do business with Iran and North Korea" is effectively mandated, although those congressional mandates presumably trump congressional civil rights law). But in this particular case, "will not buy from Israel-linked companies" is pretty strongly associated with attempts to discriminate against persons of Israeli origin. I think this case is maybe winnable, but you'd likely need to be squeaky clean on the persons (not corporate) level.
Now, there are also good arguments to be made about absolute freedom of association here, but most of those have, to my knowledge, mostly lost in court. Overturning the better part of a century of civil rights law is something that is neither a small ask, nor popular outside of a handful of principled libertarians (and witches). I don't think that's to be done lightly.
As I often do, I like to consider a counterfactual: suppose there was a movement that existed to boycott only Muslim nations. Now, it wasn't against Muslims, per se, just that for mumblemumble reasons it only called for those nations to be boycotted, and for nations that are demonstrably worse at human rights like the likes of North Korea to be not sanctioned.
I don't think a lot of the people complaining about anti-BDS would also be complaining about being anti-Muslim-Nation-boycotts. Sure, there'd still be some overlap, but not enough to really make the news.
As a member of "some overlap" I'll say this works both way. The people screaming bloody murder about BDS, would see the kind of laws directed against it as an egregious violation of their basic civil rights, were they directed at an anti-Muslim boycott.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link