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.
I don't see any congressional approval for this condition anywhere in the statute, so I expect it won't last long in court.
To back up a bit, there is a whole area of law concerning when and how the federal government can attach strings to money granted to the states, because doing so can in some cases be coercive (see. e.g. SD v Dole). Since it raises constitutional concerns, the Court has said that Congress must do so in unambiguous terms. This is likewise a parallel with various other kinds of Federal preemption: Congress can preempt a variety of State laws, but respect for State's rights mean that if it wishes to do so, it has to legislate it clearly rather than having the courts infer preemption.
As I see it, this is just a totally illegal addition of "terms and conditions" to the spending that Congress didn't justify. It might arguably within the power of the Federal Government to impose such a condition, but seems very obviously not within the power of the executive, acting without a clear congressional statement, to do so.
The FEMA logic is that BDS is intrinsically racist. They stated this directly in their tweet explaining their policy in reaction to the backlash.
Irrespective of whether that's true, there is no explicit intent by Congress here.
There is not some kind of magic escape hatch from constitutional law that is invoked by putatively combating racism. If anything, I would have expected the Biden DOJ to put forward that kind of wonky theory (e.g. in SFFA) not the Trump one.
There is. Christopher Caldwell calls it the Civl Rights Constitution. It's what allows the government to require employers to fire you for racist speech on the job, in order to encourage you not to be racist at home either. (Davis v. Monsanto Chemical Co. 858 F.2d 345). It's also what allows the government to engage in viewpoint discrimination with respect to 501(c)(3) qualification (Bob Jones Univ. v. United States, 461 U.S. 574 (1983))
Bob Jones is gonna come in extremely handy in the current administration v university dustup.
It is. I'd prefer it was overturned and we got the First Amendment back, but that ain't going to happen, so sharpening the other edge of that blade is the next best thing.
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