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There's a rapidly congealing hagiography surrounding Charlie Kirk in the wake of his shooting. Before his assassination, I was only vaguely aware of him as just another political commentator like Destiny, Bannon, Yiannopoulos, Fuentes, etc. I don't recall anyone trying to lionize him as one of the greats or anything like that. Of course, the political calculus changed the instant the bullet entered his body. Cynically, if Kirk looks better and more virtuous, then the more effectively he can be treated as a martyr, and, if need be, used as a cudgel against the left. And of course, it's best to strike while the iron is hot and the outpouring of support is at its greatest. Right-wing rhetoric once again bears a striking resemblance to the woke left of old, with the main retort being some version of "how DARE you!?!" I've seen plenty of conservatives assert that any criticism of Kirk at this moment is tantamount to saying "He deserved to get shot. Also, I 100% support political violence against people who disagree with me". This is flatly nonsense, as it's obviously valid to decry political violence while simultaneously believing Kirk was just a mundane political operative like any other.
In case you're wondering how far the hagiography is going, I'll provide some examples. Yesterday, Trump called him a "martyr for truth" and promised to award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor that can be bestowed. Congresswoman Luna compared Kirk to previous political martyrs, tweeting a photo that placed him between MLK and Jesus while circulating a letter calling for a statue of Kirk to be erected in the US Capitol. Congresswoman Mace introduced a resolution for Kirk to lie in honor in the Capital Rotunda, and there's a decent chance he'll get a state funeral or a close equivalent. Others have angrily noted how Kirk's Wikipedia page doesn't have identical wording to MLK's assassination -- "assassination by gunshot" vs "gunshot wound" -- as if Kirk's death "was a hunting accident".(?)
I dug into some of the things Kirk has said, and I've found him to be little more than a cynical apparatchik that rapidly changed his views to align with the dominant Republican zeitgeist on several occasions.
@DaseindustriesLtd puts it like this:
And yeah, after doing a bit of research, that's basically what I've found as well.
One of the most steelmanned takes comes from, of all places, Ezra Klein in the NYT. He writes that Kirk was "practicing politics the right way" by being willing to "talk to the other side". This is a ludicrously hagiographic way of saying "he was a political commentator that did not actively advocate for violence". I suppose that, sadly, that last part is becoming an increasingly high bar these days.
In terms of the flip-flopping, there are several examples. Michael Tracey goes into some of them.
First, the Epstein stuff:
Second, in foreign affairs:
Beyond these two bits, I've found a few more.
Third, on TikTok:
At first he was in favor of banning TikTok, saying "It's way past time to ban TikTok. It is a cancer on America." But then, after talking with some investors Trump changed his tune saying "I will never ban TikTok if re-elected, and Kirk dutifully followed. Shortly before Trump's inauguration Kirk ran a story saying TikTok was encouraging gen Z to become more conservative, and thus that Trump should "save TikTok".
Fourth, on Ron DeSantis:
DeSantis had a good burst of publicity in 2021 and 2022, and so Kirk started singing his praises as "the future of conservatism". That changed when Trump entered the primary in 2024. Soon it became clear that Trump was the frontrunner, and so Kirk changed his tune and started saying that DeSantis should drop out "for the heroes of our nation."
Fifth, on mail-in ballots:
At first, Kirk parroted the Trump line mail-in ballots were fake and easily manipulated and so everyone should vote in-person. By 2024, Turning Point Action rolled out “Chase the Vote” and a “Commit 100” early-vote/ballot-chasing machine mirroring the Trump/RNC pivot to embrace early and absentee voting (“Bank Your Vote,” later “Swamp the Vote USA”).
Finally, on political violence (and this is especially relevant given the context in which he died):
Kirk mostly gave anodyne anti-violence answers when questioned, but that didn't stop him from amplifying conspiracy theories when the shoe was on the other foot. When Paul Pelosi was attacked with a hammer, Kirk smiled, laughed, and suggested a "patriot" go bail out the person who perpetrated it so they could "ask questions". This was almost certainly in reference to the notion that Paul Pelosi was attacked by a gay prostitute, and that the whole episode was little more than a lover's quarrel.
Changing your mind is not a crime, but I start to wonder about political figures who conveniently do so exactly when public opinion shifts. Kirk was almost slavishly loyal to Trump when Trump was the avatar of the conservative movement, but was more than willing to toot DeSantis' horn when it seemed like he might be the next big thing -- despite that DeSantis was always going to have to compete against Trump in a zero-sum race for the nomination.
There's probably more I've missed, but at this point it feels like beating a dead horse.
So... you're reading a bunch of transcripts and concluding that he was a mainstream milquetoast conservative. Well, you'd be correct on that. But Charlie Kirk's power was not in his ideology, or his ideas, or his intellect. Charlie Kirk was extraordinary because alone among any political commentator in the US, he would go to various colleges and universities and welcome open, civil debate with anyone who showed up. This is something that our society is sorely lacking and we need more of, but there are very few people who have the courage to do it. Probably fewer now.
If your point is to dismiss him because he's not an ideological tentpole of conservatism, you are missing the big picture entirely.
He was dunk-farming on infantile leftists for clout in a similar vein that Milo Yiannopoulos exploited about a decade ago. That's not a bad thing, but it's hardly some great civic service.
This is a high level bad take.
He want to Universities and spoke to everyone. Most college kids are dumb now - what can you do?
Milo was a piece of shit asshole - Kirk was a kid who started a company that became defining for a generation.
Kirk was a completely nice, normal conservative.
He represents the best of ‘ that side ‘ imo. That side being people on the right.
I don't see how Milo was such a piece of shit relative to Kirk, unless we're judging specifically by how much we personally agree with their political opinions. Milo was also successful, for a time, until he crashed out by ending up on the wrong side of the right-wing pedo craze if my memory serves correctly.
Not exactly. Specifically, he was promoting relationships between older gay men and teenage boys ( even 13 years old), as someone who'd had sex with a man when aged 13 and liked it and thought it was a hugely important part of the gay experience.
I think he'd got used to the idea that being gay allowed him to get away with being a shock jockey and didn't get where the limits of that were.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Yiannopoulos
https://www.newsweek.com/marjorie-taylor-green-milo-yiannopoulos-pedophilia-remarks-1713391
Yeah, fair enough.
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The most hilarious thing about this situation for me was that, for about a year preceding this, Milo's leftist critics kept trying to justify using violence against him in public speaking events because he had harmful opinions and such. Liberals kept pointing out both how evil that is and how counterproductive that is for shutting someone down. And, indeed, when Milo got got, it was entirely because he was given free speech with which to speak his mind and discredit himself in the eyes of enough people who supported him to get him shut down. Precisely as the liberals said would play out of you just give bigots like him loudspeakers and let them speak their mind.
Broadly I agree with you - thus LiberalsOfTikTok but Milo didn’t get cancelled for being bigoted but for being much, much too open.
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I keep seeing this take. It's one thing to do 12 hours of "man on the street" and then edit to highlight idiots and owns. I'm sure he edited for owns for clips, but how much screening was Kirk doing on people coming up to the mic? Even if it was a fair amount, unlike man on the street, he wasn't going up to randos; his interlocutors came to him. Where else should you go than universities to take on opponents? The only critique I can see is that with a quick Google (it's very bent towards shooting-related links) he didn't spend a lot of time at truly elite universities. But that said, he went to Cambridge.
Any of Kirk's content that zoomers were seeing on TikTok was of course going to be highly cherrypicked.
I don't know if he also did full unedited livestreams, but even if he did I'd hardly call it amazing. Debate is mostly fake. By that, I mean the idea that the strongest argument (or the most truth-seeking individual, or even just the most persuasive) inevitably wins is fake. It's a skill like any other -- Yglesias has gone into this on the case of Hasan.
What is more real, other than raw violence?
"Debate" is a sport. It's historically connected to honest truth-seeking discourse, but often strays far from it. Twitch illustrates one degenerate mode. Competitive policy debate illustrates another.
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I think debates should have some sort of fairness to them. It's fine if two random men on the street want to get into an argument and film it, that's fair. It's less fair if one of them is a professional talking head, and he's been researching talking points and practicing this debate professionally, while the other person is just getting into it for the first time. That's not a debate, that's an ambush.
In what other ambush scenario does the side that's supposedly being ambushed get to decide whether, how, and when to engage?
Yeah, it's not an ambush at all. He invited them to attack his prepared position, that's not an ambush.
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It's only an ambush because those college kids think they're brilliant, generation-defining thinkers who definitely have all the answers and they're actually ignorant fools. If Kirk accomplished nothing but inspiring the faintest touch of humility and consideration in a small portion of the kids he debated, then he had more value than most of their professors.
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At the same time, the time and place event is posted online, so students have time to do research and prepare their points of view. I don't think asking students at colleges and universities to come prepared for a discussion is too much.
If they aren't even capable of that, they shouldn't even be attending said universities, or at the very least willingly stepping up to the mic. The problem is, a lot of students come up to the mic convinced in their beliefs with little to no reasoning, so they get stumped at the slightest bit of questioning. A simple acknowledgement of "hmm, I don't know, I guess I'll look into it more" would paint them in a less embarrassing light. But because they're not approaching with the intent of conversation so much as wanting to oppose Kirk, they inevitably come off as foolish.
Also, the format is more along the lines of a conversation and less of an actual structured formal debate. Kirk has done actual formal structured debate. So yea, he's not engaging in a debate, he's engaging in conversation.
I once saw a flat earther talking to students on a college campus. I thought it was interesting how many people walked up to him to argue that the earth is round, and then strung together incoherent or factually incorrect arguments.
I'm not sure what the lesson is there, but it stuck with me.
Debate is a skill. Most people overestimate their ability to assemble an argument on the fly, overestimate their knowledge of a subject, and even when theoretically prepared overestimate their composure when an unfriendly interlocutor starts pushing on them.
You can loose an argument to someone who is obviously, comically wrong because they more prepared and more composed in the actual debate.
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That is interesting.
I think the lesson is if you want to argue with flat earthers with the intent to win the argument and fail to do so, you should accept that you don't actually know why the earth is round, then spend some time learning some reasons for why the earth is round so that in the future you are better equipped to win that argument. Or, if you have no interest and time then don't bother. Flat earth discussion has very little productivity value.
If you are unable to argue your point or dismantle the opponent's, just accept you lost the debate. It doesn't mean you're wrong, or the opponent is right. Or, just listen with an open mind. If the flat earther has a solid argument, maybe they're right. Otherwise, you'll spot the contradiction or error. If you can't then maybe you aren't understanding their argument, so just admit you need to think about it more and move on.
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Do any of the students look at this guy's website? This reminds me of "A Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy," where the Vogons place theif notice to demolish Eartj on Alpha Centauri and blame humans for not looking at it. It seems like these are just regular collegs kids walking by with no advance notice or experience in this kind of "public argumentative conversation"
Considering protestors routinely show up at Kirk and other conservative speaker's events, there's bound to be people on the other side who could come prepared to debate. For the everyday college student that shows up with no knowledge ahead of time, entering the conversation with some humility and open mindedness would do wonders. I thought college and universities were supposed to be a place that helps students hone their critical thinking skills.
I've seen students with leftist point of views come in and because they don't show up being aggressive, there's an actual conversation and dialogue between Kirk and those students. The ones that go viral with the gotcha moments tend to be aggressive, close minded students that come into the conversation with intent to win an argument.
Edit: I just saw this video of the student that was talking to Kirk when Kirk got assassinated, and in it he says he was at the event because he noticed Kirk was touring American universities while scrolling his videos and one of the events was at his school, which is why he's there.
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What you're saying here doesn't make much sense. The blue-haired kids just happened to ignorantly stumble into an assembly hosted on campus, after classes are over, watch their friends get demolished, and then step up to the mic and do the same thing?
The reality is that these were fervent believers, ready to be angry and combative, who probably did plenty of research beforehand. The clips that made it to TikTok were probably the lower performers, but they were performers nonetheless. Characterizing these discussions as an intellectual giant beating up on stupid children isn't accurate.
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It's not necessarily that unfair, because the "ambushed" side has the benefit of chosing whether or not to engage, whereas the professional looks bad if he refuses to debate someone, no one will know about the amateurs that don't show up. The amateur can research the specific point they want to make beforehand, has the benefit of researching the person they will debate beforehand... Knowing that you're going to go against someone who does that professionally, you would assume that they've already encountered every easy surface level arguments. But yeah, some people just look at "easy looking" carnival games and assume that there's nothing funny going on, just like I imagine some people look at a "debate me" event from a pro-gun person and think they never considered school shootings can and have happened. Still, they walked in it of their own accord; and it's a lot fairer than gotcha vox-pop you see on TV.
There's also a bit of a magic trick where the professional will move the scope of the discussion to a field they've prepared heavily as part of their opening gambit. It's not limited to these sort of public oral debates, but once you catch the trick it's hard to miss how common it is, even if the actual slight-of-hand is pretty hard to imitate.
Control over framing is truly one of the most important parts of narrative building. In the same sense that any metaphor can break down if examined too closely, being able to set initial scopes of conversation- and refuse/refute attempts to reshape it- is an almost necessary skill in any sort of competitive/contested narrative environment.
Learning how to handle it subtly / gracefully / reasonably is another important skill, since 'I'm just going to ignore what you said and repeat my point' tends to go down badly, but framing devices ranging from timeframe and cultural contexts are significant.
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That feels less like magic because it's done completely in the open. I guess most people can't put it together. What I think is more of a trick is sound engineering. I didn't watch enough of Kirk to know if it was happening at his events, but it happens on the radio all the time. The host has a big, strong, clear voice with everything tuned, while the caller is speaking through a shitty phone mic, speaking at half the volume with horrible sound quality and the host has a mute button if they don't want to just straight talk over the caller.
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If you walk up to somebody to get into an argument with them (even if they're encouraging you to do this), can you really say you were ambushed?
Baited, then.
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Kirk's interlocutors chose to walk up to the mic. His appearances are announced weeks (months?) in advance. Kirk had a decade of his strongest arguments publicly available. This is as far from an ambush as you can get.
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