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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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No, I'm not. You know this. This is the second of the political murders. Brian Thompson was the first. That makes two. That makes a trend. I will lose even more faith in humanity if this happens again and you say this exact same line.

Are you scared of white supremacist/neonazi violence taking over the US?

We've had the Evergreen shooting

A school shooting in Nashville

Attack on Baltimore power grid

Attempted bombing in Nashville

Shooting at a Texas mall

Shooting in Wisconsin

And that's just some of the white supremacist inspired violence in the past few years.

Are you gonna lose your faith in humanity if despite an >2 amount of neonazi killings and bombings, I say it's still rare?

  • -12

Convenient how you ignore every single thing that separates this from the current situation. Did you see thousands of right-wingers openly celebrating those attacks? This murderer was not a brainrotted young man. He was a completely normal person as of a week ago. He was not a schizo with a crossed wire. He was simply someone who believed that the fascists are causing harm and we must fight them outside the bounds of a system they exploit, because what did you think revolution meant, a picnic?

"The past few years," really? Are you fucking serious? We're talking about something that happened days ago. Do you think having a big bad white supremacist rap sheet proves that the other side can never have any legitimate grievance on novel developments?

You should also consider this from a strategic perspective, if you have no interest in understanding others. I can understand why you're so desperate to deflect any attention away from something that could associate the good guy squad with a murderer. But every single word you type is only making it worse for yourself. All this comes off as is a desperate attempt to deny, deflect, and disarm, with your real motives nakedly bare. That you come handily equipped with a laundry list of not even remotely similar attacks is honestly really sad, and betrays your purposes.

And I don't know why you expect this to play out well. Oats_son certainly is not swayed by your argument. I'm not. I agree with everything he said below. Your words only make your side appear more obstinately certain that they can do no wrong by virtue of being on the right side of history. You make absolutely no effort to reach across the aisle and try to appreciate where we're coming from in saying this novel situation is worrisome. You only want to make it about the real bad guys. If you were doing this a month from now, this would be fair, but you are doing this in the immediate aftermath of a shocking, terrifying event, making every effort to reframe the conversation about how right wingers are bad. This will go over as well as if somebody tried to shut down any fears over Kennedy's assassination by bringing up all the black people unjustly killed by police, two days after it happened.

I do not know what you can possibly be thinking, but your arguments are only adding fuel to the fire. You are either a troll or being very, very foolish. Either way, I'd encourage you to stop raising the temperature, for the sake of your own side.

Convenient how you ignore every single thing that separates this from the current situation. Did you see thousands of right-wingers openly celebrating those attacks? This murderer was not a brainrotted young man. He was a completely normal person as of a week ago. He was not a schizo with a crossed wire. He was simply someone who believed that the fascists are causing harm and we must fight them outside the bounds of a system they exploit, because what did you think revolution meant, a picnic?

Yes, there are plenty of people who celebrate white nationalist attacks online. Just because they're doing it on 4chan or Telegram doesn't mean they don't exist.

"The past few years," really? Are you fucking serious? We're talking about something that happened days ago. Do you think having a big bad white supremacist rap sheet proves that the other side can never have any legitimate grievance on novel developments?

Is the only thing that matters the literal last event to happen? Silly. Especially because on the same day a dude radicalized by neonazis online shot three kids at Evergreen.

You should also consider this from a strategic perspective, if you have no interest in understanding others. I can understand why you're so desperate to deflect any attention away from something that could associate the good guy squad with a murderer. But every single word you type is only making it worse for yourself. All this comes off as is a desperate attempt to deny,

Let's see here

I say that right or left wing, it's bad to associate the violent actions of a very few rare individuals as indicative of the whole group. Pretty consistent, nonpartisan, principled.

You seem to be saying that it's ok to associate them, but only if it's the actions of left radicals and we should ignore the white supremacist attacks, the assassination of Minnesota Dems, the attack on Paul Pelosi, etc. Hmm, seems inconsistent, I wonder why this logic of blame isn't applied equally.

And I don't know why you expect this to play out well. Oats_son certainly is not swayed by your argument. I'm not. I agree with everything he said below.

Oh wow, this saddens me so much that a stranger on the internet disagrees.

Your words only make your side appear more obstinately certain that they can do no wrong by virtue of being on the right side of history

What's "my side"? Are you only able to conceptualize politics, with its myriad of complex topics and viewpoints, on a single axis? That there are only two groups of "us" and "them"? One needs only look at other nations, like Germany, India or Brazil with a different electoral system allowing more political divergence to understand it's not just "left vs right".

And even those are still loose alliances of people with many varying belief systems in them.

This will go over as well as if somebody tried to shut down any fears over Kennedy's assassination by bringing up all the black people unjustly killed by police, two days after it happened.

If someone was in the 60s claiming that violence never happened to black people at that time, they would be wrong whether they said it before or after the Kennedy assassination.

I do not know what you can possibly be thinking, but your arguments are only adding fuel to the fire

I didn't know that I was this important for my words on a small site like this to have great impact on the world. I must be way more influential and awesome than I thought. Thank you for such kind praise of my importance.

I say that right or left wing, it's bad to associate the violent actions of a very few rare individuals as indicative of the whole group. Pretty consistent, nonpartisan, principled.

Yes, if you say that in vacuum it looks great. You are saying that as a way to deflect someone's sincere concerns about a very current issue. You should go to Palestine and tell someone in a bombed-out home about how awful "violence in general" is.

Is the only thing that matters the literal last event to happen? Silly. Especially because on the same day a dude radicalized by neonazis online shot three kids at Evergreen.

Show me where you see anyone celebrating this.

If someone was in the 60s claiming that violence never happened to black people at that time, they would be wrong whether they said it before or after the Kennedy assassination.

The point is that they would have to be very stupid to say this, because it is very obviously not going to play over well regardless of what an epic and brave truth it is. It is clearly inappropriate to most people, and would not endear the grieving nation to the plight of black people. If anything, it would be counter-productive. Kind of like this very ill-advised thing you're doing now. You are just dumping oil on yourself next to an open flame and blaming the fire for putting you in a precarious situation. I am telling you that it is not a good idea to be pouring oil on yourself.

Oh wow, this saddens me so much that a stranger on the internet disagrees.

You do not belong on this site. You are gleefully violating every principle of this space with snide comments like that.

Yes, if you say that in vacuum it looks great. You are saying that as a way to deflect someone's sincere concerns about a very current issue. You should go to Palestine and tell someone in a bombed-out home about how awful "violence in general" is.

Facts don't care about your feelings.

Show me where you see anyone celebrating this

He was literally on a site posting about it beforehand being cheered on.

Underneath his post, Holly engaged with several comments in a manner that suggested he was close to committing his own attack. He liked one comment reading, “You got close to a full setup now man time to make a move 👍.” He also liked a comment reading, “Just need an gopro its gonan be cool an pov [sic],” and responded, “A GoPro, battery, ear protection, and maybe a patch.” Responding to another commenter, he wrote, “I’m planning on getting a camera instead.”

Under a TikTok post from June 2025, Holly had liked a comment asking, “is bro gonna become a Hero." Some white supremacists use the term “Hero” to refer to successful ideologically motivated attackers. Holly had also liked a comment telling him to acquire a white supremacist sonnenrad patch like Tarrant and Gendron wore, replying that he had made some and sharing a photo of patches featuring a Totenkopf and sonnenrad. Both are Nazi-era symbols used today as hate symbols.

Is that good enough for you, white supremacists actively encouraging the attack?

The point is that they would have to be very stupid to say this, because it is very obviously not going to play over well regardless of what an epic and brave truth it is.

Again, facts don't care about your feelings. Facts don't care to be "politically correct". They are just facts, and the facts are that political violence is rare.

You do not belong on this site. You are gleefully violating every principle of this space with snide comments like that.

I had thought this was a rationalist aligned site, and yet you seem to be arguing that your feels beat reals. Perhaps you don't belong?

Who cares what your feels are, put up some statistics, give some numbers. Validate your point. I have earlier in a post

There was 75 million Harris voters, if even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of them was engaging in political violence, we should be seeing way more than this! And they shouldn't be constantly ending up as incoherent dudes who don't even have clear politics to slot into (this recent guy didn't even vote).

Even just one percent would be 750,000. .001% would be 750! That's still way more than what political violence we've seen.

There you go. Show some math that it's at least 750 left wing political attacks and I'll concede that .001% of Harris voters (probably one of the closest approximations of the "left" even though it would likely underestimate cause of non voters splitting between the two) are politically violent. Huge victory proving me wrong, a tenth of a fraction of a fraction (a term famously used to convey large percentages).

Didn't read lol

I think I was incredibly gracious, giving you a very low bar to clear to prove political violence isn't rare at 10% of 1% of 1% of leftists.

Even just a fraction of a fraction is considered a small amount, you got a 90% discount. If you still can't manage it, maybe consider you are just wrong.

Suddenly you care about what other people think? What was it you said earlier?"Oh wow, this saddens me so much that a stranger on the internet disagrees." (Words spoken to a stranger on the internet about why he should not disagree with you)

Well that makes two of us. I didn't convince you. Boo hoo. Why do you demand I stand and put my best foot forward when you dismiss the fact that your own arguments are not convincing? You clearly just want to shut down the conversation, which is why you're here shitting up every thread instead of making a new one about the kids you supposedly care about.

You really come off like you care less about dead kids than you do about the opportunity they provide as a distraction. If that weren't the case, you'd bring them up in contexts besides the death of Charlie Kirk.

By contrast, the reason people are talking about Charlie Kirk is because they actually do care about his death. This reflects poorly on you, and only adds fuel to the fire.

Not a single word you have written this week is to your benefit.

I am not going to read anything else you say because I think you are a terrible person, and everything you say makes you look more like that. I am absolutely certain you think Charlie's death is a good thing, and your only concern is that anyone disagrees. From the spamming of conservative slogans I have never said in my life to the dismissal of good faith argumentation, you make yourself impossible to be kind to, and I am normally very patient. If you want to make things worse for yourself, reply anyway, but I won't see it.

More comments

Then don't comment.

He also DMed me

You are a terrible person and your comments suck

So he read it enough to get really upset. Ironic, it evidences the argument that it's feelings based and not facts based.

Are you reading these articles? The Baltimore power grid looks like the only clear-cut example. The Texas mall is the next closest, but the Hispanic guy probably does deserve an astrisk when being used as an example of white supremacist violence (neo-nazi is fair, imo).

But in all the links you've dropped, the school shooters in particular seem much more fixated on the concept of "school shootings" rather than a political angle. Some of them did at least have some far-right or neo-nazi symbolism going on, but for others the connection is "used the OK sign", or the black kid who "may" have been linked to a manifesto that liked some right-wing shooters (and also wanted to kill all the white people and Jews).

The Nashville power plant one might be the most egregious. I've spent 20 fucking years arguing that it is not meaningful when the FBI convinces some autistic Muslim kid to hate America, do something about it, then gives him money to buy fake bomb materials from them, to carry out the plan that they gave him. That doesn't change when they do it to a white guy. What were his ties to white nationalist groups that only appear in the article as something he claimed to his FBI handler? His other FBI handler?

And the thing that jumps out at me is that every one of these articles is drenched in full-throated condemnation and insistant linking. Like there are entire well-funded organizations dedicated to drawing all possible connections here, no matter how tenuous.

Compare that to "The shooter wrote cultural phrases on the bullets" type evasive vagueness that we get from mainstream outlets for violence going the other way. "The killer wrote 'Catch this, fascist!' on the bullet. Experts are unclear if anyone has ever used this phrase before, and certainly can't imagine any extremist groups who might condone such language. This was probably right-on-right violence inspired by Nick Fuentes."

This is what I expected someone like you to say, except I didn't expect you to come out and say it so quickly rather than waiting the amount of time it took for another murder of a public figure to bring it up, hoping that nobody remembered what you said last time.

So, when you said this,

Sure, when violent leftist groups go around doing a bunch of murder instead a single attack by a brainrotted young man, I'll acknowledge that it's an issue.

it was actually a complete, bald-faced lie, used entirely in service of excusing your own rhetoric and downplaying future crimes like this, to be used once and then discarded in favor of whatever new convenient argument you come up with. You are exactly who my original post is talking about. I am still in complete amazement that I still have to go through the exact same dishonest rhetorical tactics with even a murder like this. There is no awful crime that would make you not argue like this. You are permanently broken from politics, and there are a LOT of people like you. There are so many people like you that every comment thread on this site is filled with your rhetoric, even here, on this site that is vastly skewed towards right wingers.

To answer your dishonest question, I am not as scared of white supremacists taking over the US, because their rhetoric is still far outside of the Overton window, and their tragic targets are seemingly random and sadly not as important as YouTubers who get millions of subscribers, and they form part of a background radiation of horrific crimes committed by crazy people similar to the killing of Iryna Zarutska, which while heartbreaking, is not a huge deal like this murder, which was a totally unjustifiable murder for nothing that is getting sanewashed by people like you every day before he's been even put in the ground yet.

I hold no hope of ever convincing anyone like you of anything anymore, so I'm not going to reply to you after this.

Are you illiterate? I explicitly said

Are you gonna lose your faith in humanity if despite an >2 amount of neonazi killings and bombings, I say it's still rare?

White supremacist violence in the US is also not an issue. It is possible to think neither are a major problem.

There are more events regarding neonazi idealogy but it's still very very few. There are not roving bands of neonazis going around killing people, there are one off nutjobs.

To answer your dishonest question, I am not as scared of white supremacists taking over the US, because their rhetoric is still far outside of the Overton window,

Are they? There's tons of veiled 14 words posting and other white supremacist adjacent posts. The DHS of all things made an explicit reference to William Gayley Simpson, the white supremacist who said Hitler was correct and that Jews needed to be exterminated.

The DHS doesn't want to exterminate Jews, but making references to white supremacists like that shows the Overton window of white supremacy is not too far away.

@oats_son:

This is what I expected someone like you to say

@magicalkittycat:

Are you illiterate?

You two are just bickering and insulting each other now. Stop it.

The acts themselves are not particularly concerning, but the reaction is. None of the acts you listed engendered widespread open celebration by normal people.