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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

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I hesitate to post this because I do think that those comments are the kind of background, "I hate the outgroup" signaling that you can find everywhere every day among every group. This man isn't going to commit violence against anyone. Give him a gun, a bag of candy, and unfettered access to those kids and the worst you'll get are some tummy aches.

Except that such rhetoric is being normalized and people are beginning to act on it. You are even reacting as if “I want to kill him, his wife and his kids” as just normal. I contend that it isn’t normal for people to be constantly saying they want people to die, and making it normal enough to show up in casual conversation is honestly scary. I say this as a fairly centrist democrat— the rhetoric of killing opponents has absolutely no place in a civil and civilized society, and unless it ratchets back, the cold civil war will eventually go hot.