site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Sir, there's been four new Nazi/Hitler/antisemitic issues in the conservative community in just the past day

Following the recent Politico expose on the Young Republicans groupchat leak among mid 20s-30s leaders of the organization containing comments about gas chambering their political opponents and antisemitic remarks like this

“I was about to say you’re giving nationals to [sic] much credit and expecting the Jew to be honest,”

In the followup to this, yes you heard it right, at least four new antisemitic and/or Nazi controversies in the past day or so.

A flag with a swatiska embedded in it was spotted in the office of Representative Dave Taylor.  Rep. Taylor has called it out and condemned it, and it's quite possible he never noticed it before himself but it does seem to be another sign of the embedded antisemitic and pro nazi rhetoric in lower level staffers if one of them put it up.

“The content of that image does not reflect the values or standards of this office, my staff, or myself, and I condemn it in the strongest terms,” Taylor said in a statement

Additionally, the Border Patrol posted a video on an Instagram containing an antisemitic slur. While the higher ups of the border patrol likely don't have much to do with what gets posted on the social media, it's again another bad sign that the lower levels who coordinate posts and approve them are antisemitic. Someone had to specifically pick that particular verse of that particular version of that particular song, they knew what they were posting and whatever approval process they use, the others would have heard the lyrics and yet signed on.

The third controversy is the most explicit of them all. Myron Gaines, host of the Fresh and Fit podcast (1.58 million subscribers on YouTube alone) posted

Yeah we like Hitler. No one gives a fuck what you woke jews think anymore.

Bro was a revolutionary leader and saved germany. The jews declared war on Germany first.

If can israel deny a genocide with 4k video proof, I'm questjoning everything you guys have said about the painter during WW2.

Now, I never would have imagine that the word woke includes "thinking the Holocaust is real and Hitler is bad", but that seems to be where we are at now. Gaines is also a former employee of the DHS, which is just another point of evidence of low level gop aligned staffers having pro Nazi/antisemitic views.

But in fact, all of this seems to be par for the course, according to Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab. who also wades into the ring of antisemitic Holocaust denialism with comments like

A Jew scolding me about creating fictional collectivist, grievance-based narratives is projection at its finest.

That's right, at least two major conservative names have directly engaged in unashamed pro Nazi/Holocaust denialism/etc rhetoric in response to the group chat leak and both of them strongly believe that many other high level conservatives agree with them (Myron's use of "We like Hitler and Torba saying it's normal).

As Richard Hanania (Writer of "The Origins of Woke" who has been in many conservative spaces before) explained months before the leak, this is actually pretty common. As he's said before, the two types of comments he tends to get "it can't be that bad" and "lol that's exactly what it's like" such as this agreement from National Review reporter James Lynch

Everyone involved with the young right already knew this was happening.

Hanania was first to articulate it in depth from a place of familiarity.

What's interesting is that the one thing both the Nazi denouncers (Hanania/Lynch/etc) and Nazi defenders (Myron/Torba/etc) here both seem to agree on, is that this is common among the young right. There seems to be a broad consensus that this gropyer antisemitic Nazism is growing among conservatives, especially young ones. We've seen this with Kanye and his descent into Nazism, we've seen this with John Reid and Mike Robinson both exposed over their Nazi fetish. We've seen this with Tucker Carlson and Daryl Cooper. The rapid growth of figures like Nick "six million cookies" Fuentes, Ian Carroll and Theo Von. In fact a neo Nazi inspired kid was even behind a recent school shooting in Colorado a few months ago

EW Erickson says https://x.com/EWErickson/status/1978812093773041964

This is why the “no enemies to the right of me” stuff cannot work. There are enemies there and we cannot be silent. This stuff is festering and needs to be excised from the right.

Ben Shapiro says that unity with radicals will destroy the right wing as it pushes moderate Americans away.

Right wing conservative libertarian speaker Phil Magness says

The same people calling for conservative "unity" in the wake of the Hitler chat group leaks also spent the last decade trying to purge classical liberals & free market economics from the conservative movement.

They don't want "unity." They want room for Nazis in that movement.

So with all this recent controversy, how big of a Nazi problem is actually festering, and why do the Nazis seem to feel so comfortable in modern conservativism? They even seem to be dropping hints at the highest levels if the border patrol video was intended as a dog whistle to be dropped before deleting. Is this growing widespread agreement (from Hanania to Torba) that this is just the tip of the iceberg among young conservatives accurate? Will this growing trend of Nazi radicalism destroy the Republicans chances among moderates in the future like embracing left wing radicalism hurt Biden? And how do the non Nazi conservatives and moderates balance fighting off Nazi accusations from the left also working to stem this apparant rise of unashamed nazism and Holocaust denialism?

  • -44

Okay, people are accusing you of being Darwin. Right now I am not convinced one way or the other; you definitely post in certain ways that are very similar, but your style isn't quite the same. However, playing "Spot the Darwin alt" is almost as annoying as playing "Spot the JB alt," so I am asking you point blank, and consider this an official mod question:

Are you Darwin aka @guesswho? Is this a new alt you are using?

Note that creating new alts (given that the previous account was not banned) is not outright prohibited, though it is strongly discouraged. However, doing so just because you wanted to ditch your old reputation is not an adequate justification. If you have some reason why you wanted to create a new account to reengage, you need to discuss it with the mod team. Right now, it looks like if you are Darwin, it's to "get one over" on the Motte, not have to face the ignominious way in which you slunk off last time, and start playing your old games anew.

So if you are Darwin, you need to come clean. You will not be banned, but you will be expected to stop this masquerade.

If you are not Darwin, then you need to slow your roll and understand why people are pattern-matching you to a notorious shit-stirring troll known for making bad faith arguments and starting thread after thread on the same topic just to rile people up.

If you deny being Darwin but you are, then if we decide you were lying, you will be banned immediately. Also you should feel a deep sense of guilt, shame, and personal inadequacy.

Hey! I didn't fall for obvious bait. That's gotta be worth at least a few points taken off my record, right?

He's not Darwin. Darwin liked taking the current democratic partyline in culture wars issues ad nauseam. If this were Darwin I'd expect something about republican opposition to healthcare subsidies/recklessness in shutting the government down, or Trump's growing authoritarianism, to be the centerpiece.

Okay, people are accusing you of being Darwin. Right now I am not convinced one way or the other; you definitely post in certain ways that are very similar, but your style isn't quite the same. However, playing "Spot the Darwin alt" is almost as annoying as playing "Spot the JB alt," so I am asking you point blank, and consider this an official mod question:

Are you Darwin aka @guesswho? Is this a new alt you are using?

I have no idea who that is lol so I don't think so.

As the saying goes, onus probandi, the burden of proof is on the speaker. If people wanna make shit up, they can do that. They can provide evidence if they actually want to be believed. I don't have any way to prove I'm not something compared to asinine "it came to me in a dream" tier evidence.

f you are not Darwin, then you need to slow your roll and understand why people are pattern-matching you to a notorious shit-stirring troll known for making bad faith arguments and starting thread after thread on the same topic just to rile people up.

Again I don't know who that is so it's not only literally a worthless comparison but does the opposite of "Wow is this place so opposed to disagreement that they just accuse everyone of being a secret bad faith troll?"

Again I don't know who that is so it's not only literally a worthless comparison but does the opposite of "Wow is this place so opposed to disagreement that they just accuse everyone of being a secret bad faith troll?"

No, it's not. And we are quite aware that taking a position that's unpopular here (like "Republicans have a Nazi problem") is going to get you downvoted and reported a lot. I have, ironically, pointed out to the other mods in your defense that we have some right-leaning regulars whose argumentation isn't much better than yours.

That said, your argumentation is pretty bad. If you have a thesis about fascism and the right, you are entitled to present and argue it. By all means. And props for persistence in what you know to be a hostile environment. But the fact that you sort of just keep repeating your talking points, including in replies, and that a lot of your responses seem oblivious to the point of willful obtuseness (e.g., I flatly do not believe that you really believed all the people responding to you with variations on the yeschad.jpg meme were literally saying "Yes, I am a Nazi") definitely looks like either someone here to ragebait or, well, putting it kindly, an autist who doesn't quite understand how his arguments come across.

I really want to give you the benefit of the doubt. We're aware that leftists have a tendency to flame out because of the unrelenting hostility they attract. You haven't really posted anything that in itself is an egregious violation of the rules, but the overall impression is of someone here to rattle cages (which is you're being pattern-matched to Darwin, or to your buddy Impassionata who's capering about in rdrama about this thread).

I don't know what advice to give you, other than that if you are really here to engage, try to give people the same benefit of the doubt you would like them to give you. For example, people are telling you why they "don't care" about the Nazi/fascism accusations against the right. Rather than sneering back "Oh, I guess you're a Nazi then?", are you even able to read their responses and understand what they are saying? You don't have to agree with them (I do not agree with them; I'm still old-fashioned enough to think Nazis are bad and Hitler jokes make you at best a choad), but are you able to understand their perspective? Are you trying to understand their perspective?

Well, that's my effort for the day. Probably wasted words. Whatever. Carry on.

I have no idea who that is lol so I don't think so.

This is not the first time he's been brought up or described in your threads, so ignorance is not a credible claim.

Okay, people are accusing you of being Darwin.

I'm voting "no", the style is quite different.

TBH, I'm more annoyed with @magicalkittycat than I remember being with Darwin.

And MKC's pattern is not an unusual one. There are lots of midwits who think posting sneering gotchas is the height of art. Look at XKCD. Hell, I used to kinda be one due to hanging around with them too much.

So no, I don't think MKC's Darwin, but he/she is certainly causing issues, and that's a problem by itself.

but he/she is certainly causing issues, and that's a problem by itself.

What issues am I causing?

You have a tendency to sling gotchas and ad hominems, which is bad for the place not being a giant yelling match.

Examples: 1 2 3 4 5 6 - NB: in some of those cases I'm not so much getting at the linked post as your followups.

You do seem to be doing it a bit less since your (apparently voluntary?) sabbatical, though, which I hadn't noticed, so good job there. I was probably also getting a somewhat-worse view of you than justified due to most (all?) of our interactions being in those threads; sorry.

TBH, I'm more annoyed with magicalkittycat than I remember being with Darwin.

And it's the complete opposite for me, I don't know if that counts as evidence, but I don't think it's him either.

It’s definitely someone we’ve seen before, but I don’t know that it’s him either.

Our old friend Impassionata is far more likely a suspect: crossposted over there. https://rdrama.net/post/403216/themotte-catches-darwin2500-in-the-act

To be honest, I enjoy a dishonest shit-stirrer, if only as a vaccination against bad arguments. It solidifies my political convictions, if anything.

I still find it amazing that as much as rdrama.net tries to be as pooptacularly irrtating as possible with ite UI it still doesn't match modern news websites for ad and popup intrusion. Getting news from reddit or here is legit a better user experience than going to the websites themselves and by the gods are we underestimating the enshittification that flows from this UX friction.

and here he stands accused by Amadanb (whose hatred of me is personal, deep, and only going to be made worse as it's clear just how wrong the SFBA Rationalist Cultists were about the fascism):

Ye gods, the man is obsessed with me.

But no, I doubt MKC is Impassionata. Impassionata is worse than Darwin at concealing himself.

I don't know, I was getting a hint of Impassionata, who has indeed recently popped back up over on rdrama.net with the same old song about TheMotte, ACX, Scott, and so forth.

I'm an expert on Impassionata, this isn't him. Lacks a certain touch.

Eh, maybe. Could explain why he's counting coup over on rdrama right now. His last few alts have been much more obvious.

Pathetic and annoying people.

I quite enjoy the stated reason for theRealImpassionata's ban on the permabanned page.

Would you like a good-faith Marxist explanation for the used panties market?

Is it the labia theory of value?

I'm so confused, why are you asking this question

the flair of the person he's asking is "Can Marx explain the used panties market?"

Sometimes reading is hard

Thank you

Sure, the labor theory of value in particular, and why my (a pretty average looking guy in his 30's) labor of wearing a pair of panties doesn't seem to generate nearly as much value as an attractive 18 year old doing the same. And especially explain how the higher value given to the attractive 18 year old's panties (for equal labor!) appears to be constant even in non-capitalist economies. Also explain how the 18 year old merely claiming to have worn them seems to create more value than if I actually wear them, which seems to create negative value for most.

I will buy panties from you - if you wear them in a manner that is confirmable by a third party, for a long enough period of time for them to be noticably soiled - at a price that the market will bear.

Absolutely!

The explanation here is roughly the same as why a certain Argentinian dwarf can get more people willing to pay absurd amount of money just to look at him and will generate a larger worldwide audience interest than all the 18-year-old e-THOTs combined, without needing to sell his underwear whatsoever (though I'm sure if he wanted to, he would likely generate a higher price than his "competition").

The process for him acquiring this ability is slightly different than that of said attractive 18-year-olds, but not qualitatively so - it is based on people watching him do shit on their electronic devices, similarly to girls you mentioned. A 38-year-old South American male can easily generate a larger audience for anything, even cooking eggs, than the most attractive 18-year-old in history of humanity could possibly hope to.

Does that help?

Not at all. Is my labor of wearing the panties not equal to the labor of the attractive 18 year old female wearing the panties? If not, why not? That's the part Marxists seem to have a lot of trouble explaining, at least without throwing the labor theory of value out the window.

It is not, in much the same way as a blind person's labour of painting is not equal to the labour of a trained, talented renaissance artist. Labour theory of value does not discount the existence of natural talent nor learned abilities - the example of wearing panties is a typical reddit-tier right-wing "gotcha", but it just doesn't apply.

Not everyone is equally qualified to do every sort of labour, and it's not purely proficiency either. No matter how many years you spend perfecting your singing, if you're naturally tone-deaf, you'll never do better than a talented 12-year-old with minimal training and experience.

You seem to say that judgement is a major factor. It's not merely the quantity of labor expended that makes something valuable. People have to like it.

You're evading the question.

The value of eighteen year old nubiles underwear is trivially answered with Subjective Theory of Value, because there are a lot more men who want to buy panties over anyone else wanting to buy a man's boxers. Trying to reduce it to labor is not only nonsensical, in this case: it's meaningless.

And you can do this for pretty much anything you can imagine. Why is a Stradavarius more valuable than any other violin? Why is a signed First Edition book worth more than a reprint? You can't dodge into 'socially necessary labor' - because who defines that? Who measures it?

In every material sense, these goods are no different from other commodities of a similar nature, identical in function and content. But one is worth much more than the other. Where does this value come from?

To admit that there is a subjective value to commodities is to dismantle the entire Marxist argument. Why should a blind person's art be worth less than a Da Vinci? What is the natural talent of a eighteen year old girl to wear underwear? Your examples crumble under the least scrutiny.

It is human beings who decide what the value of things are. And if you still argue against this, what's the value of a bitcoin on a desert island? A bar of gold? Where does the labor come?

Hi there! I just wanted to pop in to say that you are acting like a literal SRDine right now. If you want to shield Republicans from all criticism because they're the good guys - do it openly. This is just sad!

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

  • -29

I don't even know what a "SRDine" is, but you are as misguided and just objectively wrong as your rdrama buddy. Now behave- if you only came here to troll, you can go back to rdrama and do your monkeydance for seal claps there.

Now this is probably impassionata. (SRD = subredditdrama, I suspect the term is equivalent to lolcow)

I've had a drink with @idio3 before, unless I'm confusing him with a different commie, so I can vouch for him being a real person.

Nope, that was very much me! Are you still in the same place? I was nearby over the weekend (Pilsen) to go look at the fatasses in riot gear.

Yeah same area, will probably be there for another few years at least depending on where the wife ends up working. See anything worth reporting from the frontlines of Trump's national emergency?

Not really. The superdog ICE mural is cool, I chuckled, but generally it is pretty boring. It's fascinating how right-wingers adopted the whole "Chicago is drowning in crime" thing uncritically, simply because their talking heads repeated it enough. Don't get me wrong - it's not exclusive to right wing, Eurolibs do it to an even greater extent, but I think that this just really solidifies the post-truth world. I'm completely certain most people on this site, for instance, are certain that Chicago is an extremely scary place and would be terrified of Pilsen...

PS. Holy shit this server sucks. Are you guys running it on ZX Spectrum or something? There can't be that much traffic here to justify 10-minute loading times...

More comments

Idio3 is a real person, why wouldn't it be him?

Srdines are sort of hyper redditors. They're usually left wing, so I don't see how the accusation fits. But idio is a commie, so maybe he thinks everyone to the right of stalin is the same.

Idio3 is a real person

How do you know

I've met him

To be fair, if you follow the link posted nearby you will see that I explicitly mentioned SRDine-like behaviour, from the other side. Obviously I'm not suggesting that @Amadan is SRDine-like in his political outlook. Au contraire, I believe that he is a mirror image of an average SRDine, with SRDine-like behaviour and characteristic self-rightiousness, but with the opposite viewpoint.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

No offence, but I'm pretty far from Impassionata, lol. It's slightly insulting that none of you guys remember me...

SRDine just means someone from SRD.

All this argument over who is an alt of whom and all I can do is shake my head. As all readers know: with BurdensomeCount™ there's none of this worry, all of my writing is provided solely under the BurdensomeCount™ name which over time has become its own seal of quality.

Next time you need incisive, deep, free-thinking insight, remember to choose BurdensomeCount™.

At last, something on which we can agree.

I do prefer the nebulous comfort of the BurdensomeCount brand name over the half-priced generic alternative that contains the exact same ingredients, I kust admit!