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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

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it's difficult to not see this entire post as an artful, nut-picking troll.

The only remarkable thing about this post is the political valency; what is this place if not nut-picking to wage the culture war?

left wing antisemitism, or perhaps more specifically Islamist antisemitism from left wing political parties, is so frequent that people scarcely bother to report on it (or, perhaps, they actively suppress it because it hurts Democrat narratives).

Broad swathes of 'antisemitism' on the left can differentiate between opposing Jews and opposing Israel. You and others running cover for antisemitism on the right ignore the significant presence of slogans and groups like 'Jews for Palestine' at all the rallies on college campuses. The largest protests against the Israeli war in Gaza in my region were led by Jewish men in kippahs with megaphones blocking traffic.

Hardcore fundamentalist Islamists who truly hate Jews and want to 'do a genocide' in the local parlance (usually by people who want to murder Palestinians) are broadly orthogonal to left and right. Were the 9/11 hijackers leftists?

And, yes, apparently there was a nutjob who shot up an embassy and presumably wanted to kill Jews. Who was just complaining about nutpicking, again?

Antisemitism on the right rarely bothers to make the Israel/Jew distinction, particularly when it arrives at it's antisemitism via the protocols of the elders of Zion and the Great Replacement Theory and Holocaust denialism. They view all Jews, everywhere, as the problem, nowhere more so than the US government/wall street/other institutions and blame them for immigration and a supposed genocide against white people in the west. Contrasted with 'leftist antisemitism,' how many Jews do you think subscribe to this ideology?

One of these flavors of antisemitism, were it to gain power, would likely cut foreign aid to Israel and boost aid to Palestine. The other would likely pogrom the US government and elites, or worse.

but I do think it is (as others have suggested) directly downstream of leftists spending decades crying wolf. If you spend enough time and energy insisting that your political opponents are Nazis, at some point your political opponents are going to decide that they might as well break out the jackboots, then.

See, when this is done by people you dislike you break out the Narcissist's prayer:

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.

How many times have I seen this pasted here when it comes to the gays? trans people? Communism? Cancel culture? At first they said nobody was crazy enough to change genders! Then they said it's happening, but it's good actually! Now the HR lady is crushing my balls while I have to swear fealty to the rainbow flag!

Well, fuck man, if you were calling us gay trannies who cancel people for wrongthink for the last twenty years, I guess we might as well all be gay trannies who cancel you for wrongthink, amirite? Why would you spend so much time and energy insisting cancel culture was a thing? Guess I may as well cancel you now, and also it's your fault.

No, Trump is not a nazi. Nor is JD Vance or Stephen Miller, or probably anyone in the administration. I'm skeptical that any of the incidents OP posted are suggestive that the Fourth Reich is some fifth column in the Republican party. But at the same time, there's been a groundswell of interest and support and tolerance of ideas like Great Replacement Theory and authoritarianism in the Red Tribe mainstream that's been slowly gaining steam for the last decade. And, while I know everything wrong with the Red Tribe is actually the Blue Tribe's fault, what word would you like us to use to describe that? Not nazism, not racism, not fascism, so...what?

I honestly can't tell whether you're being ironic or just aggressively misunderstanding my point. I feel like the most generous thing I can say might be "keep in mind your aims in writing this response to me; now go back and read my post with the idea that I was trying to make the same point to magicalkittycat, for analogous reasons, as you had when writing this response to me."

Less charitably, I did find this line to be unmitigated bullshit:

You and others running cover for antisemitism on the right

I am not running cover for antisemitism on the right, and nothing I wrote can be reasonably construed that way. Hell, I am occasionally accused, here, as a moderator, of running cover for the Jews! But neither do I think that the antisemitic left should be simply allowed to do what it does because everyone is so distracted by the tiki torch cosplayers they fail to notice (or outright excuse) blatant antisemitism from the left and its political allies. (And while the 9/11 hijackers weren't formally "leftists," their presence in the United States was arguably traceable to changes in American immigration law plausibly attributed to the left.)

My beef is with identitarians. To my mind, the main difference between leftist identitarians and right-wing identitarians is that right-wing identitarians are a bunch of reactionaries doing reactionary things. Leftists set the stage, defined the terms, and picked the fight. Reactionaries are doing exactly what (as @Fruck correctly observes) the radicals were told they would do. I don't like it. I don't agree with it. I think that nothing good will ever come of identitarianism, no matter how righteous-minded its practitioners. I don't think any of it is good. But neither do I think it reasonable to apportion blame equally to both sides; this is a mess of progressivism's making.

The only remarkable thing about this post is the political valency; what is this place if not nut-picking to wage the culture war?

Discussing the culture wars is not the same as waging them. Yes, I acknowledge that people do wage them, to various degrees. But we do try to discourage that.

I honestly can't tell whether you're being ironic or just aggressively misunderstanding my point.

I am neither being ironic, nor am I aggressively misunderstanding you. Thankfully options exist outside your false dichotomy!

Less charitably, I did find this line to be unmitigated bullshit:

Thank you for your honesty. Now, moderator, ban thyself.

I am not running cover for antisemitism on the right, and nothing I wrote can be reasonably construed that way.

Your post was a mix of whataboutism, if it's true that there are nazis on the right it's not their (red tribe) fault, and oh, while I hate nazis they'll treat me better than the woke police. Insofar as 'running cover' implies you have some secret agenda to promote Nazi material, no, I don't think it's true. Insofar as you're sequentially denying, deflecting blame, minimizing (lol Tiki Torch cosplayers) and whatabouting - yes, you're running cover for them.

Hell, I am occasionally accused, here, as a moderator, of running cover for the Jews!

In reality, you are a flawlessly objective crystal passing judgment from on high. You have principles that you live your life by, and you chide the left and the right equally, god damnit! Anything less would be to descend into partisan hackery.

And Nara, I am (whatever people may think) fundamentally of this place. I believe that we should strive towards objectivity, that it exists, I deeply believe in mistake theory and progress and that things are getting better and discussion is good. I reject the people on the left who claim that everything is political, nobody is objective and it's all just white supremacist/patriarchal/isms all the way down and doubly so if you're a white man.

But dude, I have to actually invoke that progressive argument here, much as it pains me. You fit the trope of the partisan pretending to be objective and principled to a T to avoid confronting the fact that you are, in fact, also waging the culture war most of the time.

because everyone is so distracted by the tiki torch cosplayers they fail to notice (or outright excuse) blatant antisemitism from the left and its political allies.

Tiki torch cosplayers vs. blatant antisemitism. I am impressed by your objective framing of the political situation!

My beef is with identitarians.

Your beef is with the vast majority of the modern left. Seriously, replace identitarian with vast majority of the modern left - is your statement significantly different?

I don't like it. I don't agree with it. I think that nothing good will ever come of identitarianism, no matter how righteous-minded its practitioners. I don't think any of it is good. But neither do I think it reasonable to apportion blame equally to both sides; this is a mess of progressivism's making.

Nara, go to West Philly. Go to Baltimore. Go to Chicago. Much as I love your race-blind ideals, much as they resonate with me, the modern incarnation of progressivism and identitarianism didn't build the slums and the poverty and the suffering. Cancel culture wasn't a thing during the Rodney King riots. You can't be naive enough to ask an entire nation not to Notice that people of one skin color are overwhelmingly worse off, and it doesn't even matter what the cause is. People take that information in the direction they prefer.

Discussing the culture wars is not the same as waging them. Yes, I acknowledge that people do wage them, to various degrees. But we do try to discourage that.

The problem is that people like waging the culture war. I commend you and the moderation team, because the failing lies with the users. You can't mod yourself a better forum population.

  • -14

Much as I love your race-blind ideals, much as they resonate with me, the modern incarnation of progressivism and identitarianism didn't build the slums and the poverty and the suffering.

Oh, but they did. Riot by riot, they built them. They got their clients to move in, drive the old white people out, take over the political machines of the cities, break the cities... and then they got to keep both parts. Still do, in most cases.

No actually it was racist white southerners lynching them and denying them economic opportunity that drove millions of them north

After WWII, lynching was not much of an issue. There were 21 black people (and 5 whites) lynched after 1945. That's what, a bad month in Chicago?

It started 30 years before that

The slums were built by the Second Great Migration, not the First.