site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 27, 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.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, Hanania was right again *

Two months ago, Richard Hanania predicted that Nick Fuentes and the groypers would become a major force in mainstream Republican politics. At the time, there was a fair bit of TheMotte discussion (including by me) which could be described as dismissive. Some choice quotes:

  • "As far as I have seen Fuentes occupies the space of fairly ineffective troll."
  • "Groypers are not a real faction in republican politics lol. I could speak with a dozen R voters off the street here in Texas and I doubt more than 1 even knows they exist."
  • "As Sagan pointed out, they laughed at the Wright Brothers but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. Fuentes is Bozo the Clown."

Yeah, about that... A few days ago Nick Fuentes did a full interview with Tucker Carlson. This was a mild surprise at most, given that Tucker has been dabbling in less-than-sympathetic viewpoints on Israel and Jews as of late. A lot of people thought that this would be the nail in the coffin cementing Tucker as a fringe figure, and that his days headlining major conservative events would end.

This appears not to have happened:

"There has been speculation that @Heritage is distancing itself from @TuckerCarlson over the past 24 hours. I want to put that to rest right now—here are my thoughts [attached video statement]"

The Heritage Foundation is the Conservative Establishment think tank. It doesn't get more mainstream than them. What is striking is that the statement doesn't just contrast America with Israel, it contrasts Christians with Israel, a tacit acknowlegement of the legitimacy of Christian discomfort with Israel specifically because of their rejection of Christ. This isn't quite total groyper victory, but one can see it on the horizon.

From a realpolitik perspective, I think this is bad. The groypers are right that Israel doesn't act in America's interests and that many American Jews have dual loyalty. That's how coalitions work. A few billion dollars in aid and geopolitical cover is a small price to pay for having the ethnic group that controls international finance and global media on your side. Rooting-out infidels might be a good strategy if Christ is King, but if he isn't, and it turns out we're all alone on this big round rock, then the groypers are blowing-up the conservative intelligentsia for no good reason.

*Apparently this is a series now.

for having the ethnic group that controls international finance and global media on your side

What do they do with international finance and global media, exactly?

Finance has busily furthered DEI, deindustrialization of the West, financialization of the economy, toxic housing bubbles and rapid development of China.

The media whips up racial hysteria, worsens relations between the sexes and spreads grossly misleading racial narratives about policing. They've spread panic about climate change that has had all kinds of horrible effects, mental illness, people refusing to have kids 'for the climate'. Not to mention popularizing energy and environmental policies that have wrecked industry. Everyone constantly complaining that enforcing borders is fascism, that's the fault of the media. The media problematizes national myths and culture, delegitimizes identities like 'white' in favour of 'Black' or 'POC'. And the media goes out of their way to insult and humiliate white men. See here: https://x.com/StupidWhiteAds

If the argument is 'American Jews control finance and media, therefore they shouldn't be upset since they're bringing in more than they cost' then the premise is wrong because finance and media are not helping out. International finance and world media have been massively toxic and aggressively unhelpful for at least the last 30 years. They've been especially opposed to Christians and conservatives. A disproportionate amount of these sectors are Jewish (Blackrock and NYT for example), much is not.

What has the 'conservative intelligentsia' actually done for conservatives? Have they brought huge victories, or did they just help implement mass immigration, Pride as civic religion, diversity quotas to achieve their real goals - tax cuts and regime change in the Middle East?

I would much rather have my financial sector run by some honest, hardworking midwit who tries to advance national interests and develop our industries, than a 160 IQ financial genius who uses his vast talents for private profit, asset-stripping, offshoring and demanding share buybacks over investment.

I would rather have patriotic journalists with tedious prose and limited abilities than charismatic, excellent writers who hate me and attack me and my ancestors, systematically pursuing my disempowerment in society.

One of the wisest things the US could do is to crack down on media and financial elites, put patriots in charge of these key institutions so that they're coordinated to further US interests. That goes for whoever's running America. But it should be 10x more important for conservatives/MAGA to recognize that these people are, (generally speaking), not their friends!

What do they do with international finance and global media, exactly?

If the word 'your' in that context is a reference to the globalist goyim elite, then yes, the original statement is technically correct, I guess.