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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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Tariffs. Aggressive immigration enforcement. Troop deployments to US cities. The George Santos pardon. Mass firings. The Epstein Files. Withholding grant money. Ending healthcare subsidies.

I'm skeptical about most of that list, but I don't really trust any polling at this point in a cycle. Most of the polling from before suggested that a straight majority of Americans wanted every illegal gone (and a supersupermajority for illegal + criminal history), but yes you can probably show some women pictures of a crying Guatemalan and they'll report not liking that. I'm not sure there's any takeaway beyond "Dems still have a hell of a propaganda machine".

From the people I talk to, it isn't so much women being sympathetic for crying Guatemalans as it is concern about what the objective is. When you sell a policy based on the idea that these people are all parasites and criminals, it's a tough sell when you're rounding up hardworking people just trying to make a buck.

I too am skeptical of polls, but you ignore them at your own risk. Especially after elections are sending a clear signal. You don't want to be in a position where you get your doors blown off because you decided that inconvenient information was simply incorrect, based on nothing but gut feeling.

it's a tough sell when you're rounding up hardworking people just trying to make a buck.

No one is seeing this. Functionally no one has ever seen anyone get rounded up by ICE at all. If you think that's a reasonable description of reality, then you're in a propaganda bubble. What they're seeing is context-free clips on Facebook and TikTok elaborated with straight up lies, posted by activist Karens who assault and harass federal law enforcement with near impunity due to their overwhelming privilege. OTOH, DHS and ICE don't ever shut up about the prior criminal convictions of the people they're deporting, but that doesn't go viral by abusing weaponized empathy.

Maybe some conservative billionaire needs to start shelling out a grand for every woman who posts a crying fictional sob story video about how she was raped by an illegal immigrant.

I too am skeptical of polls, but you ignore them at your own risk.

Not wrong, but I'm also super skeptical of this "Better stop doing that stuff you were just elected by promising to do because we've suddenly gotten better at narrative control!" line.

Like, yeah Sherril just won, but she did so while disavowing everything she'd ever said as a progressive, dumping a fortune into painting Citarelli as a tax-and-spend liberal and swearing to fight against her own Democrat economic policies.

Maybe ignore that at your own risk?

So upfront, I basically think every illegal alien criminal has to go. Non-criminal illegal aliens I care less, but I do agree that it’s hard to make the case that they shouldn’t also go.

I object to the current DHS, CBP, ICE behavior on the basis of the collateral damage they seem to be ok inflicting on actual US citizens who aren’t even bothering them. One incident that hits pretty close to home for me since I’m a runner is this case in Chicago where a 70yr old white guy was driving back from his run club and found agents blocking his driveway with their cars. From what I’ve heard from friends in the area, the agents asked him once to back up, didn’t give him a chance to comply, and proceeded to drag him out of his car and kneel on his back, breaking 6 of his ribs. He was training to run the NYC marathon this past weekend, and this meant he had to miss the race. Months of work down the drain for pretty much no reason. You can find plenty of videos of it if you search.

Yeah this is one incident, but I keep seeing stuff like it. Stuff like agents pulling their gun on citizens for almost nothing, etc. Again, US citizens minding their own business. I’m sorry but my desire to have all illegal immigrants go does not outweigh my desire to not have a risk of being attacked in that manner by agents of the state. You might tell me to avoid seeking out trouble by following ICE around like some people do, but this guy was literally just trying to get into his own house. I’m chalking this up to extremely poor training due to the pace this admin feels they have to deport people at, and the resulting increase in headcount they’ve had to do. But I simply don’t think that behavior like this is what Trump voters voted for when they voted for immigration enforcement. Assaulting an old man who wasn’t even impeding their activities is in no way a necessary part of deporting illegals.

I found a video that starts with the man already on the ground, bitching like a Karen, while an angry crowd crowds around the agents screaming hostilities.

I'm going to express a bit of skepticism that things played out the way your "friends in the area" say it did.

And just putting this out there, but these anti-ICE protestors are doing a lot to radicalize me. They come off as so delusionally self-righteous, so appallingly entitled, wreathed in such false bravery, that I think they nearly automatically discredit whatever cause they support as well as anyone who thinks they're the good guys. If you want to convince me that ICE are doing evil, muzzle these retards first.

I always find it mildly disconcerting when Americans (especially right wing Americans like the ones here), a people who's whole national mythos was "fuck the British, and fuck anyone else who tells us what to do" , who's contemporary culture is deeply shaped by concepts like "get the fuck off my lawn before I shoot you" and "fuck the government they shouldn't tell me what to do" go from that to:

"Erm, well actually it's fine when the immigration enforcement people break the ribs of a middle aged white man when he gets annoyed they're depriving him of access to his private property. If you didn't want the feds to hurt you, you should just let them do whatever they want to you and your things without question. Don't forget to tip!"

Like seriously one of the reasons the Dems are so lame is because they're pussies, the right is cool because they're not. But the second it's your team doing stupid shit you don't stand up, you hop in the cuck chair with a big smile on your face

Oh look this keeps happening:

https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-citizens-arrested-detained-against-will

A libertarian nightwatchman state was off the table before I was born. If you build a boot and gleefully stomp on the faces of your opponents, you don't get to cry when the boot ends up on the other foot.

Alternatively, would you rather Trump just issued letters of marque and reprisal to citizens to hunt illegals and communists? Something tells me you'd flood the zone with tears over that, too.

Sorry forgot to respond

If you build a boot and gleefully stomp on the faces of your opponents, you don't get to cry when the boot ends up on the other foot.

I didn't build the boot? I'm also not a shitlib and have been deeply against wokism for basically my entire life.

I went to schools that were deeply immersed in grievance politics and "wokism" long before it was cool, and I found it stupid then, as I do now.

Alternatively, would you rather Trump just issued letters of marque and reprisal to citizens to hunt illegals and communists?

No, I just think that agents of the government exercising a monopoly on force should be held to extremely high standards, and relaxing those standards because they're "on your team" is stupid, because they very much are not on your team, even if your goals are aligned right now.

Well, there's our disagreement. I think they seem to be operating at a shockingly high standard. Vanishingly few bad arrests, and extremely reasonable uses of force when we don't just consider activist lies.