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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

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Over on another forum, a groyper is swearing up and down that groyperism isn't all about The Jews. And here you go ruining it for them.

Why would someone even lie about that? Their whole thing is pointing out Jewish influence. It completely defeats the whole point to not do that.

Presumably because they know that having positions that wouldn't be out of place in 19th century Eastern European peasants marks them as "low human capital", as another figure on the "right" likes to say.

I don't like the gropyers. Nick Fuentes is a Mexican gayhomo larping as a whitenat.

But philosemeticism has clearly run its course in the West. The left discarded race blind meritocracy. Now, the right has too. You can't unring that bell. Saying "Jews have a disproportionate amount of influence in the halls of power compared to their population" can't be taboo if everyone is running around saying that about the whites. If Con. Inc demands its audience stop noticing, they'll be ignored. You can't be a nationalist for America and be a Zionist at the same time. You won't fool anyone.

Yes, that means you, Ben Shapiro.

The left discarded race blind meritocracy. Now, the right has too.

Well yes, the younger right is. I don't think it's the same cohort changing their mind over time. But I wonder to what degree the young right feels the intellectual drift of the left has forced them to be like the left, grudgingly, or even if the left's diversity machine arrayed against them wasn't around, they'd pursue identity politics anyway. As in even if the country 95% white, we should stoke white consciousness.

I had a tiff with conservative Jew Katya Sedgewick on X, someone I've interviewed and have been mostly supportive of...until Octobers 7th and everything that came after severely scrambled matters.

She says a day or two ago that her primary concern is the fate of Jews in America. That it's existential and no other policy concerns matter in comparison. I point out how blatantly idpol this is and she denies it. I think some conservatives believe Jewish idpol to be necessary in order to repel all the other idpols. The one idpol to rule them all, if you will, as it's as close as one gets to defending liberal individualism and modernity against 99% of idpols, which are anti-that. Jews are a stand-in for a more abstract idea.

So, speaking as someone who's been accused of giving special protection to Jews on the Motte and even being a Zionist myself:

I've been a subscriber to Bari Weiss's Free Press for a while but I'm cancelling my subscription. Why? Because every damn issue is about how Nick Fuentes or Zohran Mandani or whoever said anything negative about Jews or Israel is an existential threat. I have mostly enjoyed the Free Press's coverage on issues, but it became very, very noticeable that they're iconoclasts and contrarians (or at least willing to platform heretical views) about everything except Jews and Israel. On that topic, any synagogue in the country being spray-painted is worthy of a headline, and no article will ever suggest Israel is anything but a victim of calumny.

I get that it is personal for Weiss, but it's like every Jew became unhinged after October 7. To be fair, so did the Left, and now the Right's anti-Semites are crawling out of the woodwork. It's hard to blame Jews too much for feeling like everyone is out to get them more than ever when it really does seem like everyone is out to get them more than ever. But it's also a little hard to feel sympathetic to people like Weiss who think articles mocking everyone else's idpol are hilarious but don't you dare make light of hers.

Being concerned about the fate of your own ethnic or religious group is normal. That's not idpol as it's been during the culture war. The culture war idpol has been "being concerned about the fates of SOME ethnic groups is OK, but about others is pernicious racism". We're never going to make blacks stop caring about black issues or Asians caring about Asian issues, and we shouldn't try. Same goes for Jews, same should go for gentile whites. Sure, ideally, there's many cases where one should put ethnic interests aside, but these need to be reached by political negotiation, not unilateral disarmament.

Being concerned about the fate of your own ethnic or religious group is normal.

Or nation. That's another group. And it stands above idpol.

Again, that only works if the smaller groups can come to an agreement. Making your own interest only that of the nation while everyone else is fighting for their own is a great way to get robbed.