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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 24, 2025

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Ignoring the merits, which other people who know more about than me are debating in the rest of the thread, I think the key point is that this is probably a shitpost. When Trump announces a substantive policy change on social media, it is normally followed up with an official announcement on [the White House website] within 24 hours or so. In this case, probably an executive order to the National Archives or some other record-keeping office to identify and publish the list of Autopenned Biden admin acts that were considered invalid.

There seems to be a shitposting escalation in the last few days. This is one of the biggest "announcing something that would be a substantive policy if real but not actually doing it" shitposts to date, but the other one is even bigger - the announcement on Truth Social of a no-fly zone over Venezula. This would be, if serious, a literal declaration of war under international law. But it was not serious - US airlines already stopped flying in Venezuelan airspace a week ago after an FAA announcement that it was not safe, and Latin American airlines are still operating flights to and from Caracas as scheduled. I do not think Trump has purported to declare war (as opposed to threatening it) by shitpost yet.

The online TDS crowd are moving towards a consensus around "Trump's shitposting habit is getting worse due to a combination of age-related decline and stress-driven crackup". I think this is plausible, but wouldn't bet on it - assuming my political opponents are sane until proven otherwise is a useful intellectual discipline. The best explanation under this constraint is that the shitposts are trial balloons for various escalations. In that case it doesn't look good - the lack of outrage from fence-sitting Republicans (not MTG, but the people who might be the next MTG) makes a US attack on Venezuela more likely.

This would be, if serious, a literal declaration of war under international law.

No such thing as "declaration of war" under modern international law. No wars either, only police actions and special anti-terrorist operations.

Last time US officially declared war was in 1942 against Bulgaria.

Why the difference between 2003 and today, why Iraq war had to be prepared by two years diplomatic and propaganda offensive, while now the orange man points with his mighty finger on map, says "bomb this" and everyone is fine with it?

Iraq back then was still seen as serious enemy, and significant US casualties were expected. No one takes Venezuela seriously at all.

Why the difference between 2003 and today, why Iraq war had to be prepared by two years diplomatic and propaganda offensive, while now the orange man points with his mighty finger on map, says "bomb this" and everyone is fine with it?

I don't think everyone is fine with it - the usual anti-Trump forces both inside and outside the US are responding with outrage calibrated to the fact that this is a shitpost and not an actual announcement of a no-fly zone. But the marginal Trump supporter either ignored it or responded along the lines of "Obvious shitpost - lol TDS if you care about it"

Also Bush needed to the diplomatic prep for Iraq because he wanted the largest coalition he could get, notably including Tony Blair, whereas for Trump attacking Venezuela the whole point would be do to it unilaterally as a way of reminding your allies that you don't need them.

My gut feeling is that if Trump does indeed announce a real no-fly zone over Venezuela, and then sends US planes to Venezuela to shoot down civilian airliners violating said no-fly zone, his domestic political support will collapse rapidly. The absence of Trump-sympathetic voices saying "don't attack Venezuela" (compared to the number of Trump-sympathetic voices saying things like "release the Epstein files" or "be more careful with tariffs") is evidence that my gut feeling is wrong.

The US is not going to be deliberately shooting down civilian airliners (not even Venezuelan ones) in Venezuela, and even another USS Vincennes incident would be bad for Trump's domestic support.