site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 1, 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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

In response to the Afghan national attacking National guard troops in DC Trump promised to "permanently pause" immigration from all Third world countries in a Truth Social post. That sounded too good to be true and it was.

Trump is actually pausing immigration from only 19 countries, which are Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

Meanwhile the top sources of 3rd world immigration are Mexico, India, Philippines, El Salvador, Vietnam, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Colombia. The only place where those two lists overlap is Cuba.

MAGAs must make up their minds about whom they dislike first.

Are you worried about demographic replacement, elite takeover or unintegrated criminals ?

"Stop all non-white immigration" may resonate in some circles, but isn't representative of American or Trump voter preferences.

In response to the Afghan national

His actions are in reaction to unintegrated criminals, primarily from Islamist nations. Why would you expect it to affect Mexico, India or the Philippines ?

Trump's post only vaguely points to his intentions vis-a-vis legal migrants.

end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, These goals will be pursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations - Trump

Lets see.

This would imply removal of benefits for all green card holders ? Visa holders don't get federal benefits anyway. Immigrants must pay into social security, pay taxes and rising visa fees. All while being ineligible for benefits. Cool. What was that about taxation without representation ?

denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization. - Trump

Americans already agree that violent felons who lied on their naturalization doc should be deported. Visa & green card holders with felonies are already banned from reentry. Outside existing norms (terrorism, child predator, Nazi), it is very hard to de-naturalize an American who got their citizenship legally. Trump has limited power and courts have a ton of precedent. Doesn't help that it requires a jury to convict.

Apart from criminality, How does Trump define 'incompatible with western civilization' ? Maybe he means the Amish, the native Americans, the Mormon or the Scientologists ? Does he mean pluralist, liberal & tolerant ? Does he mean white, protestant and english speaking ? IMO, it's a whole lot of words that mean nothing. Trump 101.


Personally, I'm sick of white supremacists using motte-and-baileys to criticize immigrants.

It's revealing that Indians, Mexicans and Filipinos are the main groups they have issues with.

Indians are a model minority, speak English, from a pluralistic democracy and uniquely economically productive. Other than color and religion, they satisfy every bar for a model American.

Mexicans are devout Christians, take all the 'shit' jobs, have a fair claim to the land and work harder than any 'sanctity of work' protestant I've seen. There are valid concerns about criminals and cartel members. But, as we covered before, Americans and Trump are already aligned on their deportation. If every illegal immigrant and every Mexican criminal is deported, Mexicans will still continue immigration in large numbers through legal family based migration and birthright citizenship for children of legal workers.

Filipinos are devout Christians, pre-indoctrinated (due to American colonial occupation), peaceful and most immigrate to fill middle-of-the-pack essential jobs in healthcare, military and education.

There is no venn diagram that fits all 3 groups except - "not white". If you want fewer non-whites. Just say that.


P.S: I've heard geographic arguments claiming 'America is full' and they don't want more immigrants of any color. I am not going to address why this opinion is bad. It's a tired one.

Indians are a model minority, speak English, from a pluralistic democracy and uniquely economically productive. Other than color and religion, they satisfy every bar for a model American.

ahahahahahahahahaha no

Chinese are the model minority. Indians are scammers and cheaters, and have a terrible culture. They only look good in the numbers because of the selection effect of the most difficult and competitive visa and immigration process out of any country. The ones who make it are invariably highly educated, motivated, and intelligent. But even so they are still cheating it, by sending millions of fraudulent h1-b applications.

Look at Canada's indians, or look at Biden's illegal indians. They are some of the worst dregs on the planet. There's an entire thing about how the entire US trucking market has been flooded with illiterate indian illegal immigrants who were brought in by Biden.

selection effect of the most difficult and competitive visa and immigration process out of any country

That's not going anywhere. By Indians, I specifically mean the ones preselected to immigrate to the US. The H1b is the primary pathway for these educated, motivated, and intelligent immigrants to come to the US. Given that anti-Indian hate is disproportionately pointed towards the H1bs, I am inclined to believe that hatred towards Indians has little to do with good-behavior or excellence.

Indians are scammers and cheaters, and have a terrible culture

We'll be going in circles if we take this up. I disagree, and nothing I say will change your opinion. I will acknowledge that an open-door immigration policy towards an impoverished nation of 1.5 billion people is beyond stupid.

Canada's indians

You can't point to America's hyper meritocratic immigration process and simultaneously ignore Canada's malformed pro-criminal immigration system. That being said, despite being the worst South Asians, they're are still among the more peaceful groups in Canada. Well below Canadian latinos, blacks or whites.

Biden's illegal indians

There is widespread consensus that they should be deported. We aren't arguing about them.

Given that anti-Indian hate is disproportionately pointed towards the H1bs

Anti-H1b hatred is visible, true, but white, black, and Hispanic Americans of every social class tend to dislike the Indian immigrants they come in contact with due to cultural frictions- and for most of them, those Indians are not software engineers. Indian motel managers and liquor store owners and 7/11 operators are unpopular with the broader public, just like H1bs are with American tech workers. Tech workers just have very visible complaints because they're rich and highly online(and, uh, did you think they were going to welcome extra competition for jobs?).

I don't know enough to refute such a wide claim about Indians being disliked everywhere. But, it hasn't been my experience. People have generally been pretty nice in real life.

Elon's twitter & 4chan are the main places where I have seen outright hatred towards Indians.