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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025

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Do you think you would have thought this were it not for the reaction to Charlie Kirk criticisers on the left? I think this one is in no worse taste than many other things Trump has said in terms of decorum. However it's a notable and stark political error, coming soon after many MAGA voices have been claiming that it is only the left that acts gleeful about murder.

I mean I agree a lot of people crossed the line on Kirk but essentially nobody in actual leadership and it was more 'being inadequately deferential' than 'actively doing the macarena on his grave' from people with reasonable positions of leadership. Then the POTUS essentially rants with his whole chest a massive diatribe on the victim of inter-family mass murder

Depends on what you mean by leadership

Indeed. I also think it is instructive about how the left often 'acts out' via its misbehaving followers but the right does so via its misbehaving leaders. It's generalising massively, but I think the right is more predisposed to 'police down', considering crimes by the poor and marginalised to be the worst, but instinctively believing that power and wealth confers the right to break norms. Whereas the left is the other way around, sometimes being overly tolerant of crimes done by those at the bottom of society.

It's generalising massively, but I think the right is more predisposed to 'police down', considering crimes by the poor and marginalised to be the worst, but instinctively believing that power and wealth confers the right to break norms. Whereas the left is the other way around, sometimes being overly tolerant of crimes done by those at the bottom of society.

Yes. The barbarism for the left flows from seemingly genteel people at the top. Think the wholesome family at the center of Zone of Interest, for an extreme example.