site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

They just wouldn't release this proof, if it ever existed (which it likely does not), but instead destroy it (which they likely did long ago, if it ever existed, which it probably didn't from the start). We know for a fact about many recent cases where evidence of crimes was destroyed (e.g. Clinton records, or IRS records of prosecution of Tea Party NGOs, many such cases) and absolutely nothing happened (except for some noise in the press, but there's always noise in the press). In fact, just recently we learned the videos from Jan 6 about pipe bombs just "disappeared" and... nothing. It is trivial and safe to disappear any evidence if you are in control of the government. Moreover, there had been ample evidence of both Clinton committing perjury, and Clintons having deep - much deeper than Trump ever had - links with Russia (among many other foreign interests, if anything, they are very equal opportunity corruptionist) and exactly nothing happened.

And this is not unique and not specific for Clintons alone. In fact, we just this week learned Fulton county illegally certified 315K votes - something that people were prosecuted for trying to look into - and mark my words, exactly nothing will happen to people who had done it. In Minnesota, billions were stolen under Waltz watch (and likely with his active enablement) - do you think anybody from his team will suffer any serious consequences (like jail and expulsion from politics)? Neither do I. I could add examples here ad nauseam, but I think my point is clear - it's only in movies once you publish something that looks incriminating a top political figure, they are instantly overthrown and the closing credits roll in. In reality, in most cases very little happens, especially when we talk about somebody of Clinton's caliber. There are too many people invested in it.

So summarily we would have some murky indications (because anything else had already been long destroyed) against the massive coverup machine which had already achieved numerous coverups. The premise that they did not release supposed dirt on Trump that they supposedly had, because they feared - while holding absolute control over the government - that this machine will fail to protect somebody as unassailable as Clinton - is completely laughable.

It's a big club and you ain't in it.

And you think this big club can't manage to release dirt on Trump without bringing Clinton down? After all they have done so far?