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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026

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Agreed.

I was thinking about Minnesota and this comment a day or two ago. It's part of a kind of memetic that I think of as "Stop making Scott Adams look like Nostradamus."

Scott Adams, Dilbert comic creator turned online politico commentator and, recently, dead, made some not PC comments in 2023.

They're nothing special. A bit of breathless hyper-noticing and juiced up with a Very Online Person kind of flair. Ho-hum, as far as it goes. But the media pounced and Scott took a lot of flak for it. Elon defended him, which is kind of cool, I guess. Everyone moved on.

And then, at the end of 2025, he turned out to be completely right, at least directionally. Roving gangs of private citizens are harassing people - well, white men - for just kinda sorta looking like ICE agents. Which, I guess, consists primarily in ... being a white male.

While I am firmly on the right, I've never liked Trump. He's economically illiterate, a populist Dixiecrat rather than a conservative, and has no actual worldview other than an interesting and admittedly successful (in some sense) set of boomer "vibes."

But he keeps not trying to kill me or brand me as the devil. Which puts him materially ahead of half of the country, and the leadership and majority of the democrat party. And yet, they keep being astounded that I don't want to get my membership card in the "Kill Everyone who is like TollBooth" club.