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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   11304 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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So, I totally understand why there are so many threads lately about what's going on in Minnesota; that's obviously some serious shit, and significantly worse than I'd personally seen coming. I think we're currently significantly closer to civil war in the US than most realize, and if that risk is realized, Minnesota is clearly a key hotspot for where it goes off. But I think Virginia is overlooked as a similarly risky hotspot for where US political tensions might break down. And that's because, as of this past weekend, the Attorney General of Virginia is Jay Jones. It was common in the last month of the campaign trail for uncomfortable Democrats to rationalize that he could simply step down as soon as he'd won, but that notion of compromise died rapidly as time passed, people learned to stomach it by familiarity, and common knowledge was created that Democrats collectively had no problem with Jones.

So for the next four years, if any Republican is accused of a crime in the state of Virginia, Jay Jones will be in charge of prosecuting them. Should Republicans accept the legitimacy of a state AG who explicitly and sincerely advocated that they and their children are scum who it is morally obligatory to exterminate in a campaign of revolutionary terrorism? For the next four years, if any serious episode of left-wing political violence occurs in Virginia, Jay Jones will be in charge of prosecuting it. Will Republicans trust in the process of such a prosecution?

There are two specific boys in the single-digit age range living in Virginia right now who Jay Jones, the current Attorney General of Virginia, explicitly advocated for assassinating as a form of propaganda of the deed, because their father is a minor retired state politician in Virginia. Do those children have a Secret Service-level security detail? (And I mean an actual Secret Service-level security detail, not whatever the fuck Trump got on the 2024 campaign trail.) How about every single young child of every single Republican state politician in Virginia? Do they all have a Secret Service level security detail?

Now, to head off the obvious rejoinder: no, obviously it wouldn't be in Jay Jones' political interest to have Todd Gilbert's sons murdered, or any similarly plainly awful political murder in Virginia. But it would be extremely destabilizing to the United States. A state-level actor - Russia, China, hell, North fucking Korea - could easily arrange for some culture-war-bait crime to happen on Jay Jones' doorstep that Jay Jones and company can't solve. Remember, Brian Thompson and Charlie Kirk's assassins almost got away, and as far as I can tell they were just random idiot dipshits. Would Jay Jones step down, or be forced to step down, if something on the level of Todd Gilbert's sons getting murdered by an unidentified assassin happened? I doubt it. If he had that sense of shame, or the Democratic party had that sense of shame, we wouldn't be here right now.

Oh, by the way, Jay Jones also has two sons in the single digit age range. Is the potential for devolution of the United States into an ethnic revenge cycle between the Republicans and the Democrats not glaring to everyone else?

For the past couple of months, I've been obsessing over a scenario I cooked up in my head in which the US has collapsed into a state of open civil war by the end of 2026, and one of the biggest dominoes there is that Jay Jones' presence turns Virginia into Bleeding Virginia. It's a pretty crazy and specific series of far-fetched events and I never literally expected it to play out exactly.

But in my scenario we weren't nearly this far off the rails by January 19th.

So, speaking of attorneys general

Minnesota state attorney general Keith Ellison has gone on record saying he believes the recent storming of a church by protestors in Minneapolis to be a lawful act of protest.

Minnesota Statute 609.28 is titled "Interfering with religious observance" and makes it a misdemeanor to "by threats or violence, intentionally prevent another person from performing any lawful act enjoined upon or recommended to the person by the religion which the person professes".

Now, I'm not a lawyer. It seems to me that this protest very definitely did intentionally prevent people from performing a religious service. The only iffy part is whether the "by threats or violence" criteria is met by the protestors' behavior. The people in the church certainly reasonably felt threatened, which is the standard for most other crimes involving the word "threat". But not a single Democratic Party official in the state of Minnesota, or as far as I know anywhere in the country, has denounced this act, and the guy in charge of prosecuting crimes in the state of Minnesota is willing to go on a podcast and tell all of the Christian worshippers in the state of Minnesota that mobs are allowed to descend upon their services at any time for any reason despite a clear statutory prohibition on doing so.

The situation in Minnesota is thus the same as the situation you outline in Virginia - The attorney general has now demonstrated that he will use his authority to shield unlawful behavior by his political allies against his political opponents.

I am giving a lot of consideration to moving out of Minnesota.

Minnesota Statute 609.28 is titled "Interfering with religious observance" and makes it a misdemeanor to "by threats or violence, intentionally prevent another person from performing any lawful act enjoined upon or recommended to the person by the religion which the person professes".

There's also the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act of 1994 that was originally intended to nerf abortion protestors, but contains a parallel for places of religious worship:

(2) intentionally injuring, intimidating, or interfering with, or attempting to injure, intimidate, or interfere, any person by force, threat of force, or physical obstruction exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship

However, it is unclear here if the master's tools can be used to dismantle the master's house.

But not a single Democratic Party official in the state of Minnesota, or as far as I know anywhere in the country, has denounced this act

Well, it would make sense not to denounce something you support.

The situation in Minnesota is thus the same as the situation you outline in Virginia - The attorney general has now demonstrated that he will use his authority to shield unlawful behavior by his political allies against his political opponents.

james_franco_first_time.jpg

There's also the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act of 1994 that was originally intended to nerf abortion protestors, but contains a parallel for places of religious worship:

That's federal law, Minnesota can only bring prosecution for state laws. The feds are investigating prosecutions under the FACE act and, amusingly, the KKK act. But I am fairly confident that we would not be seeing federal prosecutions for this under a Harris presidency (though under a Harris presidency, these people wouldn't be rioting), which rather raises the urgency of preventing the Democrats from regaining the presidency.

Yeah, it's federal, which is good for diversification purposes; I mostly wanted to point out that there are also other paths for recourse that don't rely on that Minnesotan statute. But to the extent Nothing Ever Happens, there's still no guarantee Something Will Happen even if the DOJ is supposedly investigating.

It’s also good because the Minnesota AG recently gave an interview in which he lied about the provisions of the FACE Act in order to claim that the protestors couldn’t have violated it:

And the FACE Act, by the way, is designed to protect the rights of people seeking their reproductive rights, to be protected so that people for a religious reason cannot just use religion to break into women's reproductive health centers, so how they are stretching either of these laws to apply to people who protested in a church over the behavior or the perceived behavior of a religious leader is beyond me…. So I think that the FACE Act and the KKK Act are on their face inapplicable.

Interestingly, though Ellison doesn’t see a problem with protesting, harassing, and filming congregants at a church, back in 2020 his office was proud to assist in the prosecution of a woman “who has videotaped congregants at Dar al-Farooq mosque in Bloomington without their consent, causing those congregants and their children to feel intimidated and afraid.”

(Edited to include a link to the video and expand the quote.)

It’s also good because the Minnesota AG recently gave an interview in which he lied about the provisions of the FACE Act in order to claim that the protestors couldn’t have violated it

I was unaware of that video until now, but I played it and damn does it proceed like a Key & Peele sketch. Even the transcription you provided is quite charitable in smoothing over the stutters, pauses, "uh"s, and general stumbling through sentences.

I mostly wanted to point out that there are also other paths for recourse that don't rely on that Minnesotan statute.

In this instance, sure

But you can't rely on the feds to step in every single time the state engages in politically motivated prosecution practices.

At the moment, the government of Minnesota is signalling to its constituents that the policy of the state of Minnesota is that Democratic Party loyalists will be privileged under the law, which has enormous implications for anyone who is not a Democratic Party loyalist.

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