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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   33879 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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  • Joined December 2025.
  • 118 comments
  • dislikes Indians
  • doesn't believe in democracy
  • is fascist

Dude slow down. TheMotte is already in a MAGA spiral. It isn't intentional, the forum is well moderated. But, the median individual is a right-wing American and left leaning non-Americans are forced to have thicker skin. We've lost enough intellectual diversity through splinter events. There's no need to make this place more hostile.

Also welcome to the forum. I am one of the Indians here. Please get better at profiling. I await a moderate amount of hate, phrased in a civic manner.

It's not a "MAGA spiral" it's more of a Hanania/Fuentes spiral. The median individual here is an Affluent White Liberal who is starting to feel anxious about the decline of their tribe in both population and relative status.

Hanania/Fuentes

What do these two people have in common?

I think he’s pointing to two different kinds of users.

They are both edge-lords from affluent liberal backgrounds who spend most of their time posting on social media about how populism is fucking up the world, and how it is people like them who represent the "true right".

I'm also pretty sure that they are both closeted homosexuals, which is neither here nor there, but it would help explain a lot of otherwise incongruous behavior.

They both claim to be on the right, and they're both idiots.

I don't like you, not because you're Indian, but because you're literally the meme that goes 'Hello, let me explain to you what being an Westerner is and how this definition includes me'. No, you don't get to be spiritually western until you've abandoned your parochial ideas and pagan beliefs back in the old country. You are a outsider trying to rules lawyer creeds and legalities but no matter how many pieces of paper you show me, your behavior and attitude will permanently make you an outsider - even if you lived here for a thousand years.

Just drop it. Accept that you'll be seen as a foreigner for a generation or two. Then no one will care. No one cares about Koreans or the Vietnamese or the Hmong. Just stop whining about it. But if you believe you are owed apologies for being Indian, then you'll be waiting until the second coming of Christ.

I think different political systems work for different cultures/populations. Pre-2000 USA I am 100% pro-Democracy. Saudi Arabia is an example of a country that Democracy probably would not have been successful in and the Monarchy has been a better form of government. Latam is a region where Democracy has often not been the best form of government. The US demographics have more in common today with Latam demographics than historical American demographics.

I mean, I’m in favor of the U.S. military overthrowing any left wing elected officials, Latin America style. Don’t think it would make much difference in governance though.

Fair. I too have concluded that democracy needs some base conditions to work.

Tribal clan systems (Arabs, Afghans) are incompatible with democracy. Pre-industrial states struggle to balance democracy and essential growth. Democracy and violent societies don't work.

Tribal clan systems (Arabs, Afghans) are incompatible with democracy.

You don't think they're more similar to the original American representative yeoman democracy pre-1840 or so? In form they seem similar, just without the high literacy and civic engagement the American colonies always enjoyed.

…No? Early America was not a clan based society in any way.

Not even close. The high literacy and civic engagement are a civilizational inheritance. It took hundreds, if not thousands of years to build.

The clan systems are embedded in Arab and Afghan societies in a manner that isn't comparable to anything in the west. Even during peak colonialism, Britain gave up on trying to control Afghanistan. Can't control a group that has no institutions what so ever. Arabs are a bit different. They had it, but after the mongols burned down Baghdad, middle-eastern Arabs did not have a unifying civilization for a very long time.

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