site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

that I had stopped posting here because it's a purely American Affairs Discussion community

That's not really how I see it, I see it as a place to discuss anything with interesting people, most of the posts I like the most have nothing to do with American politics directly. But I also don't find the 100th post about police shootings interesting.

ends the North American fraternal relationship and likely the entire post -WWII order

How long will that end last, though? Trump only has three more years in office. If a dem wins in 2028 and Europe elects a few more populist right leaders itself, European unity against the US might stop being appealing. And the fundamental fact of US military and economic power relative to Europe isn't going to disappear, unless Trump does something even worse than what he's done so far and doesn't TACO for once. I don't think "free trade pacts" and "strategic partnerships" are going to be what mark the real end of the post-WWII international order.

The costs of winning the Culture War

It's interesting, and irritating if one has right-wing sympathies, how contingent this all is on Trump's particular combination of talent as an entertainer and lack of desire to be at all serious about government. The thing Trump's projecting to the world is comedic incompetence, and other countries are responding to that as they should. The story isn't really about ideology or the cost of winning, it's just that Trump wasn't really a win at all.