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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026

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Please, the blues have zero appetite for civil war. They want to cosplay as revolutionaries but won't ever pull the icky trigger themselves. By observed action the blues want to lawfare and shame the wielders of force, especially the Minnesota National Guard, to be the embodiment of Tim Walz Good Guy With Gun that will stand against masked fascist. Trump gives the blues animating purpose in finally fighting the saturday morning evil white man villain cartoon of the 2010s, a categorical evil with his army of jackbooted thugs all with ontologically evil motivations. Its the moral high of getting upvotes on instagram for #Resistance, and they feel especially virtuous because this time they put on boots to go outside. WOW SUCH SACRIFICE.

The absolute zero attention blues paid to Iranian protests and in fact continued support for Hamas just shows what the priority is: cosplaying Good Guy against the evil empire. Europeans screamed that fully legal deportation flights of convicted rapists were already illegal, so what difference does it make to forego restraint.

That's because Team Blue perceives American society as an extension of a high school classroom, where tattling to a teacher and expecting them to solve things for you is just the way the world works. The thought process is step 1: riot, step 2: ???, step 3: good things somehow. Resisting and being seen resisting is the point, not effective resistance; deontologists, not consequentialists. Good people protested a thing that was bad, therefore bad thing go away because we are good.

They might actually be directionally correct on much of this as it's likely an evolutionarily-selected tactic for modern-day terminally-online America, which is why they freak out when the teacher/moderator isn't on their side.

Please, the blues have zero appetite for civil war.

They know there's no risk, because they can escalate arbitrarily and the reds will give up -- the courts, even red ones, won't support their actions and the bureaucracy and military won't act. At which point the blues have demonstrated that they run the country regardless of what the outcome of elections is; they win without the war.

Agreed. The blues do maintain narrative and legal escalation dominance and population level coordination, while kinetic red advantages are restricted by appetite for really going full ayatollah.

You know what reds CAN do? Abbott 2.0.

The blues communicate their love for their precious migrants so much, just keep bussing them over. Unlimited bus tickets to the lands of milk and honey and love that the blues specifically say they want to encourage. If the migrants are such a massive economic advantage shouldnt the blues be racing to get every single body coming over. The reds can totally just bus them over!