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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026

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This is a bit like suicidal empathy.

The left has gotten good at making these strawman arguments. Where nuance goes out the window. As to your question “no serious person”

Me.

If my choice is we can enforce immigration law but I have to say yes to executing some agitators it’s yes.

It’s the same with shipping 20k Haitians to small town. What are you racists for opposing. If my choice is dropping 20k cultural foreign people into my small town or being racists - I am choosing racists.

The right has moved in a direction of feeling the need to remove any empathy from decision making because if you show one ounce of empathy your cooked. When I was growing up some how we didn’t push things to those extremes. We could paper over issues and not push it that far.

The prototypical lefty in the aughts was I believe Sandy Cohen of the OC who do the do gooder stuff and make the world a better place. But he wouldn’t push things to breaking the social contract with the other side.

The right has moved in a direction of feeling the need to remove any empathy from decision making because if you show one ounce of empathy your cooked.

I think there are some agitators that understand this and are using it to reinforce the image of ICE (and the larger right in general) as heartless jackbooted thugs. Keep the pressure up and make martyrs for the cause. Force ICE to make mistakes and then hold the evidence up as confirmation of their narrative.

As an aside, my sibling and family came back today from a trip to the US. They called Trump Hitler for what they observed while they were there. Its unsettling to me that that's what they took away from their trip, but they're allowed to draw their own conclusions. I don't think they've thought through what would happen to a nation where a heckler's veto and emotional appeals can prevent border enforcement.

I think there are some agitators that understand this and are using it to reinforce the image of ICE (and the larger right in general) as heartless jackbooted thugs

The problem I have with that theory is that as far as I can tell, it's always been their tactic. If anything, they seem surprised it's not working anymore.

Much of the right has decided to switch tactics from the failing "No, they aren't jackbooted thugs" (which is defeated by the left's control of the media) to "YES, TRUMP STOMP!". I doubt this will work better politically but it does annoy the footsoldiers of the left.

I'll happily take suicidal empathy over homicidal antipathy.

As to your question “no serious person”

Me.

Do I understand you correctly? Hypothetically, suppose there is an ICE raid on a restaurant and a couple illegal aliens try to run out the back door; are tackled; and are arrested; booked; and sent to jail. Are you saying that under some circumstances, you would support capital charges and execution for such persons?