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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   12203 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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Also I’m very left wing.

Also you’re taking such a bad interpretation of what I wrote that I consider it lying.

I believe you. But I can see why the other commenter assumed the worst.

From here on out, I am talking about a certain type of person on theMotte. Not you or your wife. Let's call them White-Nostalgists.

The White-Nostalgist constructs a suffocatingly narrow definition of whiteness, which few can satisfy. He then complains that white people are being replaced. I'd characterize his belief as: "To be Legacy American is to be ethnically British or German, Protestant, and embody the values of those immigrant groups circa 1900. America must restore cultural and political primacy to this group".

In 2026, this belief runs up against many unresolved incompatibilities. Given these open ends, his sharp critique of every aspect of liberal culture comes across as 'isolated demands for rigor'. Ofc some commenters here get ticked off. You were caught in the crossfire.

Some unresolved incompatibilities:

  • If 'being American is being white' because of who lived here at the nation's formation, then how do Blacks, Puerto Ricans or Hawaiians fit in ?
  • How do non-Hajnali Caucasians (Southern/Eastern European) fit in ? Sicilians, Irishmen & Jews are pretty American now. To what degree do they have claim over American culture ?
  • If those aforementioned Caucasians can be accommodated, then why not the Spanish ones? SFL's Latino demographic shift happened due to Cubans, who were overwhelmingly Spanish by ethnicity and culture.
  • If he has such fondness for Northern European culture, then why does he hate the values of post-war Northern Europe ?
  • What gives someone the right to demand cultural primacy ? Should newer citizens have fewer rights than those who've been here for long ?

There is an unfortunate undercurrent of resignation that I can't help but mention. It's possible that this person knows he's one generation too late. The demographic scales have tilted. By 2024, white births (non-hispanic white mothers) were less than 50% of new Americans. He sounds stubborn because he isn't proposing a practical strategy, he's expressing anger. Democracy is 'Tyranny of the majority' and he is on the wrong side of that saying, for good.

All you have identified is that there is a sliding scale of “whiteness”. At some point people are so far away from heritage American that it’s unlikely they will ever have descendants that will be able to fit into America and reproduce American society.

On one hand you have Elon Musks who is pure heritage American stock. My last name traces to ancient Roman nobility so I am not heritage American stock though we did conquer them for a few centuries. But I do believe I am close enough to be a functioning person in America.

You are not bringing up anything novel. These things are debated online. Research on these type of questions were suppressed for a long time. Data on these questions are coming out now and we get charts like these:

Genetic Distance Score

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