site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 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.

1
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Top Administration Officials Are Now Openly Admitting That America Is Israel's Bitch.

Rubio: "The president made the very wise decision—we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties."

This wasn't clipped and quoted from a fringe groyper. This was posted by an official White House account.

I can't believe this shit. The United States has abdicated strategic initiative to Israel. The American armed forces in the Middle East have been reduced to reacting to and mitigating damage from Israel's operations in the theater. The straightforward interpretation of the above quote is that Israel started a war that killed American troops.

I was watching Tucker Carlson lay out this exact theory and thought, “well that’s an interesting idea. Too bad we’ll never know for sure.” And then the first thing I see when I tab over to Twitter is Marco Rubio making the exact same thought.

I'm going to put on my tinfoil hat here for a moment.

There's a whole lot of circumstantial evidence that Epstein had ties to Israeli intelligence, and that his job involved gathering blackmail material against strategic targets in the USA.

If you can buy that premise, this almost makes sense. The continuous slow leak of the material in question lowers the value of that material - you can't blackmail somebody if the blackmail material is already out in public. The Israelis are smart. They likely know that if they're going to squeeze any value out of whatever's left, they'd have to use quickly before it was released, and make sure that whatever they planned to do with it was worth it, since they might never be able to use it again. A "joint" US/Israeli strike against Israel's biggest remaining enemy in the region would probably fit the bill.

If I may…

On July 17th the Trump birthday card was first publicly reported in the WSJ; that same day, Trump called for Iran to unconditionally surrender, and he began striking Iran on the 22nd. Recall that Israel may have previously blackmailed Clinton with the Lewinsky tapes. One researcher believes this was related to the “Mega” investigation:

https://www.wrmea.org/1999-april-may/gideons-spies-the-secret-history-of-the-mossad.html

Thomas implies that downgrading the FBI search for “Mega,” just when the circle of suspects had been narrowed down, was linked to Clinton succumbing to Israeli blackmail based on the Mossad’s tapes of his telephone conversations with Monica.

Mega was some mysterious person or entity which was a conduit of the Israeli government. It likely referred to Wexner’s influence operation:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/jan/10/inside-ring-former-nsa-counterspy-says-jeffrey-eps/

Former National Security Agency counterspy John Schindler says he has connected the intelligence dots regarding the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and linked him to an Israeli influence operation.

“the heart of the Epstein saga was a clandestine intelligence operation devoted to compromising and blackmailing rich and powerful people,” Mr. Schindler said.

”We know that MEGA was viewed by Israel intelligence officials as a vehicle for espionage and influence operations in the United States,” Mr. Schindler concluded. “We know that it was co-founded by Jeffrey Epstein’s billionaire benefactor. The rest remains speculation.”

Re Epstein and Mega: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/inside-jeffrey-epsteins-decades-long-relationship-with-his-biggest-client

During the 1990s, both Epstein’s and Wexner’s profiles grew on the world stage. In 1991, Wexner cofounded a philanthropic organization of Jewish billionaires known as the Mega Group, which uses some of its vast resources to shape Middle East policy. In 2003, Wexner’s foundation commissioned GOP messaging guru Frank Luntz to advise American Jewish leaders on how to rally support for Israel. “For a year—a SOLID YEAR—you should be invoking the name of Saddam Hussein and how Israel was always behind American efforts to rid the world of this ruthless dictator and liberate their people,” Luntz’s recommendation stated.

It’s possible that the first time Israel blackmailed an American president, it was to stop an investigation into the Wexner-Epstein blackmail ring. The second time they blackmailed the president, it was using the very material from that blackmail ring. I’m convinced that the Trump birthday card is significant in this regard. It is really hard to look at this and not conclude they are referring to underage girls. There is some notable secret shared between Trump and Epstein, which involves an enjoyment that can’t be named; it is the one thing “more to life than having everything”; after they agree on this secret pleasure, Trump writes “enigmas never age”, and Epstein replies “this was clear to me the last time I saw you”. It was, ostensibly, written by Trump, with his signature on the bush of a woman’s silhouette, while another entry from the birthday book (Joel Paschow) implies that Epstein had “sold” a woman to Trump:

a photo shows Epstein holding a large novelty check for $22,500 with a "DJTRUMP" signature. An accompanying note jokes that Epstein sold a "'fully depreciated' [woman] to Donald Trump for $22,500." The New York Times reported the page was made by Joel Pashcow, a member of Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club.

There’s one last piece of evidence toward this conspiracy theory (truly the platonic ideal of a conspiracy theory): the Israel-Trump-Guccifer election interference story.

I can reveal here the details of an elaborate covert operation personally directed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that aimed to use secret intelligence to clandestinely intervene at the highest levels in the presidential election on behalf of Trump.

As part of the Mueller investigation, the bureau had conducted an extensive search for any foreign interference in the 2016 election, and the warrant was directed at securing the Google accounts of a mysterious Israeli agent acting under the direction of someone identified as “PM.” The FBI agent who wrote the affidavit noted, “I believe ‘PM’ refers to the ‘Prime Minister.’”

He would dispatch a discreet, highly trusted aide, armed with critical intelligence, to covertly “intervene” in the US election to help put his man Trump in the White House. Based on the FBI documents, the intelligence appears to have consisted of advance knowledge of Russia’s hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, and it may have included confidential details from the stolen e-mails. It was likely obtained by Israeli eavesdropping operations that were targeting secret Russian communications, as well as those of WikiLeaks.

According to the FBI warrant, the same day that Stone communicated with the Israeli agent, he began Googling some very strange terms, including “guccifer” and “dcleaks.” It would be nearly a month before those same terms would make headlines around the world. On June 14, The Washington Post reported that the DNC had been hacked by Russian government agents. The next day, someone calling himself “Guccifer 2.0” took credit for the attack. He claimed to be an American hacktivist, but according to a Justice Department indictment in July 2018, he was actually a Russian GRU employee. Soon afterward, the website DCLeaks—another front for the GRU—began releasing hacked Democratic Party documents.

The prospect of an October Surprise, along with the offer of critical intelligence, apparently got Trump’s attention. On September 25, he and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met privately with Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer in his Trump Tower penthouse. Later that day, he publicly announced that if he was elected, his administration would finally “recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel.”

Trump being compromised would explain the great lengths Israel went to get Trump elected, eg preparing for “the Russians” (lmao???) hacking and releasing the DNC emails. (As one final conspiratorial tie-in, probably not material but more of a fun fact: 4chan’s /pol/ was instrumental, if not focal, in getting the Trump train going and in searching through the Hillary emails. Epstein met with m00t, the owner of 4chan, shortly before the political board opened, and there are a number of emails where he shares threads from the site, though it’s mostly cartoon porn.).

I don’t believe at all Epstein had Kompromat on Trump. He’s a New York real estate developer in finance so he’s obviously worked with and been around a lot of Jews.

He’s probably just super racists. And has realized Jews are hyper competent and good allies. He respects competency and money and power and in a meritocracy Jews have a lot of that. So making an alliance with a group that represents 30% of Western Civs elite and 15% globally makes sense to him.

A Jewish/Maga combo robs the left of having their intellectual firepower. Then their just a dying off WASP and third worlders party.

I don’t understand why our resident Holocaust deniers are so against Ellison owning WBD and Tiktock. He’s aligned with Trump now. Maybe someday that is a problem but for now I they seem to be aligned with Americas right.

A Jewish elite plus MAGA coalition is not going to lose elections to a Democrat party that’s headed by black females. We just have to remember they have their own tribal goals.