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.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Top Administration Officials Are Now Openly Admitting That America Is Israel's Bitch.
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
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/
Re Epstein and Mega: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/inside-jeffrey-epsteins-decades-long-relationship-with-his-biggest-client
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:
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.
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.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link