site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 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.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Yeah this is what I get from ChatGPT at least to double check it

Using the broad definition “anyone who is not white at all” (so excluding people who identify as white alone, including white Hispanics):

The U.S. population is about 334 million.

About 75–76% identify as white alone according to the United States Census Bureau.

That means about 24–25% are not white.

Approximate number

24–25% of 334 million ≈ 81–84 million people

However including white Hispanics does bump it up to around 140 million apparently. It's impossible to say that it means this implication, but it's still an example of how extremist rhetoric is put out by the admin underlings. It's not just "the libs" you get with the Epic Trolling, tons of normies and moderates will see it too and update a little away from supporting you. Likewise with Laura Loomer's statement of feeding all the Hispanics in the country to crocodiles

The left wing extremists often push the moderates back with their own nonsense, but the ones in power tend to be the people most in danger if they can't control their rhetoric and behavior. Biden never learned this lesson, and it doesn't look like Trump intends to learn anytime soon. Even now while they are attempting to moderate out a little, it's only after all this extremist content already got pumped out and it still is upsetting the partisan fringes who are trying to lobby for more extremism.

The issue is that an administration that tries to be popular with the normies and moderates is an admin that the partisans don't really like that much. You have to be willing to upset your own group some knowing that they'll be loyal for you anyway and appeal to the centrists.