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 -
The Democratic Party is working hard to give MAGA the mid-terms despite everything.
Apparently, the resolution failed by two votes. However, my understanding is that this would have been largely symbolic, as a bill would require both the House and the Senate to vote in its favor, and actually require 2/3 majorities to override the presidential veto which can be taken as granted.
Strategically speaking, preventing Trump from continuing his war seems like a classic case of interrupting your opponent while he is making a mistake. It seems clear that MAGA is searching for an off-ramp whose taking they can sell as a win. But the next best thing to a win is a scapegoat. If Congress stops Trump from bombing Iran, Trump will surely claim that his strategy was going great and Iran was just about to surrender unconditionally when he was stabbed in the back by the radical leftists. Half the country will end up believing that sure, Trump's war raised the gas prices for a while but it was the Democrats who made sure it was all for nothing.
From the perspective of the Democrats, MAGA should obviously be a much larger threat to the US than even a nuclear armed Iran. Who knows how many lives a pandemic managed by RFK Jr would claim, or what blunders Trump might commit while conducting (or failing to conduct) a war over vital interests of the US through social media? By contrast, the damage Iran is likely to do seems limited, even if they take tolls for passage that would not a much of a threat to the US, plenty of countries with questionable regimes have nukes.
Obviously the Democrats would not want Trump to earn a triumph for his war, but I doubt that there is much chance of that. The most powerful person in Iran had his father and his wife killed by US strikes and also adheres to the same religion as Hamas does. I seriously doubt that he will be willing to make large concessions to the US.
I'm getting tired of this whole concept. I understand that a lot of people think the Trump administration, and apparently the US military at large, are all fools who can't think more than a few days ahead. But Trump had an offramp if that's all he wanted, it was called accepting Iran's demands during the negotiations. Instead, the US held firm to their nuclear disarmament requirements. This is a clear signal to me that the administration does in fact have goals in this conflict beyond improving their poll numbers. In other words, it's pretty clear to me that MAGA is not searching for an off-ramp, and I would love hear what evidence you have for holding the opposite position.
Their first plan was to overthrow the government by killing a handful of people in an undeclared war during negotiations. They ended up killing 160 school girls and the theory of the mass spontaneous pro American popular uprising failed spectacularly. Then the strategy morphed into a mass bombing campaign in which a vast amount of munition was wasted. This ended with the largest loss of aircraft in a single day since the Vietnam war and the US missile stockpiles being too depleted to continue. Then there was lots of hype around a land invasion that wasn't feasible and they had to give up on.
Their last face saving measure is that the country that has been three weeks from having nukes for 30 years doesn't have nukes. Never mind that they obliterated and annihilate their nuclear program last year according to themselves.
They are desperately seeking an off ramp and trying to get something they can show as a win.
Others have discussed your fixation on the school strike, but as far as I can tell your entire understanding of the conflict comes from propaganda headlines.
That was never a stated goal. You should know that.
There was already a mass spontaneous uprising, and there still is an Iranian dissident movement. If you're actually curious there are plenty of interviews available with Iranian activists who will explain this for you.
No, that was the strategy from the beginning. You can't 'morph' into a bombing campaign, you need to have the bombs and their launch systems already in the region - but besides that, they started bombing on day 1, hour 1, so this is an insane claim.
Sorry, says who? The accuracy of US munitions has been incredible, and 99% struck their intended military targets. 'Wasted' here only makes sense from a strategic perspective of 'we shouldn't be striking Iranian targets to begin with' - in other words, your reasoning is circular. The war is bad because we're wasting munitions, and the munitions are wasted because the war is bad.
Another emotional headline. It's also false. The September 2012 Taliban raid on Camp Bastion destroyed nine aircraft. But you saw the headline somewhere and decided to uncritically repeat it.
This may be an even more ridiculous claim. The number of missiles in US stockpiles is quite literally Top Secret. But I guess you've concluded from all your military expertise that the real reason for the cease-fire was that the US has no weapons left?
I gave an argument against this in my initial response, and you did not address it. Instead, as I've demonstrated, you threw out a bunch of wrong-headed and often simply false claims to back up your emotional reasoning that the war is bad. Maybe you can do better with your next response?
It does have the echo of the totally-not-pro-Russians of yesteryear who were very adamant that the west was giving too much aid to Ukraine, and very evasive about what an 'appropriate' amount of aid was.
More options
Context Copy link
No, it is built on a decades long pattern of wars that have cost trillions, killed millions of people and flooded Europe with migrants. This is just another example of the US trying to wreck a country in the middle east to divide and conquer and the world paying the price.
Regime change was widely talked about in the initial stage of the war. That failed. They were going to save the women through a collapse of the state. The former dictator's son was paraded around because they wanted to topple the government.
Trump has openly admitted that they were funded and armed by the US.
Patriot missiles failing on launch and 8 patriots being fired at a single target isn't impressive. A substantial portion of the US airforce munitions were wasted on a war to replace an Ayatollah with his son.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-04/us-deploys-bulk-of-stealthy-long-range-missile-for-iran-war
A quarter of all tomahawks were fired. They couldn't have gone that much longer without making the US too weak.
This is unfortunately hilarious to me, because my hyper-political family member regularly posts the phrase "Costing trillions, killing millions" on Facebook, often as part of particularly unhinged rants, and it's therefore rather difficult for me to take seriously just due to overexposure.
Contrary to your stance, however, she sees Europe being flooded with migrants as a good thing, because they're so much more virtuous and intelligent and hard-working than the average European national (and, of course, even the worst European native is far superior to any white American!)
More options
Context Copy link
Based on this what would you estimate the odds are that a deal is negotiated and Iran cedes its enriched uranium supply?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link