site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   8470 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The SPLC has been federally indicted on six counts of wire fraud, four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. And the charges were filed in the Middle District of Alabama. 14-page indictment PDF here.

In brief, the indictment alleges that the SPLC raised money under false pretenses by claiming to fight right-wing extremism, instead funding extremist informants with roughly $3 million dollars of donor money. The informants included members of the KKK and an organizer of the infamous Charlottesville unite the right fiasco. They allegedly did this using illegal means, creating fictitious cutouts and lying to banks to open phony bank accounts to obscure the flow of funds from the SPLC to their informants.

I can't help but feel some schadenfreude here - "no one is above the law" also applies to left-wing NGOs who think they can larp as spies. They even named one of their cutouts Center Investigative Agency... It seems like they flew very close to the sun thinking that their brand and political affiliation would shield them from scrutiny. Project Veritas got a lot more heat for doing a lot less.

From a layman's perspective the indictment seems pretty compelling but I'd be curious to hear what the legal commentators here think. Of course this is only one side of the argument, but those statements to the bank in particular seem quite incriminating. Also, what exactly would be the consequences for the SPLC if the DOJ succeeds on some or all counts?

This is why I voted for Trump. Thé SPLC is my enemy, and driving them out of the face of the earth is a good thing.

I'm no fan of the SPLC, but... I don't see any contradiction between claiming to fight right-wing extremism and funding extremist informants.

If they broke laws while doing it, that's a different matter, but I'm not understanding the framing that they were hypocrites or something.

The SPLC is interesting because they don't have a real incentive to shut down the organizations they target. Police eventually want a big press conference with drugs or guns on the table and a bunch of arrests, that's how they demonstrate their efficacy. The SPLC has no authority to do any law enforcement, the best they can do is say "we helped" when law enforcement eventually does act. But they have a direct incentive to have more hate organizations to add to their hate map, more scary news headlines to use to raise money from their donor base, etc.

So if they are able to prove the SPLC funded some of these hate groups for decades and made no serious effort to shut them down, just farming them for content, that does start to look like a deceptive use of donor money. It requires more of a stretch compared to the other counts, but if they do get convicted, their reputation is ruined.

And indeed, making up ‘hate’ from essentially innocuous outside the mainstream organizations, which they then confirm with informants who are actually getting an answer of ‘sûre, buddy, why don’t you go play with someone else?’.

It requires more of a stretch compared to the other counts, but if they do get convicted, their reputation is ruined.

No, because they'll just claim it was a witch hunt against them by the Trump administration, and their donors will believe them.

I don't see any contradiction between claiming to fight right-wing extremism and funding extremist informants

Same sort of issue as the FBI prodding along and composing a significant fraction of the Whitmer kidnapping plot, the line between fighting something and manufacturing something to fight gets patchy.

Paying informants to stay in an organization, continue rousing for it, and report back is fungible with just paying the organization to exist.

Paying informants to stay in an organization, continue rousing for it, and report back is fungible with just paying the organization to exist.

Maybe on some scales. Was the USG paying the USSR to exist since some KGB guys were on the American payroll?

I think it's useful to note before getting into any particular details that the Trump admin's record of even securing a grand jury in prosecutions against groups and people they don't like has been extremely poor, yet alone ever getting to a conviction. Whether it be frivolous defamation lawsuits or nakedly politically motivated investigations against someone like Jerome Powell, they keep losing when forced to find or put actual evidence in front of judges and juries. One reason as stated by a top Bondi aide is that finding competent lawyers who are also willing to play MAGA politics over their career prosecution success rates has been quite difficult. Not many want to walk away in 2028 with tons of failed indictments that couldn't even get past a grand jury attached to their name.

Not that it necessarily matters, as FIRE points out

But sometimes, the lawsuit is the punishment. SLAPP suits are weaponized by the wealthy and well-connected to punish speakers with costly litigation, even if the suit is ultimately thrown out. They’re abuses of America’s legal system, and FIRE fights against these violations of our First Amendment rights.

In the same way, just having the federal government use the legal system to smear your name, out private details, and force you to defend yourself is a victory for lawfare wagers.

But let's get into the details anyway.

In brief, the indictment alleges that the SPLC raised money under false pretenses by claiming to fight right-wing extremism, instead funding extremist informants with roughly $3 million dollars of donor money. The informants included members of the KKK and an organizer of the infamous Charlottesville unite the right fiasco.

This is already questionable. The idea that paying for an informant inside of a group to provide you leaks and information that you report on, and even share with law enforcement if it hints at potential criminal behavior counts as "funding" the movement as a form of support is quite a stretch. I doubt they'll find many major donors who consider this to be a fraudulent use of a really small fraction of their money.

It's also really interesting to see some of the blatant social media shills flip from "unite the right was peaceful" (which it was) to "unite the right was a dangerous rally caused by the SPLC!' just because of a single guy unrelated to the informant organizer driving into a crowd. Just peak partisan brain on display.

They allegedly did this using illegal means, creating fictitious cutouts and lying to banks to open phony bank accounts to obscure the flow of funds from the SPLC to their informants.

Now that might actually have some teeth to it, assuming of course that this is actually correct considering ya know, the Trump admin repeatedly failing over and over when having to actually provide evidence for their claims in court against political opponents. But assuming this one is true and they did lie to the banks themselves, then it does seem criminal.

The idea that paying for an informant inside of a group to provide you leaks and information that you report on, and even share with law enforcement if it hints at potential criminal behavior counts as "funding" the movement as a form of support is quite a stretch.

I think this highlights an interesting difference between some sort of moral intuition because it seems common among SPLC defenders that this is just a nonsense connection, but I don't find it a stretch at all. It strikes me as a perfectly reasonable conclusion! But I don't know how to phrase what that difference in intuition is, exactly.

Now that might actually have some teeth to it

34 felonies. But Alabama's probably not as corrupt and motivated as New York.

Your argument proves too much: the Trump administration also had difficulty securing a grand jury in cases where they had video evidence of the crime.

Which case was this? The first thing that came to my mind was a vague recollection of the recent reported paper-bag-of-bribery-sting-cash video, but the suspect there (despite being first appointed to ICE by Obama) was considered "one of the president's top allies" and it was the Trump DoJ that dropped the case.

There was the sandwich guy in DC who threw his food at federal officers and was a found innocent of all charges, and within DC is now regarded as a local folk hero for standing up to the federal government or whatever.

That was kind of doomed from the start with a DC jury. In this case they were able to file in Alabama, which should have a more level playing field.

Grand juries have long been considered incredibly easy to get past, to the point a common joke is that you could even manage it with a ham sandwich. Given that nothing about the system has changed (they're still just made up of ordinary citizens through the jury selection process), the constant failings to convince ordinary people of crime seems to suggest a selection bias. Normal smart prosecutors would never try to indict a ham sandwich anyway so the grand juries never turn them down, similar to how Japan maintains their high conviction rates.

similar to how Japan maintains their high conviction rates.

By treating ‘rights of the accused’ as a suggestion?

If his characterization of a specific case is correct, none of what you said is relevant. It's perfectly possible that on average things are more or less lime you describe, but people make an exception for Trump.

This is the kind of thing that, if it turns out to be true, makes me angry at myself for ever doubting DOGE. Millions upon millions are spent on grift that only ever makes life worse for any conscientious law-abiding person. If it requires torching actually useful institutions because they're too enmeshed with the grift, well, too bad. Should have not done the enmeshing then.

Per Steve Sailer's extensive investigation of SPLC finances, very little of the money here is taxpayer money - the whole point of the SPLC was to maximise unrestricted donations from left-wing Jews so Morris Dees and Jo Levin could keep the money. DOGE wasn't going to find this one - it required old-school criminal investigation.

"Dangerous right wing hate groups" are so thin on the ground they literally can't hold a meeting without funding from the Deep State funneled through NGO cutouts like the SPLC. I'm reminded of the tale of the anarchist newspaper in which every one of the dozens of editors, employees and writers was an intelligence agent or informant for a different government. "Anarchy" groups were a whole thing for intelligence services to conceal their doings back in the early 20th century. If you've heard of a "white supremacist", odds are good he's being promoted by teh glowies.

If you've heard of a "white supremacist", odds are good he's being promoted by teh glowies.

Whether that's true or not, I don't think it applies in this case, since the SPLC's definition of "white supremacist" is probably so broad that it certainly includes large numbers of people who are not glowies.

Yeah, I had an idea a few years back of starting a "militia group," charging each recruit a few thousand dollars, and having them meet every weekend to crawl around in the mud and do jumping jacks.

This should add credence to the belief that e.g. the groypers are "controlled opposition". But it likely won't; the lesson of ECHELON, AT&T Room 641A, and the Snowden revelations is that conspiracy theories are never credible even when there's precedent.

The only ways I can think of in which groypers help any elite groups is that they stir infighting among right-wingers and make it easier for some groups to raise money under the guise of fighting extremism.

However, both of those things could also be explained by the simpler theory that the groypers are genuine in their political beliefs, so I don't know why the theory that they are controlled opposition would be more credible.

I'm reminded of the tale of the anarchist newspaper in which every one of the dozens of editors, employees and writers was an intelligence agent or informant for a different government.

The Man Who Was Thursday?

It’s very telling that the mainstream left-wing media is completely ignoring this story as I type these words.

I have little compassion for the SPLC. They were one of the first people to accuse RooshV of starting a hate group in an era when RooshV’s forum was one of the few online spaces where men could feel supported, in an era that was so “woke” and man-hating that Al Franken’s career was ruined for putting his hands above a woman’s breasts in a picture which was obviously intended to be a joke.

The problem the SPLC and similar institutions which call out men for being “misogynistic” is that they have become leftists who look the other way, ignoring the widespread misandry coming from leftists.

They also went after Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz for being anti-Islamic extremists/racists (they eventually settled this with an apology).

Harris I can get even if I wouldn't defend it. He dared to defend Charles Murray after all.

The Nawaz one was just particularly grating . Reminded me of a lot of leftists who don't actually know or care about Islam but feel justified in taking a stance on it based on how it fits their own domestic political battles (this is actually my charitable take: the alternative is that they got taken in by anti-reform Muslims). Absolute no sense of care in how they use their supposed expertise.

It’s very telling that the mainstream left-wing media is completely ignoring this story as I type these words.

I heard of it last night on one of those NPR news summaries (yesterday's NPR), and this morning it's everywhere: AP, CBS, ABC, NBC.

The meme "The demand for racism outstrips the supply" is being validated in the most hilarious way possible.

How is paying informants a sign of demand outstripping the supply? Seems like pretending the story is about something else to dunk.

There's a thin line between informants and agitators.

KKK meetings made up of 1 FBI guy, 1 CIA guy, 1 SPLC guy and 1 undercover journalist.

You left out the "borderline retarded 16 year old guy looking for a friend."

"Isn't anybody here a real sheep?"

relevant Far Side

The Man who was Thursday

And broken up when the undercover FBI agent starts suggesting actual serious criminal activity and the undercover journalist calls the local cops on him.

If they're not all aware of each other's status, that just looks like an earnest Klan meeting. Didn't it come out that a majority (or near majority) of the Malheur occupiers were informants, including some of the leaders?

Honestly, some required coordination of this sort of thing might make some sense, but I'm sure it's a confidentiality risk to investigations.

Depending on the day it could have been the majority. The prosecution admitted to 15, defense said it was higher.

Malheur Trial Defense Team Seeks More Info On Government Informants

prosecutors said in court the government used 15 confidential informants during the occupation.

Similar many if not most of those in the kidnapping plot of Gretchen were feds. The feds admitted to at least 4 defense says 12.

I am dying. The meme is that the demand for racism vastly outstrips the supply leading to things like the Jussie Smolet situation. The reality is so, so, so much more entertaining. It's pretty well-established that the going rate for bribing American politicians is shockingly low (according to the US Sentencing Commision, median amount is $45k-65k). From the indictment, between 2014 and 2023 the SPLC paid an informant more than a million dollars to steal documents for them. Oh, and also they paid somebody else a measly $6k to be the fall guy for the first informant's theft. Wonder how he's gonna feel knowing he could have held out for so much more?

I believe that the demand for active, violent white racism probably outstrips the supply here in the US. However, I don't see how that applies to the SPLC case. Paying informants money with the hope of getting information is not the same thing as paying them money with the hope that their racism justifies your existence.

Mind you, what a politician risks when taking a bribe is a tiresome lawsuit and some PR damage. What an informant risks when leaking an extremist militia's secrets is a bullet to the brain. In theory, it makes sense that the latter would demand greater hazard pay.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats