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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026

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For general CW reasons, agreed. (Though I dearly hope that Trump is not like Caesar in that he did not change the political system permanently. I see him more like the Gracchi brothers, personally.)

My steelman hinged on two assumptions: (1) There is a non-trivial chance that Trump will nuke Iran (or some other country). (2) This is a personal characteristic of his, rather than a wider consequence of MAGA ideology, so that Vance or Rubio are substantially less likely to nuke someone. (To my knowledge, neither has tweeted about ending any civilizations overnight.)

Again, for the benefits of any feds reading, I should clarify that I do not subscribe to that. I think that Trump's tweets about the Iran war are a pathetic flailing around rather than a clear, consistent communication of intent.The only thing that can be learned from Trump's tweets is that his future behavior is not communicated by them. The way the Trump administration communicates what they are going to do next is by insider trading on prediction markets, instead.