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The so-called "Anti weaponization fund" has been defeated due to public and internal backlash.
It was so unpopular that even Republican senators were furious and yelling at Blanche over it. According to Ted Cruz
But why did it die?
Republicans are willing to bow their heads to Trump on most things, but the same way defund the police was unpopular (because people like the police), senators really like the capitol police and don't approve of rewarding the cop beaters with money. Trump got away with the pardons, but actively awarding attacking the cops who protect them is a step too far from many.
It was also just really unpopular among voters. Just like the senators, voters don't approve of giving money to cop beaters. Not even many republican ones are supportive of that just because they did it in Trump's name. Of course it's also quite likely that many interpreted the question as a fund for victims of Trump's weaponization, such as James Comey whose lead prosecutor just stepped down or Jerome Powell but not all probably did.
As my own senator put it
Senators also felt that the deal was too blatantly corrupt and hard for them to defend with a straight face.
Either way, they've dropped it now and the fund is dead in the water. Interesting showcase of how many republican congressman haven't completely neutered themselves for the executive yet, they just mostly argue behind closed doors.
The general impression (however incorrect in this case) was that it would go in substantial part to Trump personally. Even GOP voters know that it’s precisely Trump who paints himself as an immensely rich and successful billionaire, so this is giving some very rich guy a lot more taxpayer money, which is hard for politicians to justify.
More generally, every government rewards its supporters, and there are far more under the table ways to do it than this kind of fund. Trump has already done so much of it through the crypto companies, expediting approvals for various Trump tech aligned businesses, endorsing or engaging in partnerships with startups that have his sons on the board etc. If he wants to reward his supporters, this is the way to do it.
The main strategic issue for the right isn’t making it more profitable to be on the right, it’s on making it more personally challenging to be on the left. He needs to much more aggressively steal from and prosecute and expropriate leftist activists, make their life hell the way the left did to the right in power. This has far better long term utility. Put people on no fly lists, have banks close their accounts, stop renewing passports and drivers’ licenses.
I don't want to see any politicians rewarding their supporters, but I guess I might as well wish to hold back the tides.
I'm particularly reminded of USAID disbursements to progressive NGO's worldwide, and also welfare allocations to client groups in Minnesota.
Yes. Basically this sort of weaponisation needs to be turned on their original developers. Only then you can you reach detente through MAD. There are some hardcore conflict theorists that think this will never happen and that the end goal is the destruction of the political opposition. Things have been pretty bad, but I'm surprised at how far this is all going.
Regarding this point, I have always been under the impression that NGO's that try to help people in foreign countries receive education, medicine, and emergency aid are progressive in nature. Assuming part of the president's policy is to make the world outside the US a better place by providing foreign aid, it thus follows that most of that money would go to progressive groups. Because by and the majority of charities today lean left.
Is that wrong? Are there solid charities out there which are either apolitical or lean conservative which provide foreign aid, but were neglected by USAID in favor of some kind of nepotism?
The ostensible realpolitik argument was that by dispersing charity to foreign nations, the US was gaining soft power and influence. It just so happened that there were links between the Democrat party and the people running and working in the NGOs receiving the money to distribute (and fund the required salaries and overheads for the organisations themselves). This was often obfuscated by layers of organisations and sometimes lead to the money being spent on things that were incredibly dubious (eg $2M for sex change surgeries in Guatemala; $47K for a "transgender opera" in Colombia; $75K for a drag show workshop in Ecuador.)
I need to be fair and say I haven't really gone digging for a USAID spending breakdown by left and right wing causes. I guess in some ways 'free welfare' type spending is by definition left wing.
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There are very many (christian) religious charities operating in all developing countries, most of which obviously lean conservative (btw, USAID is still working with plenty of them to this day). For the most part, these are centered around providing the basics: Alleviating poverty, providing fundamental education, giving out medicine, etc. However, they are often accused of just wanting to abuse this status to spread their religion. Some of them even openly do so. In the past, the christian western countries would frequently overwhelmingly fund these charities, citing the same arguments as you do: They are the primary charities operating in these places. You should see how this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: If they get funded but the others don't, they'll necessarily be the primary ones. That's how it works.
We have a very similar situation now; Imo arguably worse in some ways, but YMMV. Plenty of progressive NGOs are very blatant about spreading specifically their particular worldview. Usually in addition to basic aid, sometimes even without that fig leaf, but they'll often get funding anyway. And if you try looking into what they are actually doing on-the-ground, it's not only often exceptionally difficult to even find out where all that money is even going, but in the few cases where you can find something, they'll usually even exceed their claimed mandate substantially.
At least from my vantage point, we have successfully pushed these religious charities to tone down their missionary purposes and concentrate on the aid part if they want to get our funding. I'd like for the same to happen to progressive charities.
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The obvious place to look would be religious charities, wouldn't it?
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Your post confuses me. Which happens a lot in the bubbles of the internet. I don't really know what is going on cuz I barely follow anything closely enough.
My understanding is that this lawsuit was in part about the IRS targeting politically conservative groups. Which they were shown to have been doing back in the obama administration.
Why the stuff about cop beaters? I suppose that is in reference to people attacking cops during the Jan 6th thing. But I wasn't aware of many organizations that claim credit for that surviving until the modern day. I admit to not knowing the status of the proud boys. Though the FBI and CIA are still around and their funding is not linked to this, so that also doesn't make sense to me.
I think there is a very difficult political problem being pointed at here. Trump's involvement just muddies it all.
Government controlled by Party A has done things to wrong Party B. The judiciary is supposed to be an independent entity that steps in and arbitrates these disputes.
What exactly is supposed to happen if Party B does not realize they have been intentionally wronged until they control the government?
If they sue the government its just Party B suing the government they control. Of course they win. That is what happened in this case.
Options:
A. Nothing happens. B. Punish rule breakers. C. Reward victims.
I am heavily in favor of option B, but no one in power is in favor of that option. The people in power in party A that carried out the harm have a set of preferences like A > C > B. The people in party B that have been wronged have a set of preferences that generally looks like C > B > A.
Rewarding the victims is a good compromise option. Because the people that suffer are taxpayers, and who gives a shit about taxpayers? Republican politicians is apparently a fair answer for any who opposed this payout. Had the roles been reversed would democrats have done the same? I'm sure we will find out. (if we haven't already from some buried issue or court case that has been ignored for a few decades)
The problem with this statement of the case, is that Trump was president when the IRS leak of his tax documents happened. And he's president now.
What Trump could have done is ask the case to be held in abeyance, which would freeze the clock on the case and wait for the case to be resolved until after his presidency finished up. That would have been the usual "avoiding corruption, or the appearance of corruption" version of Trump bringing the complaint that created the massive settlement fund.
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One of the protestors mentioned on X they can still just sue the government and have them settle regardless of if the money comes from a specific fund or not. So may not matter much in the end. Just another example of GOP congresspeople trying to pretend keeping the moral high ground matters at all compared to simply wielding your power for your allies and against your foes.
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It is basically political suicide for Republicans to come out against this without getting meaningful legislation banning it. Obama and Biden did the same thing dozens of times, for totals far higher than the current fund, for more spurious reasons. Unilateral disarmament is never a good idea.
The main difference for Obama and Biden era sue and settle, was that that the people footing the bill for the slush funds were private companies, or where there were large payouts from the taxpayers, congress voted and approved it.
The Trump situation is the current president suing the government he now controls in his capacity as a private citizen for a wrong done to him while he was previously president, by people who he was theoretically in charge of. The money is coming from the taxpayers, and the slush fund is being administered by the federal government. There's lots of ways this could have the whiff of corruption on a different order than the Obama and Biden era precedents.
There's lots of things Trump could have done differently:
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The Trump administration didn't do the Republican Party in general many favors by making it so easy for people to describe this initiative as a slush fund for Trump supporters, even if the idea of stopping government institution weaponization against Republicans is in principle good for Republicans. I think the optics of trying to do these things could have been handled much more subtly, especially when Republican leaders are already uneasy about the midterms.
Not while Trump is in the White House.
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Disappointed they backed down on this. Political slush funds are very powerful. Being able to reward friends is powerful. Dems ran this playbook for years and the dominated institutions. Having more money for bribes might get more gop working in the beauracracy now if you have money give them a check later.
GOP have been soundless since Iraq
At least they did something - it was terrible and dumb but by golly they did it
Giving money to supporters who were politically lynched by their political opposition? Step too far!
If Trump were 15% more competent …
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Well, you can only cut 'em off once, and these senators already gelded themselves long ago to remain in the good graces of the left. Not that interesting at all. And "cop beaters" sound an awful lot like Chinese Robbers. And honestly after all the NGO networks came to light, I'm mostly indifferent towards graft if it's going to my political allies or fellow travellers. The money likely will be stolen, it's just a question of whose side is strengthened by the theft.
If you will allow me a meta-question -- what was your intention with this post? Heavily spun partisan pro-MAGA screeds are boring to read, but so is this triumphalist leftist sneering. "Good to see at least some republicans aren't total CUCKS who want to steal TAXPAYER MONEY and give it to COP BEATERS" is a Twitter tier opinion. I guess you will get a bunch of >(you)s but that sort of violates the spirit of this place. Why not post some substantive analysis about why you think these Republicans still aren't fully sold on MAGA?
I don't think you understand how Chinese robbers fallacy works.
The fallacy is "some Chinese people are robbers = Chinese are robbers". Not "most Chinese people haven't done robbery = this specific chinese person who just robbed a store should be let off".
The average Jan 6th attendee did not commit any crimes, including violence against the police. The specific ones who did, the ones charged and convicted of crimes, did do crimes.
I did! The Republican senators stood up to this because they don't want to award money specifically to cop beaters (amid other criminals) who would have the "victimization claim" available to them and they don't feel like they can defend what appears to be blatant corruption. You think it's a Twitter tier opinion, I think you gave a Twitter tier response of not reading.
"Some Jan 6 Electoral Justice Protestors tussled with cops = we can round all Jan 6 protestors off to 'cop beaters'"
Looks like I understand it just fine.
What do you base this on? Taking politicians' sound bites at face value? Do you also believe congressmen when they say that the American Freedom Panopticon Surveillance Bill is meant to "keep our children safe?"
Anyway, I'm still curious to know what sort of discussion you hoped to start with your OP.
"Tussled with cops" is a brilliant way to try to lighten it. The people who attacked cops are cop beaters. Whether it's described as "tussling" or not, that behavior is wrong.
But that's not what happened! The problem isn't with the general jan 6th protestor, but the ones who committed a crime. Considering that Republican senators also seemed to interpret the fund as including the specific criminals who did crime, it at the very least was unclear even if it wasn't the intention.
Sure senators like Cruz or Tillis or Fitzpatrick could be lying about their objections here. But why? What do you suppose the real objections is then? That's a whole lot of Republicans who were apparently mad about it so it wouldn't make sense to just be "Tillis and Cruz hate all Jan 6thers in a way others don't" (Unless that was made up too I suppose).
It's already started a good discussion. What do you think the real reason is for Republican senator backlash then if it's not about crime or the appearance of corruption? Or if it wasn't from internal backlash, why do you think it was dropped?
I think most of the prosecutions were over the top. If you have cops threatening you, it’s not unusual for you to fight back. It was a completely chaotic situation where people who had never been in a situation where the cops are trying to stop them and wielding batons. Most of the protestors were older Americans who had up to that point only gotten a couple of speeding tickets. They were not hardened criminals who went in trying to beat up cops for no reason. They went in believing they were protesting the election of 2020 being stolen, they perhaps intended to chant in the halls of congress or something. Trying to treat such people as if they went in intending to beat up cops and harm members of Congress ignores the reasons they had and the character of those people.
I’m not completely on board with a fund, but these were not hardened criminals and talking about this as if the fifty year old small business owner was exactly like a gang member looking to shoot a cop is ridiculous.
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Many senators are still very media sensitive. J6 carries undue weight in DC because of the media, the culture (95%+ of their neighbors will be Democrats), and other factors. The reality is that this is a tiny slush fund by Obama standards; has a very legitimate purpose outside of J6 defendants (for instance, reimbursing conservative media outlets for legal fees from when Biden forced social media companies to de-platform them); and certainly wont be the last such fund if ever a Democrat is President. The fact that this isn't legislation gives the game away that this is just Washington Generals behavior.
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