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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026

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Its interesting, I'm sure that some time in the not that distant past, a huge group of almost-entirely-male foreigners moving, uninvited, as a horde into your country's declared borders would be decreed an 'invasion' or whatever your linguistic equivalent was by the leaders of your territory. I'd guess this word would apply even if they were motivated by economic necessity or some natural disaster forcing migration, rather than military conquest.

If your team was able to organize and repel them, you'd retain your sovereignty in that area, if you were not, then likely you would lose control/access of that particular piece of territory to the 'invaders.'

But we now have a system of Democracy overlaid on the territory that provides a means for the 'invaders' to be legitimized and deemed citizens of the nation if they can convince a certain number of the existing residents to approve it. So this creates an interesting incentive for the horde of foreigners to appear as sympathetic as possible to maximize the chances of existing citizens to take their side. So now its an advantage to claim economic distress and oppression, and military conquest is not even a necessary condition.

And thus, a given territory can be 'lost' whilst still remaining nominally a part of the nation, because the governmental system just absorbs the newcomers into the system and grants them de facto equal status to everyone else there, at least in terms of their influence on the system itself.

My point is mainly that I cannot imagine than any autocracy would tolerate the behavior on display in that video. No dictatorship, fiefdom, Junta, or monarch would say "oh sure let a couple thousand of them come storming in, we'll get some aid workers on site to make sure they have a place to stay, and after a year or two we'll discuss granting them full citizenship."

This seems borne out by looking at the relatively few remaining autocracies out there and how they treat foreigners.

The danger such a group poses is clear when they might decrease your ability to effectively govern unimpeded in a domain you're charged with maintaining. If, instead, they can bolster your side's political grip and you can slough the costs off on the citizens as a whole, that calculus changes.