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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   24088 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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I opened TheHill.com this morning and see that the Michigan Democratic Senate primary is too close to call and high drama as far as summer politics go.

On one side we have Abdul, a progressive Democrat middle Eastern man. On the other hand, we have Stevens a white liberal affluent woman - described as a “centrist Democrat”, mentored by Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. A real “battle for the Democratic Party”.

My politics have be quite odd for a while now. Historically I voted republiclan and came of age in the George W years. About 10 years ago I switched registration to non affliliated and would describe my politics as MAGA (until MAGA was redefined to being pro-Israel movement). My tongue in check response on politics would be to sometimes describe myself as a Francoist or Facist fellow traveler.

Back to Michigan, I was thinking to myself “gun to my head” who would I prefer? The middle eastern Muslim progressive or white woman establishment Dem. I reviewed their Wiki policy positions and quite easily decided I’d prefer Abdul. Stevens is so odious to me that it wasn’t even close. What’s a bigger threat? A dem that publicly calls their regular trips to Israel transformative? Or a Muslim that wants to abolish ICE? Both are big problems. Stevens is a big “public health” nut so that’s pretty much puts two enormous Xs next to her name for me. Abdul is anti monopoly and these days it’s hard for me to disagree that there are some major problems with the corporate class (despite me being a part of it).

It was a fun little thought experiment. What do you all make of it? For those that are generally against the progressive project, what’s the lesser evil? For those that are for it, who do you trust?

Edit:Abdul won.

You want my thoughts?

My thoughts are that allying yourself with the enemies of western civilization to gain a marginal advantage in an intra-tribal squabble isn't the brilliant flex that you and @hydroacetylene seem to think it is and that anyone remotely familiar with the last decade of US political history ought to recognize the obvious failure mode.

Kolomogrov complicity is still complicity.

The enemies of western civilization are allies and I'd rather they at least be honest about it by naming the more alien and savage one as their public face.

Does it seem to you that Muslim immigrants are more an enemy of western civilization than Blue Tribe progressives?

Do you think the difference (if there is one) matters?

The ally of my enemy is my enemy's ally.

This principle holds true regardless of whether we're talking about Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, Nazi Germany and the Vichy French, Ephialtes and the Persians, or specific Mottizens and Third World Islamists.

I don't care why @hydroacetylene chose to support El-Sayed, I care that that he chose to support him

Obviously. "Blue tribe progressives" are white people, which is to say they are part of Western civilization. Muslim immigrants aren't. This idea that they are somehow equal amounts to gaslighting. I don't want to live around Muslim immigrants (a few countries excepted), I'm fine if my neighbor is a Democrat.

If you will live around this type of Democrat then that you will also get Muslim immigrant as well as ruined school, criminals and the rest of it. It is a package deal and it is literally what happened over in Michigan and why there is a Muslim candidate in the first place.

Muslim immigrants vote Democrat too so if I'm going to have to deal with the dysfunction either way I'd rather be around pleasant, well-educated people from a similar culture to my own.

You will not be around these "pleasant" people for long, because they will suicidally turn your neighborhood into a shithole and then possibly move away from you to do damage elsewhere. It is false dilemma such as saying you don't like pitbulls roaming the streets and breeding, but you do not mind living next to neighbors who feed and protect them, because they are nice animal loving people and they mean well.

Have you ever actually lived in America? There are plenty of pleasant blue areas with awful politics. They're mostly very wealthy.

Obviously. "Blue tribe progressives" are white people

Is it Obvious? I'm not convinced that it is.

If we take the intesectionalist's characterization of "whiteness" as something pervasive and systemic that must be dismantled (see the infamous "Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness in the United States" graphic) than whiteness isn't about race, it is about culture, specifically Western Culture. This is why Blue tribe progressives feel comfortable accusing Tuskegee University of perpetuating colonialism and white-supremacy for banning Crocs and requiring 1st year students to wear a shirt and tie, and describing men like Clarence Thomas, and Michael Jordan as race-traitors for essentially being southern and conservative.

Point being that if we accept that if an individual of African descent who votes for a conservative "aint Black" than it stands to reason that individuals of European descent who vote for progressive candidates are not really "white", and I feel like the current trajectory of UK politics and European politics more generally would seem to bear this supposition out.

Since when do right-wingers base their own ideas on moronic progressive polemics about race? I can't take this post seriously, there is no way that you agree with the Smithsonian's or Joe Biden's ideas about who is white or black.

I don't think I need to be a "right-winger" or "base my ideas on moronic progressive polemics about race" to notice a thing that is happening.

Though perhaps not quite as "black-pilled" as they are, my feelings mirror those of @FCfromSSC. What good is "Shared civilization, culture, blood" to me when weighed against having to share a space with people who actively wants me, my family, and everyone who shares my cultural beliefs dead? Is it really even a shared civilization or culture at that point?

Those are the questions that I am trying to get at when I ask whether someone of European descent who votes for a progressive is really "white"?

Simon Bolivar decided that to secure the independence of Venezuela, he would order the execution of any Spaniard or Canarian who was not actively helping the rebels, whereas any criollo, even a collaborator with the Spanish, would be spared from harm. He correctly thought that whether one was a peninsulare or a South American was more important to the conflict he was fighting than the specific issue of who had been on what side in the first part of the Venezuelan war of independence. These people were actually killing each other at scale too, not just talking tough online. I'm clearly not going to talk you out of hating left-wingers and that's not really even my intention, but that doesn't change the fact that they undeniably share a civilization, culture, and blood with you.

Do you not have a single liberal family member? I just don't see how people can see someone who looks, talks, and behaves like their annoying aunt at thanksgiving and decide they are equivalent to a foreigner in Dearborn who supports Al-Qaeda.

Whether someone is white or not is a biological fact. You're welcome to decide that some whites are your enemy but that doesn't make them somehow not white.

What you are describing above was Bolivar’s “War to the Death”. That was a policy of the failed second Venezuelan republic, which principally failed since they were unable to get the mixed race Venezuelans on their side and winded up getting overrun by murder cowboys. The mestizos and pardos figured criollo rule would be more intrusive that distant peninsular rule.

The third republic, the one that succeeded in securing independence from Spain, avoided earlier atrocities and intentionally tried to get all the inhabitants of Venezuela, including peninsulares, on their side. They intentionally flipped the support of pardos and mestizos and made racial equality a part of their platform.

Ultimately, the lesson of Venezuela, and you have similar stories in the rest of LATAM, is that your friends are those who act as your friends and your enemies are those who act as your enemies. Alliances shift even if immutable characteristics don’t.

I think the core issue with White Nationalism is that it doesn’t map on the lived experience friend/enemy distinction of most people. For a white red triber, the Latino who goes to his church and is his coworker is practically far more his brother than a white blue triber sneering at him. The same is true vice versa for the white blue triber and his East colleague. While immigrant groups differ, Somalis are not Mexicans, it seems one should determine friend/enemy based on the actions of the person, not the race.

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Serious question, do you believe that whether or not a person is "white" is something that I should care about more than whether or not they want me dead?

Since when do right-wingers base their own ideas on moronic progressive polemics about race?

A white person can, in fact, hate other white people because they are white, with this hatred being their method of insulating themselves from such hate. This is in fact a moronic progressive idea about race, often inculcated through polemic, but that observably does not stop many of them from committing fully to their ideology.

Recognizing that this is, in fact, how they think, and that their thinking this way does, in fact, have serious consequences in the real world is not "basing one's own ideas on moronic progressive polemics about race". Nor is handwaving the beliefs they observably coordinate large-scale political action around as some sort of cutesy, irrelevant affectation a wise approach for dealing with reality. It may be stupid, but they really mean it, and they will smash an unlimited number of valuables trying to make two and two make five.

I think there are black people (or brown people, or Muslim people) with whom I can meaningfully cooperate in some circumstances. I think there are white people with whom I cannot meaningfully cooperate in some, perhaps even most circumstances. Does this seem implausible to you? Do you genuinely believe that racial conflict is the only form of conflict that really exists?

I would rather live in a white, Western European, country with views diametrically opposed to my own than a non-white one that agrees with me on a bunch of stuff. So would virtually everyone reading this post! Are you going to tell me you would rather live in Uganda (85% Christian, healthy national pride) or Guatemala (87% Christian) than atheistic, leftist Denmark or Sweden?

Going back to what I actually posted, do you actually agree with Joe Biden that a black person who didn't vote for him isn't black? Or that a person who wears a shirt and tie and is on time all the time is white? Personally, I think race is biological and related to one's ancestry.

I would rather live in a white, Western European, country with views diametrically opposed to my own than a non-white one that agrees with me on a bunch of stuff.

It depends on the diametrically-opposed views on the one hand, and the non-white country on the other. I'm pretty sure I'd rather live in Singapore or South Korea or Japan or even Vietnam than in East Germany or post-revolution Russia. I'm pretty sure there are some South-American countries I'd take over the combloc in full flower. There might even be some places in Africa that make the cut.

In any case, what profits choosing the white, Western European country if one of their diametrically-opposed views is on the necessity of importing infinite non-whites as fast as possible and at any cost?

Going back to what I actually posted, do you actually agree with Joe Biden that a black person who didn't vote for him isn't black?

No, that's stupid.

Or that a person who wears a shirt and tie and is on time all the time is white?

No, that's also stupid.

Personally, I think race is biological and related to one's ancestry.

So do I. But again, so what? At no point have I denied that race or ancestry exist, only that they necessarily trump beliefs and values.

Now that I've offered simple, straightforward answers to your questions, maybe you could do the same to mine?

Do you actually think there are no black or Muslim people with whom you could meaningfully cooperate? Do you think there are no white people with whom you cannot meaningfully cooperate?

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Bro you are looking at a story of successful modern-day assimilation. This guy has assimilated as thoroughly into the Blue Tribe as any Rawhide Kobayashi.

I don't get a vote on this one, but he's on the record as wanting to abolish ICE.

This means effectively open borders and more demographic replacement.

You have a hope of changing the next generations political views as long as they come from the same ethnicity/religion, but not if they don't. I hate to say it, but I think the 'Israel comes to me in my dreams' fangirl is the least worst option.

Edit: Fixed image link and made clear religion is important as well as ethnicity.

Open borders and demographic replacement is a, if not the, mainstream Blue Tribe progressive position, though obviously they would not use those exact phrases.

It is not good to be swallowed alive. but if you are swallowed alive, it may still be possible to cut your way out. And failing that, it may be possible to choke the swallower to death on the way down.

It is said that the difference between Extremist and Moderate Muslims is that the extremist Muslim wants to kill you, while the moderate Muslim wants the Extremist to kill you. I observe that a similar distinction obtains for Blues. Not all Blues, certainly, but likewise not all Muslims, and the two are close-enough allies that accepting one is going to mean you get the other in any case.

It does not seem to me that Progressives consider themselves part of Western Civilization in any way I recognize. Given that their project has from its inception exhibited a radical hostility toward every part of Western Civilization they do not own and cannot seize, which has only grown more vicious over time, I do not understand why you think they are part of something they fervently declare their desire to destroy, nor why you should want them to be. I can understand that they emerged from western civilization; parasitic wasp larva emerge from caterpillars, but this does not mean they will develop into butterflies.

I am fine with living around Muslims, right up to the point where they start doing Muslim shit. I am likewise fine living among Democrats, right up to the point where they start doing Democrat shit. Past that point, I do not think living near either of them is a good idea. I reconciled myself long ago that Blue-controlled territory is not a place I am willing to live, nor even to visit if it can be reasonably avoided.

I have long noted that a fault-line within the right runs between those who would prefer to ally with blacks (or other non-white populations) against blues, and those who would prefer to ally with blues against blacks (and other non-white populations). Perhaps it might come down to an assessment of which alliance seems more plausible to you. An alliance with blacks seems quite unlikely to me, and getting less likely by the year, but it nonetheless seems profoundly more likely to me than any alliance with Blues. Many of the perceived grievances between Reds and Blacks are illusory, and much common ground exists even if it remains stubbornly unrecognized. But the grievances between Reds and Blues are very real and growing by the day, and the common ground appears to me to be non-existent; our values are far too incoherent and antagonistic for mutual coexistence.

I do not understand why you think they are part of something they fervently declare their desire to destroy, nor why you should want them to be. I can understand that they emerged from western civilization; parasitic wasp larva emerge from caterpillars, but this does not mean they will develop into butterflies.

This is a totally bizarre way to think. An Iraqi Arab doesn't cease to be a part of Islamic civilization if he becomes an atheist. A Chinese person doesn't stop being part of Chinese civilization if he spies for the US. It's no different for a white American or British or French progressive and Western civilization.

I am fine with living around Muslims, right up to the point where they start doing Muslim shit. I am likewise fine living among Democrats, right up to the point where they start doing Democrat shit.

Let's compare Muslim shit to Democrat shit. Muslims (more accurately, Arabs and Pakistanis) cause terrorist attacks, political chaos, bring crime, rape, Democrats vote for awful politicians and put cringey rainbow signs in their front yards (Muslims vote for the same politicians btw). These things are not equivalent.

I have long noted that a fault-line within the right runs between those who would prefer to ally with blacks (or other non-white populations) against blues, and those who would prefer to ally with blues against blacks (and other non-white populations). Perhaps it might come down to an assessment of which alliance seems more plausible to you. An alliance with blacks seems quite unlikely to me,

I genuinely do not feel very strongly about blacks and am a little confused why you brought them up. Moderately more aggressive law enforcement would be enough to solve most of the issues associated with that demographic. They are neither a growing demographic nor one that is displacing whites from the most important institutions in our society. Do I want to live in a black neighborhood? No, but no one is trying to make me and there is no chance that my neighborhood is going to become one. These things aren't true of immigrant demographics.

I'm also confused why you are talking about an alliance with either group. Neither of them are political allies and I didn't claim this. But I have genuine, long-standing ties of kinship and cultural commonality with "Blues" that I don't with some "refugee" from "Lebanon". This is true for you too, whether or not you want to admit it. Shared civilization, culture, blood, these things are a lot more important than whatever ephemeral culture war issue you are worked up about right now.

This is a totally bizarre way to think.

The same back at you. You say a white American or British or French progressive is still part of Western civilization. What does that mean? What predictions does this statement make?

Let's compare Muslim shit to Democrat shit.

Democrats will murder people like me, and will publicly cheer for the murder of people like me, and will discuss among themselves the fervent conviction that the murder of people like me is a good thing and they want more of it. Democrats also commit terror attacks. Democrats also bring political chaos, crime, and rape, and also enable those who do with a zeal such that the distinction becomes meaningless. Democrats will allow masked men to kick my teeth in or burn my house down, and they will ensure the police look the other way when this happens. Democrats will allow other masked men with guns to declare themselves my immediate rulers, and will likewise ensure the police look the other way when this happens. Democrats will deliberately foment nation-wide riots, protect the rioters, and harshly punish anyone who attempts to defend themselves. Democrats will preclude the possibility of broad social coordination toward net-positive cooperation, as they invariably infiltrate any institution so developed, destroy any pro-social function it achieved, and repurpose it as a war-engine for their ideology, or simply divert the money to the material support of their partisans.

And when I say Democrats will do these things, I mean that they have done these things and are, in many cases, still doing them at this moment. And if this were not bad enough, the only reason Muslims are a problem at all is because Blues have dedicated themselves, ceaselessly, to importing as many of them as possible, explicitly because they deeply prefer Muslims to people like me.

I genuinely do not feel very strongly about blacks and am a little confused why you brought them up.

Because they are a non-white demographic for which many of your criticisms likewise apply: long-term failure of integration, massive crime, social decay, etc, etc, and because I have seen many similar arguments about how red-blue differences are really not that important, and how it's really the blacks that are the problem, and I disagree with them for the same reasons I disagree with your argument here.

Moderately more aggressive law enforcement would be enough to solve most of the issues associated with that demographic.

Indeed. And how would this not likewise be true for Muslims? Cut off the massive, community-wide, trivially-detectable fraud explicitly enabled by Democrats, enforce the laws Democrats explicitly refuse to enforce, and why are they more of a problem than Blacks?

They are neither a growing demographic nor one that is displacing whites from the most important institutions in our society.

Affirmative action? Reparations? In fairness, the former would not have happened, and the latter will not happen, without the explicit support of Progressives, who continue to enthusiastically broadcasting that support in the clearest possible terms. It is true that Blacks are not, on the whole, displacing whites from the most important institutions; there simply aren't enough of them. But Blues have quite thoroughly displaced Reds from those institutions! The thing you identify as a potential concern has already happened, but you don't seem to notice it because both sides are "white". Which should I be more concerned about: the potential future institutional capture of hostile Muslims, or the actual, current, entirely cemented institutional capture of hostile Blues that has been steadily ratcheting up its hostility toward my tribe my entire life?

Do I want to live in a black neighborhood? No, but no one is trying to make me and there is no chance that my neighborhood is going to become one.

This has literally been done in the past! Multiple major cities were outright destroyed, All major cities were seriously blighted for decades and most have never actually recovered! The people who metastasized these harms learned nothing from the horrors they inflicted on the innocent, are constantly looking for new ways to inflict further such harms, and absolutely will try even the worst of the old methods again if given the opportunity.

But I have genuine, long-standing ties of kinship and cultural commonality with "Blues" that I don't with some "refugee" from "Lebanon".

I do not. How are those ties of kinship and "cultural commonality" supposed to help when Blues decide that my religion needs to be illegal, or that I shouldn't be allowed to have police protection, or that a mob should burn my church down, or that I should be charged with serious felonies for attempting to defend myself or even for owning the means with which to effect such a defense? How will they help when Blues flood my nation with hostile foreigners for the explicitly stated purpose of disenfranchising me and my progeny? How will they help when Blues steal my taxes and repurpose them to lock me out of political power, or, having accomplished this, to abuse me in every legible facet of my life?

I share no genuine, long-standing ties of kinship and cultural commonality with a "refugee" from "Lebanon", unless they are a Christian. But I likewise recognize no genuine, long-standing ties of kinship and cultural commonality with someone who literally grins at the thought of my children being murdered. What the fuck is "Shared civilization, culture, blood" supposed to actually mean in the face of that level of evident hostility? Rittenhouse was white; did that prevent Grosskruetz from attempting to murder him? I'd guess the prosecutor was white, so show me where the "shared civilization, culture and blood" kicked in when he tried to bury Rittenhouse under a jail. Where did it help Fields, or Keltner, or Gardner, or Finicum, or Danielson, or Perry, or Malinowski? I'd add Baca, but does he count in your book given that he's Hispanic? I'd bet money his attackers were white, should that increase my sympathy for them?

You are summarizing protracted, murderous tribal hatred as some "ephemeral culture war issue you are worked up about right now", but I am pointing to real cases with real consequences. It's true that Muslim immigrants perpetrated the rape gangs in England. Who brought them in? Who covered for them, out of fear of appearing "racist"? Who has been dedicated to importing more of them, and who has instituted naked two-tier policing to keep a lid on any possible backlash? White progressives did these things, and are still doing them. Please tell me exactly where and how the "shared civilization, culture and blood" entered the equation when those white progressives were turning a blind eye to rape and torture and slavery of white children, en masse. Be specific. Let's really dig into the details here, because goddamn would I not want to get distracted by "ephemeral culture war issues", that would be just awful.

How are those ties of kinship and "cultural commonality" supposed to help when Blues decide that my religion needs to be illegal, or that I shouldn't be allowed to have police protection, or that a mob should burn my church down, or that I should be charged with serious felonies for attempting to defend myself or even for owning the means with which to effect such a defense?

Do you have citations or examples for any of that?

Who, exactly, are these Blues who want to ban Christianity, or revoke police protections for... conservatives? Christians? white people? Something else?

@Corvos for good measure.

Do you have citations or examples for any of that?

Of course I do.

Who, exactly, are these Blues who want to ban Christianity

  • National-level Democratic candidates have campaigned on the idea of taxing churches whose teachings they disagree with.

  • Virginia Democrat to Introduce Bill to Prosecute Parents Who Refuse to Treat Child as Opposite Sex, plus the coverage of this law in Blue media. California passed a law making acceptance of GAC a factor in custody disputes. Lots of commentary from Blues generally supportive of this idea.

  • Masterpiece Cake Shop and related cases as a measure of legal tolerance for Christians generally in Blue territory. Conclusion: Blues will coordinate legal consequences for those who do not conform, and the courts are unwilling or unable to make them stop.

  • Observable trends in application of "hostile work environment" laws in corporate workplaces or the educational system. Where human interaction is most governed by rules, how do the rules actually work?

  • The FACE act, and the history of its enforcement.

  • SPLC framing of "Christian Radicals" as a terror nexus > FBI/Law Enforcement scrutiny of communities so labeled > debanking, crackdowns in the corporate/financial sector, with none of this recognized as a problem in any way by Blues.

  • the Kamloops "graves", the subsequent church burnings, and the reaction to those burnings by officials, the media, and Blue Tribe generally.

  • COVID lockdowns and how they were applied to churches and to freedom to worship generally, versus Progressive-approved mass gatherings.

  • More generally, the observable trajectory of first amendment activism, and Progressive attitudes toward dissent generally, and Progressive attitudes toward what I would recognize as actual Christianity. They hate us, and if you think laws or rules will restrain that hate long-term, you are lying to yourself.

  • More specifically, Christians worshipping in public in Seattle have been repeatedly attacked by antifa, the police have repeatedly declined to intervene, local officials have blamed the Christians for causing the problem through being Christians in public. Local sentiment appears to hold that this is fine, that the Christians should have known better than to intrude. Progressive sentiment nationally doesn't appear to see this as a problem that needs addressing.

revoke police protections

Rioting is a well-established Blue Tribe political tactic, codified under the maxim "No Justice, no peace", and has been for decades. Blue officials will withdraw police protection by ordering officers to stand down and let the rioters act as they please. One of the most egregious examples of this was CHAZ, where police stood back and allowed rifle-wielding gunmen to seize control of a neighborhood, threatening and shooting at the locals without interference, for a month straight, only changed their policy when the gunmen actually murdered someone, and explicitly allowed the gunmen to walk away from the murder they committed with zero effort made to apprehend them. Progressives nationwide watched this behavior, and either shrugged uncomfortably or actively defended it.

Christians? white people? Something else?

Reds seems like a reasonable catch-all, but Christians specifically is an obvious point of friction.

To be fair, the Canadian church burnings in fury at the discovery of blatantly fake 'mass graves' was pretty bad, as was the conspicuous disinterest of the government. Drawing a line from that kind of attitude to something worse requires being a pessimist but not a maniac. And I don't think people are worried about 'literally banning Christianity' as much as 'making it impossible to state an increasingly large subset of Christian views' and just letting the religion die.

You say a white American or British or French progressive is still part of Western civilization. What does that mean? What predictions does this statement make?

That they are white people from those countries, descended from other white people also from those countries, who speak white people languages, and are members of European-descent cultures.

Democrats will murder people like me

How many people have "Democrats" murdered in deliberate political violence since 2000 and how many people have Muslims murdered as deliberate political violence since 2000? Now consider the size of the denominator in each. Muslims are far worse.

This has literally been done in the past!

Your neighborhood has far higher chance of being taken over by immigrants. Blacks are a declining demographic, there are billions of potential immigrants.

I share no genuine, long-standing ties of kinship and cultural commonality with a "refugee" from "Lebanon", unless they are a Christian.

You don't share any ties with Lebanese Christians either. In Australia, the reason they have a problem with Lebanese Muslims was from the ZOMG BASED Lebanese Christians lobbying to let them in, not from white progressives. Bilal Skaf living in Australia is the fault of Maronites and Orthodox Christian Arabs, not of Australia's "Blues."

The fact is, "Blues" and blacks generally have long-standing ties to our country and thus belong here, and immigrants don't. I don't know what the hell you're talking about when you say liberals want to murder you. I spend a lot of time in a deep blue city and honestly I often say stuff like what I do here and people are generally pretty nice to me. Yes, the political situation in the country is terrible. I wouldn't deny that. It would also be a lot better if there were no immigrants here given that it would disempower the political faction you hate so much. It kind of sounds like you're trying to make up a fake ethnicity of white people to hate so you can blame them without looking in the mirror at your own "tribe" or being "racist".

You edited your post so I will respond a little further:

The English people who enabled the rape gangs are just that: English people. The Pakistanis in the rape gangs are not. It's as simple as that. English people belong in England (or in their colonies), Pakistani rapists don't. And sorry but your kvetching about guns or Rittenhouse is exactly the kind of thing I am calling an ephemeral culture war issue. You and all of the other gun owners in America haven't done shit to stop immigration or advance literally any other right-wing cause besides gun ownership itself. That's fine, I like guns, but come on.

And yet, fundamentally… it’s not true that conservatives as a group are working for the same goals as I am but simply have different ideas of how to pursue it. It’s not true that conservatives simply think that lowering taxes will stimulate the economy or that economic growth works better than foreign aid to help the global poor or that, as regrettable as it is for gay couples who long for children, children will be severely traumatized unless they are raised by heterosexuals. I would certainly prefer it to be that way. I want to have respect for all belief systems; I want to believe we’re all working for the same goals but simply disagree on certain facts.

But my read of the psychological evidence is that, from my value system, about half the country is evil and it is in my self-interest to shame the expression of their values, indoctrinate their children, and work for a future where their values are no longer represented on this Earth.

Since reading the above piece several years ago, I have seen more than sufficient evidence to conclude that this description is roughly representative of the mindset of Blue Tribe in general. I have spent much of the last ten years arguing in detail specific examples of how this is a really serious problem that impinges on every facet of modern life, from education to taxation to lawmaking to law enforcement to the academy, national demographics, immigration, warfighting, industrial policy, economic policy, entertainment and putting rockets on Mars. And you are telling me that none of this matters, because the people doing it speak the same language as me, and heard the same bedtime stories as me, and share my ethnicity. Can I not see that we are as brothers?

You may recall that Cain and Abel were brothers.

That they are white people from those countries, descended from other white people also from those countries, who speak white people languages, and are members of European-descent cultures.

I agree that they are white people from those countries, descended from other white people also from those countries, who speak white languages and are members of European-descent cultures. So what? To the extent that they are ideologically committed to my destruction or immiseration, they are my enemies. In what specific ways does their genetics or their family history or the language they speak or the culture they grew up in make them less my enemies?

Note that I am not arguing that demographic security is an unreasonable goal, for either Americans or for Europeans. I am not even arguing that it is negotiable. I think that if a hostile political class mass-imports voters in a bid to permanently win the political game for their side, the proper response is to coordinate meanness against them until you are confident that they will never, every be able to do that again, while at the same time informing all the imports that they will immediately return to their points of origin or their blood shall be on their own head.

What I am confused by is your belief that the very people deliberately mass-importing foreigners for the explicit purpose of more efficiently stamping on your face are somehow less of a problem than the foreigners they are importing. If a bullet flies two inches past your head, is the problem the bullet, or the fact that someone is shooting at you? If someone is shooting at you, is it less of a problem if they speak the same language as you?

How many people have "Democrats" murdered in deliberate political violence since 2000 and how many people have Muslims murdered as deliberate political violence since 2000? Now consider the size of the denominator in each. Muslims are far worse.

How many deaths in America are directly attributable to Democratic policies? The floor of that number is at least four digits higher than all the murders and all the violent deaths attributable to Muslims or Muslim policies in America. Can Muslims selectively nullify rule of law? Blues can, and have, repeatedly and with vigor. Can Muslims plausibly threaten political closure? Blues can and have through multiple avenues, and continue to do so. You may well be correct that Blue rule would be better than Muslim rule, though I absolutely would not concede such an argument given the history of Blue Rule over the last century. But it hardly matters, because Blues aim to rule now, and have a plausible path to securing that rule now, and Muslims are, at worst, a small and relatively ineffectual part of that plan. Blues do more harm, by far. Blues threaten more harm, and more plausibly, by far. And at no point have I ever seen the supposed racial or cultural or biological solidarity you repeatedly appeal to improve this situation in even the smallest or most insignificant way.

Your neighborhood has far higher chance of being taken over by immigrants.

How do they get here? Who is importing them? Who is dedicated to preventing all attempts to remove them?

Blacks are a declining demographic, there are billions of potential immigrants.

How would they get here? Who is demanding we let them in? Who has bent every organ of the state to facilitate their arrival? Who has undermined the actual laws we put in place to keep them out?

You don't share any ties with Lebanese Christians either.

If they are Christians in any meaningful sense, then I share more of significance with them than I do with the average white European Progressive. I can meaningfully appeal to the principles and values of Christianity to someone who is likewise a Christian. On the other hand, to the degree that they do not in fact share a reverence for the principles and values of Christianity as I understand them, then I have only mistook them for a Christian, and am open to being corrected.

If there is a way to meaningfully appeal to the average progressive, I have not found it in a decade of looking.

In Australia, the reason they have a problem with Lebanese Muslims was from the ZOMG BASED Lebanese Christians lobbying to let them in, not from white progressives. Bilal Skaf living in Australia is the fault of Maronites and Orthodox Christian Arabs, not of Australia's "Blues."

Let us be speak clearly here. Is your claim that the majority of non-European immigration Australia has experienced has been driven by ZOMG BASED Lebanese Christians, and not white progressives? What percentage of non-European immigration to Australia do these Lebanese Muslims represent, presuming that your account is accurate? Because you seem to be arguing that Christian solidarity would result in worse results than white "solidarity" with progressives... but if, as I strongly suspect, Progressives have in fact been directly responsible for the overwhelming majority of non-European immigration to Australia, that would make your argument pretty damn stupid, wouldn't it?

You mention Bilal Skaf, who I had previously not heard of. Why is he still alive? My understanding of Western values holds that he should be dead. Why is he not? Who made it happen that he is not?

The fact is, "Blues" and blacks generally have long-standing ties to our country and thus belong here, and immigrants don't.

This sentence has no meaning to me. "Belong here", specifically, is an empty phrase. I share no loyalty to Blues. I share no common allegiance with them. I share no binding history. I share no values, no traditions, no ties of brotherhood, no common sympathies, no aims or goals, no interests. There is, at best, a sort of inertia generated by trillions of dollars spinning in a circle that seems to be perceptibly slowing, and a series of scams that the slowest among us have not yet caught on to. It is difficult to say that there is even a "here" where one might meaningfully belong.

I don't know what the hell you're talking about when you say liberals want to murder you.

I gave you four specific examples of blues explicitly saying that they think people like me being murdered is a positive good, or in one case instinctively and enthusiastically celebrating a murder committed in front of them. There are many, many more where those came from, but we could also dig in to the colder policy side, where statistically-foreseeable, endemic murder is routinely treated as an acceptable cost for the pursuit of blue ideological goals. It seems to me that if you don't see this, it's because you don't want to see it.

I spend a lot of time in a deep blue city and honestly I often say stuff like what I do here and people are generally pretty nice to me.

The blues I am around are pretty nice to me too, given that I am very careful to never, ever let them know what I actually think or value. I have heard personal friends and family speak favorably of blues murdering reds more than once. I've heard casual expressions of hostility toward reds too many times to count. But I'm not restricted to anecdotes; again, I can point to lots and lots of examples of Blues wielding both lawless and official political violence as a tribal weapon, and both securing their goals and suffering little to no consequences as a result.

Yes, the political situation in the country is terrible. I wouldn't deny that. It would also be a lot better if there were no immigrants here given that it would disempower the political faction you hate so much.

The fact that it empowers the faction I hate so much is exactly why that faction is so hell-bent on importing as many immigrants as possible. They hate me, and likely you as well, and they see mass immigration of politically-aligned third-worlders as a way to make an end-run around democracy. The fact that they believe this should make them your enemy. If you cannot grasp the idea that people dedicated to inflicting unlimited harm against you are not people you can cooperate with, I'm really not sure what to tell you. I would have thought that ethnocentrism and quokkadom were mutually exclusive, but perhaps the perversity of Man is truly without limit.

It kind of sounds like you're trying to make up a fake ethnicity of white people to hate so you can blame them without looking in the mirror at your own "tribe" or being "racist".

Blue Tribe is pretty clearly not a "fake ethnicity". You can go to any media organization, any academic institution, any school, any court, or indeed Bluesky or Reddit and see them, live in the wild. They are a highly cohesive socio-political culture, distinct in a variety of ways, and not even slightly shy about expressing their beliefs to the world at large.

I do not think Racism, the real, actual thing, is correct nor particularly useful. I also do not think there remains any meaningful social benefit to policing it, given the givens. Where I oppose it, I do so on the grounds that it is stupid and counterproductive in some immediate, obvious sense. Here, I oppose it because it seems obvious to me that your appeals to racial solidarity are going to make your opposition to mass immigration less effective, not more. Progressives want mass immigration because they think it is a path to durable political closure against people like me. I believe they are mistaken to believe this; we can, should and will coordinate meanness on a variety of avenues sufficient to bypass whatever closure they achieve. But the fact remains that they will never stop pushing mass immigration so long as they see it in their interest, and they will always see it in their interest so long as their ideology makes them implacably hostile to the traditions and values of the West. If you do not want unlimited mass immigration, Blues, not immigrants, are your primary problem. With the Blues out of the way, you can simply deport the immigrants. With the Blues in the way, neither deportation nor indeed any form of large-scale net-positive cooperation is possible.

The English people who enabled the rape gangs are just that: English people.

Yes. And they imported the rapists, and protected them. Why is that not at least as much of a problem as the rapes themselves?

And sorry but your kvetching about guns or Rittenhouse is exactly the kind of thing I am calling an ephemeral culture war issue. You and all of the other gun owners in America haven't done shit to stop immigration or advance literally any other right-wing cause besides gun ownership itself. That's fine, I like guns, but come on.

You sneer at Rittenhouse, but there is a strong argument that his actions were the single largest contributing factor to the end of the largest campaign of lawless political violence America had seen in generations. By standing and fighting, and doing so well, he forced the system that had heretofore oscillated between tolerating and encouraging the riots to finally begin shutting them down, for fear of things getting out of hand in a way they couldn't afford.

In any case, as I've mentioned many times in previous conversations, the guns are not actually the point. The point is the political coordination that the guns enable and multiply. And the fact is that the political situation is better for me in America than it is anywhere else in the Anglosphere or Europe, or indeed anywhere else in the world, and that political coordination is why. We are doing better at rolling back mass immigration than anywhere else in the world. We are less inhibited in our speech than anywhere else in the world. Red tribe has better access to meaningful political power in the US than anywhere else in the world. I think it is obvious that our political successes have dragged much of the rest of the world away from coalescing Progressive closure. And if we are indeed swallowed, I think we are capable of cutting our way out of the beast's guts.

I will fully concede that we have done a very bad job for a very long time. I note that one commonality of all our historic failures was that, over and over again, we cooperated with Blues and operated off the assumption that such cooperation would be reciprocated. That assumption is dying a death, and the cooperation with it, and we are now doing much, much better than we were following the policies that you seem to be arguing for.

What accomplishments do you claim, by contrast? What successful opposition to immigration can you point to?

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That they are white people from those countries, descended from other white people also from those countries, who speak white people languages, and are members of European-descent cultures.

That's not a prediction, that's a backward-looking reiteration of the original statement. What follows from this? For example, are they likely to have loyalty to European-descent people and affinity towards European culture, or are they more likely to side with the foreigners, and deconstruct and denigrate the culture? Or is there something tangible I'm not seeing that would indicate that they're invested in the well being of European people and culture?

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I do not understand why you think they are part of something they fervently declare their desire to destroy, nor why you should want them to be.

It’s really very simple: they’re white. They are genetically part of Western civilisation.

A white communist can be reasoned (or compelled) out of being a communist, but no amount of right wing political victories will make the Arab your kin.

A white communist can be reasoned (or compelled) out of being a communist

What evidence leads you to this conclusion? When the communists massacred the flower of Poland in the Katyn forest, did the fact that the killers were white offer some form of consolation? Did a hundred years of horrifying Communist disasters inoculate Progressive ideology against Communism in some magical way that cannot be seen or measured but should nonetheless be relied upon?

Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that there is more than one way to be a really bad neighbor?

It's perfectly plausible a non-communist Russian state would have massacred a bunch of Poles too, in fact we have a very clear example of a non-communist state contemporary to Katyn massacring a bunch of Poles and a bunch of historical examples of non-communist Russians killing Poles. In any case, I don't see how this is a counterargument to the idea that original poster's assertion that you can compel someone to stop being communist but you can't compel someone to become a different ethnicity.

I am pretty sure the Janissaries are an example of people being compelled to become a different ethnicity; it seems like a strong argument against your whole line of reasoning here, in fact. Nonetheless, I will readily agree that it is, at a bare minimum, extremely hard to compel someone to be a different ethnicity; what I am asking for is evidence that you can compel people to stop being communists, because I cannot in fact think of any examples where this has successfully been done, and it is something I would very much like to know how to do. You are saying that it obviously can be done. I am asking for proof.

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Communists are and he's aligned with the recent push for the DSA to pull a tea party into MAGA transformation of the Democratic party. Plenty of gripes are fair with the democratic party, but the DSA is much much worse.

I think MAGA or something like it was where the Republican party was always going to end up. I likewise think that Communism or something like it was always where the Democrats were going to end up. I would prefer we get the masks off and the cards on the table sooner rather than later; We, collectively, are in a better position to handle the present problem now than we will be in another five years of decline, and we will be in a better position in five years than we will be in ten. I'm not certain that sooner is better; maybe delaying might produce some unexpected, out-of-context perturbation that dramatically shifts the trajectory in a positive direction. But based on the available information, confrontation seems inevitable, and the sooner the better.

I don't know where you doomer types get this sense of unceasing decline from. In the last few years we've cured obesity, gained the ability to catch rockets that went to space, taught computers to speak, built cars that drive themselves and shrunk batteries enough that everything we have can be wireless.

To the degree that we're declining it's almost entirely due to these populist currents causing awful short sighted political decisions. No, it's actually not good that we're going to have brain dead communist populists fighting brain dead right wing populists over who can hold back progress more effectively in 2028. In would in fact be much better for everyone if the communists were kept marginalized.

To the degree that we're declining it's almost entirely due to these populist currents causing awful short sighted political decisions.

A lot of people think the 1990s were pretty good years, and they're my personal bet for America's high-water mark. Would you care to make a list of the worst political decisions made since 1990, and see how many of them were populist vs elite, or however you'd frame the dichotomy?

No, it's actually not good that we're going to have brain dead communist populists fighting brain dead right wing populists over who can hold back progress more effectively in 2028.

This is where the sense of unceasing decline comes from.

In would in fact be much better for everyone if the communists were kept marginalized.

When were they marginalized in the first place?

A lot of people think the 1990s were pretty good years, and they're my personal bet for America's high-water mark.

Family of mine died of disease we now have cures for in the 90s. Populism was less in some ways back then, but I'd much rather live in 2026 than in 1996.

Would you care to make a list of the worst political decisions made since 1990, and see how many of them were populist vs elite, or however you'd frame the dichotomy?

It's hard to really do this without it turning into some point by point relitigation of individual things that read as tit for tat partisan nonsense. I'll put forward many of the politics around BLM and the Trump Tariff fiasco as the kinds of fruits I see populism yielding. I'm not very interested in going point for point on which side was worse or who's tit justified which tat.

When were they marginalized in the first place?

I know republicans have accused democrats of being communists forever but they really aren't. They have trouble saying no to their leftist flank for sure, and I've always criticized them for that as a major failure, but there are actual major differences between the DSA crowd and the mainstream democrat crowd. Obama did not make space for people who praise Mao. If the Democrats never marginalized the DSA then how do you understand the current conflict in the democratic party? Why is the DSA primarying long standing members if they were there all along?

Ultimately politics just can't deliver what so many want from it. It's not the source of prosperity, it's not the fount of culture. It does matter and is necessary to settle coordination problems and keep things moving along. But there's this terrible cycle where politicians promise that the government will deliver what is not in its power to deliver, then they fail and populists think the reason for this failure is because the politicians are insufficiently diligent or forceful. The force vector making things worse from politics is founded in your sentiment upstream, that things might as well get worse, we might as well have an actual communist party so that all the masks come off and we can have this end of history battle between the two failed 19th century ideologies. It's a derangement. I'm of the bold opinion that the Democratic party getting worse is in fact bad, that it has been bad that the Republican party has gotten worse under Trumpism.

This deserves a more in-depth response, but I really need to get to work, allow me to whack only the tallest poppy:

Obama did not make space for people who praise Mao.

Prairie Fire was a 188-page political manifesto published by the Weather Underground in 1974. It was written primarily by Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and Celia Sojourn and articulated the radical splinter group's ideology, endorsed revolutionary violence, and, according to Jonah Raskin, "embodied a muffled desperation that underlay the bravado about Third World liberation." The name for the manifesto was derived from the writings of Chinese Communist revolutionary, Mao Zedong. In his “Little Red Book,” he wrote, “a single spark can set a prairie fire" as an analogy for revolution. The ideas in the book drew not only on Maoist philosphy, but also Marxist/Leninism. The manifesto encourages a mix of mass-organizing and clandestine revolutionary violence. "Never disassociate mass struggle from revolutionary violence," the author's argued. "To leave people unprepared to fight the state," they said, "is to seriously mislead them about the inevitable nature of what lies ahead." "Prairie Fire" was distributed in radical bookstores, food coops, headshops, on college campuses and many other places that movement activists met. It was met with a combination of strong emotions throughout the Left. Ultimately, the ideological arguments articulated in "Prairie Fire" led to a new split in the Weather Underground, with some gravitating toward the "Prairie Fire Collective," which favored mass-based, above-ground revolutionary politics, and the "May 19th Communist Organization," which remained underground and pulled off the infamous Brinks robbery in 1981.

Do you recognize a conflict between these two statements?

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It's hard to really do this without it turning into some point by point relitigation of individual things that read as tit for tat partisan nonsense.

Is this really true? The #1 worst political decision [ETA: made since 1990] was probably

  • Ignoring 9/11 warning signs

Is that really a partisan nonsense thing? Can't everyone agree that in hindsight it was a mistake for the Bush administration to decide they had more important things to do than listen to the steady drumbeat of warnings about al-Qaeda?

I am rating this as #1 because the cost-to-benefit ratio of rolling up the hijackers before 9/11 is insanely good. There are obvious downsides to counterfactuals on any of the below but putting a tail on Atta or rolling up al-Mihdhar for his alleged role in the Cole bombing or anything like that potentially dodges 9/11 and all of the mess since entirely, basically for free, and potentially mitigates some of the bad effects of the below as well.

Other candidates:

  • Changing banking regulations, leading to the subprime mortgage crisis. This was bipartisan!

  • NATO expansion. This was bipartisan!

  • Offshoring (and related China policy). This was bipartisan!

  • Perhaps COVID policy. This was arguably bipartisan, but I will concede that it is very much a partisan nonsense attracter.

Generally speaking it seems to me that the populists either did not care about these issues or were directionally correct (Chinese manufacturing has been a populist bugbear for decades.) There might have been some populist pressure in the wrong way on the subprime mortgage crisis - which I know little about; I seem to recall some accusations that government policy actually pressured banks to give out bad loans, which I don't think is what right-wing populists have in mind when they support "deregulation."

Either way, it seems to me like a lot of the worst decisions were endorsed by bipartisan elites, and I think the case for that is much stronger than the case for the populists getting everything right.

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Progressive white women aren't liked. The only thing they usually have going for them in these situations is their devotion to toeing the progressive line and aspirations to destroy Western culture. They are recognizable as a problem.

The real problem with people like Abdul El-Sayed, and even Mamdani, is that they aren't stupid, they're personable, they're clean cut, and they're allowed to have a degree of authenticity about their demographic that non-Jewish whites simply are not. Progressives are obviously supporters of people like this because they check all the boxes progressives want checked. The major concern though, in my opinion, is that this archetype also captures the moderate liberal base. Candidates like El-Sayed concern me because it feels like they will check enough boxes for the moderates from a vibes standpoint. Their policy disagreements with him will be treated as minor quibbles. What he represents is far more impactful and disruptive than a hateable progressive white woman candidate.

Thats a roundabout way of saying progressive white women are Karens, but there’s basically two roles progressivism allows for women- bimbos and Karens. For whatever reason progressive women of colour are more likely to pick the former and progressive white women almost always pick the latter. Thé attempts at divorced aunt role progressive women(eg Marianne williamson) have crashed and burned, that’s a conservative woman role now(eg Lauren Boebert).

Karens to me are women who try to enforce a consensus, rule, or law in a very stereotypical, annoying and counterproductive way.

Progressive white women don't quite fit that mold for me, but they do fit some of these.

Progressive white women are trying very hard to enforce a consensus in a very stereotypical and annoying way, however.

Progressive white women are trying to impose and enforce a new consensus, whereas I see Karens as enforcing an old or legacy consensus. That's the primary distinction I should've made clear in my last comment.

I’m guessing most Karens are Boomer or GenX affluent/suburban white women who got used to a relatively high-trust, homogeneous, ordered and prosperous society in their youth. In a low-trust, heterogeneous, increasingly disordered, stagnant and dysfunctional society, they often angrily lash out at their environment in their frustration by acting like Karens.

Yes, that's closer to how I see it.

The distinction is erased once you consider that establishment means old/legacy more or less by definition.

(This also describes how the progressive -> conservative pipeline functions, though they don't call themselves that for reasons that have a lot to do with the 1960s 'establishment should never call itself establishment' paradigm than anything else.)

Speaking as someone in the environment I'm pretty sure the term "Karens" came from (retail), they tend to think they're enforcing an old or legacy consensus, but that consensus is essentially hallucinatory; the social fabric is in tatters and they all have fragmented personal ideas of how things are supposed to be.

Yep. Karens seem to make up the consensus as they go along, and fully believe that their headcanon is the Right and Proper way of doing things.

This was a three-person race not too long ago. Mallory McMorrow was the best candidate on paper. Every neoliberal Twitter poaster loved her, but her campaign was done in by a series of forced and unforced errors, most revealing of which was the discovery that she doesn’t actually like Michigan, preferring New York or California (shocker).

I’m not convinced that Stevens would do better in November than El Sayed. A lot of people in Dearborn simply would not vote for such an openly pro-Israel candidate.

the discovery that she doesn’t actually like Michigan

I clicked through out of boredom and saw that one of her tweets was her dream that "the US amicably broke off into The Ring (coasts+Can+Mex+parts Mich/Tex) and Middle America". The coasts, Canada, and Mexico? That's so silly it's almost beautiful, I want to see the fantasy map.

The biggest issue is the more Muslims are put in a position of power the more they bring in more Muslims. I think Islam is antithetical to the west. But effectively, both candidates support bringing in more Muslims.

I would guess likely both candidates agree on nearly every issue except Israel

El-Sayed won. This is good news for the Republican Party, and the primary reason I supported him.

What I make of it is that dem infighting is a very real albatross around their neck. Abdul El-Sayed is not the right candidate to nominate in a swing state.

This is good news for the Republican Party, and the primary reason I supported him.

Ah, yes, the "Pied Piper strategy". Still popular on the other side of the aisle too, arguably with some success, but I'd personally still try to steer clear of a strategy that's got an obvious and already-demonstrated failure mode for its users: sometimes even when you're sure the median voter will hate a guy as much as you do he simply wins anyway.

I was having similar thoughts last night when evaluating this race. Let's just say that I could've written your post verbatim.

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