site banner
PaperclipPerfector  9hr ago (text post)   1021 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 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.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The latest round of German state election results are in, with great gains for the left-wing parties and the AfD, and a crisis of confidence for the center-right CDU, which had its worst election results in modern German history.

After the AfD’s historic win in Saxony-Anhalt two weeks ago, all eyes turned to the state elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin, which were held yesterday. In Berlin, the CDU dropped from the largest to second-largest party, which will push it out of government. This result was not unexpected: the Left, Greens, and SPD had won enough seats to form a left-wing coalition government in the 2021 Berlin election, and the CDU only snuck into power after those results were overturned due to election irregularities. The Left, led by Turkish dual-citizen Elif Eralp, saw the greatest gains, at 26% of the vote, while the AfD also did quite respectably, at 16%. The CDU, Greens, and SPD all lost seats, but the Left, Greens, and SPD will be able to easily form a coalition government.

(Incidentally, for anyone who was hoping that the AfD would do better in Berlin, the city’s demographics makes that almost impossible. “As of December 2025, about 42.3% registered residents of Berlin had a migration background, compared with 29.9% in 2015. Out of that, 976,419 residents (24.9%) were foreign nationals and 678,774 (17.3%) were German citizens with a migration background.” (Wikipedia) Even if the AfD were to somehow convince every single ethnic German in the city to oust the Ausländer, ethnic Germans will soon be a minority in their own capital city.)

Yesterday’s real electoral drama wasn’t in Berlin, however, but in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where the CDU failed to overcome the five percent hurdle and so won zero seats in parliament. This is the first time that the CDU/CSU has failed to receive any seats in a state or federal election. The AfD, on the other hand, surpassed all recent polls, gaining 38% of the vote and 32/71 seats. Of course, this will still result in a left-wing government, as all of the remaining seats were won by the Left, Greens, and SPD.

One thing I can’t quite understand is where all of the CDU voters went. Looking at opinion polls in the run-up to the election, the AfD was at a stable ~35% of the vote for the past year, while the CDU dropped from 13% to ultimately less than 5%. Did the center-right CDU voters mostly switch to the center-left SPD? This is what seems to have happened, but I have no real insight as to why, except that no one seems to like the CDU these days. If any of our resident Germans can chime in, I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts.

I, too, would be interested in a local perspective. Coverage of the CDU says they came out of 2025 federal elections alright. Now they’re falling out of individual states?

Maybe their economic stance is that unpopular. There’s some sort of landlord crisis in Berlin proper, so residents have started going full socialist.

But what’s up with M-V? It’s the least dense state in Germany. Is this an urban/rural split? Are there even any immigrants over that far?

Even if the AfD were to somehow convince every single ethnic German in the city to oust the Ausländer, ethnic Germans will soon be a minority in their own capital city.

I think this is pretty silly. AfD has decidedly not convinced everyone that it’s the last hope of the German race, so the 25/42/50% equivocation is beside the point. As discussed downthread, it’s also not obvious how many of those 25% actually get a vote.

Foreign Nationals are allowed to vote? Something feels quite wrong to lose the ability to control the destiny of your people in such a short time period.

It’s amazing how far many of us have gone since only 20 years ago and believing we could Democratize the world to now I would not consider myself a believer of Democracy in Germany because of the simply fact that ethnic Germans in half a generation lost the ability to control their own politics.

That’s nice, but they didn’t lose that ability.

Ethnic Germans still have majorities (almost?) everywhere. They are choosing not to vote as a bloc. I think this is a good thing; coalition governments are more accountable than one-party states. Note that naturalized citizens apparently aren’t voting as a bloc either. They’re just much less likely to go AfD.

We will disagree on it being “a good thing”. But what is significant is it’s not a mean reverting situation with this level of migration. Ethnic German vote share could surge to 80% AFD in a decade or two but the non-German population would vote anything but AFD and block any reform. As the share of ethnic German vote shares shrinks it becomes harder to correct policy. There is not corrective measure outside of basically a military dictatorship.

Sir, the goalposts are back there.

quite wrong to lose the ability to control the destiny of your people

They have not lost it. They are choosing—of their own free will!—policies which might give it up. Why do you think that is?

More importantly, why do you think they need to “correct” it? If you’re trying to give them “control of their destiny,” maybe a military dictatorship is a complete nonstarter.

I’m lost to your point.

Obviously it is harder to have anti-immigration policies in a Democracy when you have a large foreign ethnic block. They will vote against you.

I do agree it’s largely an own goal at this point. But policy errors do happen and my point is when you change who votes it now becomes harder to correct a policy mistake.

Naturalized citizens and their citizen descendants can vote, including those who still hold citizenship in their home countries. As those numbers increase, the AfD will have a harder and harder time gaining traction. Not that it really matters in Berlin. The city is so left-wing, they passed a non-binding referendum five years ago to seize thousands of apartment buildings from their corporate owners, compensate them at less than market rates, and then convert the buildings to social housing projects. Now that the CDU is out, there’s a good chance the new government will try to pass a binding referendum to the same effect.

Foreign Nationals are allowed to vote?

No they aren't? Although Germany's state-funded propaganda outlet wrote an article last year about how hopelessly unfair it is that almost 60% of immigrants are not allowed to vote (because they aren't citizens of Germany), even they conclude that that's unlikely to change any time soon.

One exception is that EU citizens who live in Berlin can vote in city council elections, per https://voteberlin.eu/en/who-is-eligible-to-vote-in-the-bvv-elections/

Berlin is a city-state, so "Berlin city council" has the powers of a state government - this is a case where EU law (which allows EU citizens to vote in "municipal" elections wherever in the EU they live even if they are not a citizen of the relevant country) gives non-German EU citizens more power than the EU intended.

I don't actually know much about the German government, so "city council" might have been the wrong term. On the website I linked it's called a "BVV", which Wikipedia describes as an "assembly of borough representatives". Each BVV administers one of the twelve districts in Berlin, and it seems to be a separate thing from the Berlin House of Representatives that acts as the state government.

It’s amazing how far many of us have gone since only 20 years ago and believing we could Democratize the world to now I would not consider myself a believer of Democracy in Germany because of the simply fact that ethnic Germans in half a generation lost the ability to control their own politics.

My thoughts as well. Sweden is also in this situation and several others are rushing headlong into it.

I've been trying for a while to think of any mistakes nations have made of the same magnitude, throughout history. Vortigern hiring the Saxons might be an instructive one.

It's so weird to me, though fitting in retrospect, that sanctimonious grundyism is what's finally killing Europe. Old ladies tutting reproachfully at anyone who makes non-socially-approved arguments turns out to be an existential threat. Or perhaps it's just that the men have forgotten God and their own right place in the world.

I can think of a couple from Germany.

Old ladies tutting reproachfully at anyone who makes non-socially-approved arguments turns out to be an existential threat.

I am also often stunned by the power of consensus in a variety of fields but don't they also just arrest you for wrongspeech over there? It's not like it's a fair playing field.

I've been trying for a while to think of any mistakes nations have made of the same magnitude, throughout history.

The Soviets walking out of the UN and this allowing the West to fight the Korean War.

All time great.

Did the center-right CDU voters mostly switch to the center-left SPD?

Isn't the more likely possibility that they abstained?

I’m sure many did abstain, but I didn’t think the polls included an abstention option. If that’s accurate, the CDU voters should have shown up in the polls somewhere.

Don't they normally include "likely voters"? If someone says "I'm not going to vote" don't they just get excluded?

Good point.

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