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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   19772 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026

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I'd like to contrast two opinions that were posted here a while back to hopefully make a larger point.

Below there are arguments from @Southkraut posted in this chain of discussion:

By the right wing in a political spectrum that has shifted so far left that even the most tepid immigration control measures are considered the extreme of permissible politics. I'm sorry, but no, this movement to the right in no way proves that the left is not in firm control. Their electoral setbacks are, in the greater scheme of things, temporary and minor, while their social and demographic victories are permanent and far-reaching. Yes they overreached, did too much too quickly and alienated voters that way, but the left needing to spend some time without control of this or that executive or legislative and seeing a small fraction of their accomplishments rolled back is not proof of the lasting ascendancy of the right.

Even if this should be the full awakening of the natives to their intentional replacement and the imminent grab for power of the right over all the governments of Europe and even the end of all immigration, the demographic damage is done. The left can afford to let go of the reins of states for a while, or maybe even altogether. It won't change the fate of the continent at this point.

Yes we currently have an upswing of right-wing sentiment as the leftist strangelhold on public discourse slackens, but that's because the leftists, in their time of triumph, overreached somewhat while already on the finishing line. But it's only a stumble; they can and most likely will recover, and if the footrace metaphor holds, then this stumble makes no difference because the right is crawling along far behind with its legs hacked off and bleeding out.

The left has already won. The takeover happened, and it held, and still holds. All public institutions all over Europe are firmly in the hands of leftist partisans. All the predominant narratives that public discourse rests on are shaped by leftist framing. And above all, greatest accomplishment and final victory of the left, demographics are a done deal. The natives are on an inescapable track towards becoming minorities in their own countries, and foreigners will become the majority in Europe within this century. There is no fixing this, and there is no suriviving it for the right.

And below is a comment by @MaiqTheTrue:

My thoughts are that this stems directly from their view of the world. To them America and the West are a dystopian nightmare.

White Guilt, and present militarism

In Liberal circles, white people, and particularly white Americans, are racist, militaristic, and colonial. They also perceive that none of it is changing even a little bit. We support Israel which is racist and genocidal, we hold down minorities, and enrich ourselves at the expense of the non-whites of the world. And they see it as nobody aside from them actually caring.

Environment

Liberals believe that Earth will be literally uninhabitable within their lifetime. The air will be choked with pollution, the rivers poisoned, global warming creating deserts and rain forests and making things too hot. Nobody wants to do enough to fix it, and quite often want to go in the other direction. They see that nobody aside from them cares.

Capitalism

The rich run the world for the rich and everyone else suffers. Poverty is common, and all the things that should be free are instead not free. College costs too much. Health care costs too much. And again, none of this is noticed by anyone else, so nothing will change.

Trump

You might not notice, but we elected Literally Hitler in November. He’s going to build work camps. He’s going to round people up and either imprison them or deport them. The Handmaid’s Tale is going to happen. Again, nobody notices or cares and worse, half the country likes it. Which proves that white people are evil.

All of this is a profoundly negative world view. Dystopian even. Everything is terrible, and at best going to stay terrible forever, and very likely to get worse. If this is how you really see the world, obviously that’s going to give you anxiety and depression, especially if you’re hanging around others who share this view, and have few or no outside interests.

As far as I'm concerned one can also add "Sexism" and "Social media" to that list. (We can certainly say, for example, that the Blue Tribe mainly blames supposedly harmful social media trends - basically the fatal lack of external censorship and repression - for Trump's election victories in 2016 and 2024 and for Brexit as well.) And as far as the anti-anti-Zionist liberals are concerned, their attitude towards anti-Semitism is the same. Either way, this summary does strike me as spot on. Whenever I encounter members of the Blue Tribe online or even offline it's undoubtedly this pessimistic, doomerist, resentful, even elegiac vibe I'm getting most of the time, especially from single women. And this seems to have been a cultural trend since Gamergate. In contrast, I think the victories of modern liberalism have mainly stemmed from its image of representing not an ideology but the consensus among cool and smart people promoting the vision of a better tomorrow, basically someone like your cool and cheerful wine-drinking, pot-smoking aunt/uncle. It was this vibe that helped them gain electoral victories as well and now this vibe is completely dead. Now we're at a point where the political parties in the EU representing Blue Tribe normies are basically campaigning with the message to having to fight yet another great Eastern European war in the very near future which is supposedly necessary to avert some even bigger disaster or something.

I'd argue that it's actually the profound pessimism of Blue Tribe messaging and its political consequences that Southkraut's pessimism is not taking into account.

Some thoughts on this one of the most important things that I feel often get overlooked here is that AOC is not the average democrat she's the farthest left Democrat in congress, Biden won the primary running against universal healthcare and the woke approved candidate Bernie lost. When it looked like Bernie was going to win centrist democrats were having breakdowns live on CNN Most democrats in congress still support Israel and Kamala and Biden both barely made a peep about Gaza while still sending Israel tons of weapons. The type of liberal endlessly critiqued here doesn't have that much influence in the democratic party despite their huge influence on culture.

Now some might rightly point out that these are foundations of sand and I agree the democratic establishment is on borrowed time, but it is still a massive juggernaut and I'm not confident it will be overturned in the next presidential politics. While the online is bleeding into real life it's not fully there yet everyone online was all for Bernie or maybe Warren Biden was essentially null totally unrepresented and if you listened to the online voice he had no chance because no one was for him and yet the olds and conservative black primary voters loved him and pulled the lever for him.

Of course those people have little influence on culture and aren't posters so they're invisible to the very online and even the culture war, they aren't fanatics either, endlessly pushing, so they'll likely lose eventually, foundations of sand and so on but any political analysis here should have to deal with the fact that the type of progressives endlessly skewered on the motte can barely muster ten seats in congress. In the EU too many of these parties are center right in coalition with the center left, Germany for example and France with a right wing government led by Macron.

Now there are some things Biden was radical on, Trans kids and immigration for example, but even here liberals actually don't want open borders. Liberals all think that is a "Republican lie" because they don't they want easier immigration and asylumn seekers to be able to come. But most liberal Americans supporting immigration means supporting the immigrants here the actual details are immaterial.

Now we're at a point where the political parties in the EU representing Blue Tribe normies are basically campaigning with the message to having to fight yet another great Eastern European war in the very near future which is supposedly necessary to avert some even bigger disaster or something.

Because they view the Ukraine war as an existential threat to the end of history and they liberal world order. They are threatened by the Russia attack on Ukraine the way you are threatened by immigration. And they aren't saying they should fight a war just they they should arm themselves to protect themselves and their families as Russia has shown itself to be a threat. A very conservative message if you think about it, and the fact that Normie liberals are willing to fly Ukrainian flags and raise money voluntarily for weapons and equipment for Ukraine should show that they aren't all civilizational nihilists willing to lay down and die when their version of civilization is threatened.

Because they view the Ukraine war as an existential threat to the end of history and they liberal world order.

It rather seems that they did away with the ‘End of History’ thesis already and no longer believe that the process of globalization can continue in they way they generally imagined (well, fantasized) that it would. I think this should, in turn, reinforce the perception that they have recently (around 2014 or so) adopted a rather pessimist worldview. They are now treating Russia, China, North Korea, India and their ‘puppets’ as an enemy bloc that is to be sanctioned and cordoned off from the rest of the world that has inexorably and thankfully transitioned to liberal globalism.

And they aren't saying they should fight a war just they they should arm themselves to protect themselves and their families as Russia has shown itself to be a threat. A very conservative message if you think about it

I argue there are aspects to Western foreign policy regarding Ukraine that should at least make it rather questionable to conservatives. The most obvious one is that it’s happening in the context of a long-term policy of eastward NATO expansion (with a bunch of consequences of its own) which I think US conservatives should at least be skeptical about. The second is that whenever liberals emphasize the supposedly huge cultural differences between Ukraine and Russia the always focus on the wonderful globohomo-ness of the former; this should at least make conservatives think twice about the whole affair. The third I can think of is that the more cynical liberal-adjacent talking heads seem willing to admit that it’s not for the prosperity and well-being of the Ukrainian people that the war should be escalated but to weaken Russia which in turn is supposed to have fantastic benefits in the future or something. Again, obvious grounds for skepticism, I think. Four: conservatives should ponder what exactly the long-term goal of Atlanticist policy regarding Ukraine in particular was after 2004 or so and especially after 2014.

Now some might rightly point out that these are foundations of sand and I agree the democratic establishment is on borrowed time and I agree but it is still a massive juggernaut and I'm not confident it will be overturned in the next presidential politics.

I’m guessing you’re referring to the gerontocratic nature of the Dem leadership?

eastward NATO expansion

NATO is a defensive alliance. It is only a threat to those who invade the member-countries. It does not invade others. While the NATO members have participated in UN-sanctioned attacks, Russia has a veto and so no need to be afraid of that either.

Thus, NATO-expansion is a useful tool for propaganda, but it is not actually a reason to go to war and should not be taken seriously.

I'm addition to the fact that Mexico would never, ever be allowed to sign a defensive pact with China, what do you make of Serbia?

That was quite vigorous preemptive defense

NATO is a defensive alliance.

So what? America would not tolerate defensive alliances of their neighbors with China, it's kinda of insane to expect Russia to do so as long as they have the strength to oppose it.

That’s just one aspect of it. Another is that the expansion process entails the provision of an US security guarantee to the Baltic nations, which are usually considered to be unable to defend themselves from a Russian invasion for more than 3-4 days or so, and the idea that the US would actually adhere to this guarantee is questionable. Before the expansion of NATO this was not much of an issue because a potential Soviet invasion and nuclear strike would’ve predominantly targeted West Germany and would have inevitably also targeted US military units stationed there, which is a clear act of war.

Another aspect of this whole process is that it clearly created some sort of illusion among Ukrainian nationalists that the Russian leadership will one day basically capitulate to them by doing nothing while Ukraine joins NATO and retains sovereignty over the Crimea and presumably expelling the Russian fleet from the naval base of Sevastopol.

but even here liberals actually don't want open borders. Liberals all think that is a "Republican lie" because they don't they want easier immigration and asylumn seekers to be able to come. But most liberal Americans supporting immigration means supporting the immigrants here the actual details are immaterial.

Liberals don't advocate for de-jure open borders. But they believe that everyone who just walks up to the border should be able to make an asylum claim. And what do you know, liberals also believe that they should all be allowed to live and work while waiting for their claim to be processed, and of course they also believe that only an evil nazi racist would deny their totally valid claims.

Liberal red lines taken together always result in de-facto open borders under any interpretation. They do not advocate for de-jure open borders, but any non-open border is one that liberals will work tirelessly on tearing down.

Liberal red lines taken together always result in de-facto open borders under any interpretation. They do not advocate for de-jure open borders

Except when they do, i.e. "No human is illegal". They tend to leave that in the mouths of "activists" but not always.

Liberals don't advocate for de-jure open borders. But they believe that everyone who just walks up to the border should be able to make an asylum claim. And what do you know, liberals also believe that they should all be allowed to live and work while waiting for their claim to be processed, and of course they also believe that only an evil nazi racist would deny their totally valid claims.

Don't we have recent lived experience of this not actually being applicable when the refugees happen to be Boers?

It's open borders, but only for assholes. Not everyone is admitted, the price of admission is lying and cheating. After all, you're not actually a persecuted refugee, if you were, you wouldn't have made it halfway across the world in the first place. Someone who is honest would be denied, or rather, someone who is honest would apply for a work visa and get that denied.

In fact, it fits the rest of the repertoire of left-wing policy, such as easily-scammable social programs or being lenient on crime. All of it rewards assholes at the expense of honest people.

True. The liberal goal is in fact worse than open borders.

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