site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I wonder what motivated Matt Yglesias to make that tweet and what was running through his head? Was he just trying to manipulate people into not voting for Trump? Or did he really believe what he said? He's either a shameless liar or a person with no fundamental understanding of the world. Either way, its a bad look. Sometimes there are takes that are so bad that it discredits literally everything else a person might say.

Was he just trying to manipulate people into not voting for Trump?

Yeah, he's admitted this before, he has no problem with this kind of thing. https://archive.ph/jf7ur

/images/1793376147815642.webp

Imagine just coming out and saying "guys don't trust me I'm trying to trick you".

I guess he is both evil and stupid.

Not only that, but imagine him saying that and then people all over the internet still taking him seriously. It's a baffling state of affairs.

What tweet by Yglesias?

What tweet by Yglesias?

I believe he is referring to this (alleged tweet) from a couple posts up:

My guess is that in a Trump administration angry mobs will beat and murder Jews and people of color with impunity

Was he just trying to manipulate people into not voting for Trump? Or did he really believe what he said? He's either a shameless liar or a person with no fundamental understanding of the world.

Yes.

He's either a shameless liar

Consider he's the same person who publicly argued in spring 2020 that masks don't do anything while he privately stockpiled masks for his family.

He also said ‘people of colour’, so I suspect he was genuinely delusional in a common form of Trump derangement syndrome.

"People of colour" is woke-stupid rather than TDS. The two ailments* are frequently co-morbid, but conceptually different. The Bulwark crowd have TDS but are not woke-stupid. The leadership of corporate America went woke-stupid around 2020 (but are now recovering) but not TDS.

* Modulo the argument that Trump is as bad as he claims to be and TDS not an ailment, rather trusting your lying eyes over all the people acting like "this is fine" dogs.