site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   3320 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 9, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Let's get this thread rolling with something interesting. I happened to come across this clip on Twitter of a post-midterm interview with Trump, posted by America First Post. I'm just gonna transcribe the whole thing here:

Narrator: Whether it was the message, or the record, the Republican collapse will give Democrats in Congress new powers over budgets, hearings, and subpoenas.

Interviewer: You came out after the midterms, you congratulated the Democrats, you said you were open to working with them. What is one thing you would like to work with a Democratic majority on?

Trump: I'd love to do something on immigration.

Interviewer: What? Do you think immigration hurt you in the midterms? Do you think the crackdown hurt you?

Trump: I think it both helped and hurt. I got an A+ for closing up the border. I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out, but I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation or breaking of the law and that was that they came into the country illegally. Now, there is a large part of the country that think they should be put out and there is a large part of the country that think they should be allowed to stay if they're good people working in a landscaping company or working in a hotel or doing something right? And in some cases paying taxes. And there's a large group of people think that they should be allowed to stay.

Interviewer: So you think your deportation policy went too far? It was too tough.

Trump: I think it was too tough. I think it might be too tough yea.

Interviewer: What would happen? What does the deal look like with the Democrats?

Trump: Well, the deal would be we would work something out and I think it's something, I think that's something that's actually doable.

Interviewer: Doable to create some kind of legal status for the landscapers and the -?

Trump: Yea. When you go into a hotel and you have a woman that's worked there as a, you know, as a maid, as a cleaner, as a this, as a that, as a waitress, a lot of good things, great jobs, and all of a sudden they're being taken out of the country it's tough. It's a tough thing. But there's a group of people that I would say on the sort of pretty far right that would like everybody to connect.

Interviewer: Do any of those people work in your administration? Are they in the building with us right now?

Trump: No, no. Well, there are a lot of those people. Then there's also people that are more modified on that. In other words get the killers out, get all the rough ones out, get the drug dealers out but let the people that are here, and in some cases here for 10 and 15 years, work a deal for them.

Interviewer: Do you think, the Democratic party right now, has people in it that are interested in this kind of deal?

Trump: I think so, yeah. People have already called me.

Interviewer: So I'll say, I saw James Talarico, the new Democratic senator from Texas. I saw him on Fox News and he said immigration was one of the things he wanted to work with the audience.

Trump: Others too, South Carolina said. Numerous people.

Interviewer: You did, in the course of the campaign, you did occasionally call him Talafreako.

Trump: Yea, I did.

Trump is Trump of course so take everything with a massive grain of salt, especially since he announced Stephen Miller would be taking over as his chief of staff, but this is crazy? Perhaps Trump's "Only Nixon can go to China" moment will be an Eisenhower-esque amnesty for illegals. I have heard other commentators suggest that Trump would be open to adding Puerto Rico and D.C. as states from a self-glorifying kind of way. "President Trump, you could be remembered as the first President to add states to the union since 1950! What a legacy!"

Very disappointing result. But what else can we expect? He lost big time, and now he's trying to save 2028 and get as much done on immigration as he can with the new hostile legislative environment. I doubt he ever cared that much about immigration in the first place.

If you voted Democrat or stayed home because of Iran and Israel, I hope you're happy, because you're getting the bathwater with the baby. Amnesty, Part 3 will go swimmingly, I'm sure. Hopefully he's just talking.

If this gets us amnesty, then amnesty was already going to happen eventually anyway. This is also massive cuck behavior. Letting them run the country poorly with massive corruption because if you don’t, the Democrats will flood you with immigrants. It’s basically a massive threat to the right to get in line and vote Red no matter who. It’s an abusive relationship.

How about the opposite happens and the Republicans learn they need to be competent, stay out of stupid wars, and not be corrupt criminals so the left can’t gain power? They didn’t lose because chuds stayed home. They lost because normal people thought they did a poor job running the country. They need to be better next time instead of blaming the voters. All these people have to go.

Accelerationism is bad and never works. There isn't some perfect uber-Chad President waiting in the wings to take us to the promised land.

It's not that hard to just vote for the most right wing candidate in every election.

I think the people encouraging "based" right wingers to vote Democrats are probably mostly funded by the left. It's a good bit. And notice how the left wingers would never, ever, even once, encourage someone to stay home or vote for a Republican.

In any case, all problems except demographic change can be fixed. Even communist countries can turn around within a couple decades. Trump will be gone soon enough. But immigration will never be reversed. Other than AI, it is the only issue that really matters.

And notice how the left wingers would never, ever, even once, encourage someone to stay home or vote for a Republican.

Radical pro-Palestinian activists were doing exactly that in 2024. "Genocide Joe" was the meme.

They said to vote Trump to teach the Dems a lesson? May I see it?

Ethnic Arabs/Muslims in greater Detroit voting for Trump over Gaza

I can't find links to regular blue white leftists doing this in the general - Google wants to keep sending me stories about blue white leftists not voting for Biden in the primary. But there are numerous press stories after the election, mostly featuring push polls by pro-Palestinian groups claiming that voters staying home over Palestine cost Harris the election.

Dem post-defeat analysis says Gaza did cause people to stay home

And notice how the left wingers would never, ever, even once, encourage someone to stay home or vote for a Republican.

Not true. In 2016 there was a nontrivial push among the Bernie left to stay home. There might not have been much of that in the press, but Hilary and Kamala were the media establishment candidates, so of course they wouldn't; in real life, like at universities, it was a very common sentiment.

But of course, any left winger who wants to smack down another left winger advocating for a more cooperative or long-termist strategy can nutpick right-wing posts like yours to in turn argue that right-wingers would never even once encourage someone to stay home or vote for the left-wing candidate.

No, do not vote for the most right wing candidate in every election. Vote for the most right wing candidate who can win. Learn from the Arizona GOP(Texas was mostly sunk by this being a very very blue year, but the TxGOP not learning this lesson is a legitimate possibility going forwards).

Yes, very much so. I was assuming that in my comment but I should have spelled it out directly.

What I am arguing against is voting for the left to "teach the right a lesson". To the extent that this galaxy-brained attitude exists, I assume it is mostly an op.

With democracy, I think the only way out is through. I will not conserve a democracy. If the demos did not want to be replaced, they should not have voted for it. If the demos are sorry that they know not what they vote for, then they should have never revolted against the aristocracies to begin with. It all seems just to me, that the West would end up this way.

If the demos did not want to be replaced, they should not have voted for it.

They aren't trying to replace the demos, they're voting to expand it, by allowing people to become members even if they were not born thus.

I'd believe this more if many of the same voices pushing "expand" hadn't also been loudly anti-natalist for as long as I can remember. Not saying those are connected, but they certainly look suspicious together.

I didn’t advocate for accelerationism. I advocated in my comment for competent governance. Trump is not competent and does more harm than good. We’re in this position because Trump did a bad job. He is the problem. DeSantis in 2024 would have left us in a much better spot. In a two party system, if the right wing party does a bad job, then the left will take power. That is what happened. Simple as.

Yes, I would also like a competent right wing government and I was a Desantis supporter in 2024. But that choice was not on the ballot.

Your comment implied that it was desirable that the Democrats won, even if that means increasing immigration. That would seem to indicate that either you are a left winger who supports immigration or that you think it's good that the left won to "teach the right a lesson". That latter attitude is indeed a form of accelerationism.

A third interpretation is that you are mostly rightist but believe the Trump administration is so corrupt that even a leftist, open borders Democratic administration is preferable. But are you not considering that the Democrats are also corrupt, in fact much more corrupt in terms of dollars wasted?

You are misunderstanding what I am saying. This was always going to be the outcome with Trump. So it’s best to just get on with it. He is maximally polarizing, corrupt, and incompetent with a hard cap on his national popularity so the left sweeping into power was baked into the cake.

I think Trump has done a lot more good than bad and we are in a better place because of him, but it is time to move on. I wish the Senate hadn’t gone so poorly, but that is just more evidence MAGA has to go. We have to live in reality. He’s not the guy, and if he wasn’t going to step aside, then him being discredited is a necessary evil. If it wasn’t a blowout now, 2028 would have been even worse. Maybe we can still keep the presidency if he gets out of the way. That is the white pill. Probably not though, and if that happens it’s 100% on him.

Thank you for the clarification. I did misunderstand you and I agree with your assessment.

My ideal would be Abbott 2032, sacrificial lamb in '28. He's effective, smart, good at politics, and seems to actually care about second order effects. I do not care about demographics as long as me and mine aren't discriminated against- although I have an aesthetic attachment to phenotypical Europeans, we're not going extinct anytime soon and have stabler demographics than any other group.

But that's not going to happen. He lost, and he's in a wheelchair. As an all powerful veep he's plausible. As a powerful domestic policy role he's plausible. I guess it's Desantis.

You can’t sacrifice 2028 because immigration is cumulative and the most conservative Supreme Court we will ever see in our lifetimes just voted 6-3 against repealing birthright citizenship. You can never remove anyone, certainly not anyone’s children, and remember the president can admit unlimited (yes, unlimited) legal refugees without. congressional approval.

Again, I am not a white nationalist. I care about the rights of social conservatives to continue to exist, a sane macroeconomic environment, and keeping the government out of my business personally. All of those would take more than a single democrat admin to destroy.

If my neighbors are all mestizos its fine.

I do not care about demographics as long as me and mine aren't discriminated against-

And that's why you must care about demographics. You'll find that racial tolerance is quite rare among non-Europeans.

While moral universalism is highest and ingroup bias is lowest among Western Europeans, I think that’s a too strong comment. Most African states have quite a diversity of ethnic groups. Most middle eastern states, India, and much of Southeast Asia involves societies where different meaningful ancestry groups coexist. Latin America has very meaningful colorblind cultural currents, and in many cases they are dominant.

I think racial masochism is also a bit complicated since it’s often a mix of genuine outgroup preference with wanting to stick it to “other white people I don’t like.” When blue tribe is muzzled, or is marginal like in many even minimally white Latino countries, race relations are a lot better.

More comments

There was a time when it was rare among those of European extraction. They learned to be better; the rest of Adam's progeny can do it too.

(This is one of my pet peeves with the ctrl-left; Persons Of Colour ought not be excluded or held to a higher standard, but they ought to adhere to the same standards as a white person!)

More comments

Singapore seems pretty harmonious. Everyone being well-off tends to reduce animosity. You only start seeking scapegoats when you have something to scapegoat them for.

More comments

But non-Europeans invariably hate each other more than whites.

More comments

I agree with all that, and the Republicans should be better, but it still sucks. Teaching them a lesson means that even more permanent changes in the demographic makeup of America are going to happen, and there is so much noise in each election and so many constituents and so many issues that there are many, many chances for them to screw up and prioritize the wrong things next time, too. With such a lack of credible individuals on the right, it's going to be even harder to stay on track next time.

I agree that it’s terrible and I’m very black pilled. My white pill though is that this can hopefully clear out the old guard and something new can emerge because people will see how serious this is. It was so bad too because Senate seats are 6 years. There’s nothing we can do now except play defense because Trump messed up so bad.

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