In Brief: Genuine Culture War?
What do we expect today from Republican politicians running against “cancel culture”?
The 2022 midterm elections are shaping up to be pretty bad for Democrats, but that’s far from guaranteed. One problem for Republicans is that they’re offering little in the way of a platform other than fighting a new culture war. Political analyst Matthew Walther says voters should beware.
Republicans want to portray their opponents as out-of-touch, hypocritical, and schoolmarmish, utterly joyless scolds, dupes of facile quasi-religious manias, and all-around haters of fun.
They’re probably right about all of these things. I fully expect Democrats to lose ground in the House and the Senate; in fact, Republicans gaining control of both chambers next year is not an absurd hypothetical. But the reasons why are worth considering.
The problem is that Republicans, perhaps especially in Congress, have little control over the cultural issues in play right now. Nor should they.
More to the point, they don’t even have to do anything about gender ideology or the new wokeified race science of white women teenagers, about how being on time for things and taking pride in your work are vestiges of white supremacy or any of the other new bugbears. All they have to do is mumble along with vague slogans about how what the unspecified other side is doing is bad (and occasionally funny).
Social conservatives should be wary of carrying water for the GOP here. If the last administration showed us anything, it was that we should demand more from Republican presidents—especially those who find themselves with control of both houses of Congress and a de facto majority on the Supreme Court—than pointless uplift. Before, during, and after his presidency, Trump was admired less for anything he actually accomplished in office than for the amusing things he said about his opponents.
In a representative democracy, politicians are not elected to make us feel better about ourselves or to offer some kind of existential affirmation of our chosen way of life. Nor are they in office to attempt to define the nature and purpose of human existence or to debate first-order questions about natural law and morality. Instead they are supposed to apply their minds to an ever-expanding number of prudential questions: What should tax rates be? Should we build more bridges?How about the minimum wage?
That doesn’t mean sloganeering about cultural issues that are important and do matter to Americans is pointless. We should just have low expectations about what that sloganeering will produce. Walther concludes:
What I am trying to caution against is being an easy mark. Don’t let these people trade on righteous indignation or justifiable horror.
Validating your feelings is what you ask of a therapist or a kindergarten teacher. If this is all Republican voters actually want, they should schedule a telehealth appointment with someone more qualified than Dr. DeSantis. Otherwise, they should consider the distinct possibility that once again they are being had.
