In a column in the NYT last Friday, David Brooks opined that the left was in sight of total victory in the culture wars, but risked a political backlash by pressing their advantage too hard. Was he right?
Mostly, yes, but I would frame the issue a bit differently:
- Anyone who watched the Oscars on Sunday would have to say that the left has already won the culture wars.
- The problem is that the left sees its position as being so self-evidently correct that it attaches little or no value to its victory, and continues to search for other battles to fight.
- The right has responded, not by engaging with the left, but by retreating to a Fox News-fueled bubble, and by throwing its energy into politics. The evangelical right’s embrace of Trump is the logical conclusion of this phenomenon.
- Thus, the backlash is already here.
- Can it get worse? Demographics are already working against the right. One can imagine a situation ten years from now where a large segment of the right starts supporting out-and-out fascists in the face of continuing defeats in both the cultural and political arena.
- And so, if the left wants to keep the country we have, a degree of empathy and compromise would help.