The culture war, of course, has its roots in the ideological, racial, and gender-related conflicts of the sixties. That was fifty years ago. There was some hope that the election of Barack Obama, who was too young to have experienced the sixties, would at least ease the war, but it actually made things worse. Why?
The insurgents in the sixties were, at least in their own eyes, an enlightened minority fighting for freedom. That was a clear and unwelcome challenge to the World War II generation (today commonly known as the “Greatest Generation”), but it was more of an insult than a threat; right-wingers within the GG believed themselves to be a “Moral Majority,” and had considerable reason to do so. In the more recent, second phase, however, the conservatives view themselves as victims, not the majority, and are fighting for power against forces that are trying to overturn centuries of tradition. It is the perception of the threat that has changed the nature of the war, and made it more vicious.