Behold the war of big-government conservatives versus cultural progressives.
Behold the war of big-government conservatives versus cultural progressives.
A fter following a group of fringe presidential candidates around the country in 1996, author Michael Lewis took a crack at distilling the differences between the competing ideological poles in American politics.
“The debate between conservatives and liberals boils down to which comes first, politics or culture,” Lewis wrote in his book Losers: The Road to Everyplace but the White House.
“Conservatives argue that the culture drives our politics, that a politician can do only what the culture allows him to,” Lewis noted. “Liberals argue that government policies shape the culture. Obviously each holds some claim on the truth.”
Thus was the cycle from the 1960s through the advent of the 21st century: Progressives would boldly invent new ways to expand the reach of government, while conservatives used all their rhetorical tools to stop it.
Liberals, of course, were not shy about using their political muscle to bend the culture to match their vision. When Democrats engorged the welfare state, conservatives aggressively pointed out the damage it did to the individual independence of its recipients. After Roe v. Wade mandated legal abortion across America, the religious Right fought a culture war against it for a half century. For decades, conservative writers dined out on the preposterous uses of government subsidies, such as when a National Endowment for the Arts–funded exhibit included a photograph of a crucifix submerged in a jar of (what was said to be the artist’s own) urine.
For the most part, Republicans were elected to office simply to utter the word “no.” They rightly argued that no legislative cure existed for many of the ills facing society (the rise in the number of men fathering children with women to whom they were not married, for example).
But in recent years, aided by armies of Twitter users with a surplus of free time, progressives have learned to play the culture game, too. The cultural brickbat once wielded by the religious Right is now swung by the secular religion of wokeism.
Sure, progressives still yearn for control of the economy by governmental means with the zeal of Pete Davidson trying to get you to eat Taco Bell for breakfast. (Hug your gas stove with all your might and never let go.) But the Left has also discovered the free-market-based utility in putting society in a choke hold.
One needs only to look at popular entertainment to see how progressives have shamed themselves into compliance. There is a lady Hulk. The Little Mermaid is now black. People pretend Hannah Gadsby is watchable. Every streaming service now has a special section dedicated to the “voices” of whatever minority ethnic group is in favor at the time. White people routinely pay tens of thousands of dollars to listen to other white people tell them they are racist.
And this was all accomplished without passing a single law. There was no “Every Commercial Has to Feature a Biracial Couple Act of 2022.” Studios are now simply increasing minority-group representation in their movies and television shows (a very good thing!) because that is what their customers want. As always, the culture came first.
(Let’s not let Hollywood off the hook, however — the back-slapping they’re doing now comes after decades of denying opportunities to the same actors they now place front and center.)
Soon conservatives began to notice that progressives were using their own tactics against them — letting the market lead the way — at which point they developed a new appreciation for heavy-handed government power. Once the ideology of “live and let live,” conservatism now requires government intervention in the personal business of anyone with disfavored political ideas.
If American culture produces drag-queen shows, pass laws to prohibit them in public places on the grounds (so it is claimed) that minors might be present; conservatives used to think parents were the best judge of what their kids could see.
Are too many college professors discussing unconscious racial bias? Pass a law censoring speech in those classrooms. Disagree with the moderation decisions made by worldwide social-media companies? Enact laws forcing private companies to host your favored content.
Or if you’re a world-famous children’s entertainment conglomerate that publicly opposes a piece of legislation in the state that benefits from the tourism dollars you attract, you may have a governor spend years trying to strip you of your tax benefits or suggesting he may build a prison next to your amusement park. Just keeping the kids safe! Just good old keep-government-hands-off-private-enterprise conservatism at work!
That isn’t to suggest, of course, that all these cultural changes are good, or that some of the most extreme shifts don’t legitimately deserve legislative attention. It seems reasonable that states would want to figure out the long-term implications of, say, allowing trans-identifying males to compete in women’s sports, or allowing young teens to undergo irreversible “gender-affirming” surgeries and chemical treatments.
But the beauty of living in a free society is that I don’t get to force others to adopt my cultural tastes, nor do I have to live with theirs forced on me. One of the fundamental appeals of traditional conservatism is the tenet that how you live your life shouldn’t be dependent on who you elect as governor or president. It is a sign of collective moral sanity when politics doesn’t make much difference in one’s daily routine.
Of course, there is a great deal of satisfaction in serving up a hot plate of steaming legislation to own the libs. It is certainly less fun being the party espousing legislative and judicial humility. But life under more oppressive government regulations always stifles both liberty and the innovation that flows from that freedom.
(Or, as Ludwig von Mises said of Democrats in 1944: “They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office.”)
George Will once noted, “A progressive’s work is never done because everything is progressivism’s business.” But with conservatives stealing the liberals’ vibes, now everything is everyone’s business, leaving the people who just want to be left alone without a viable voice in government.
Goaded on by an ideology-free former president who promised that he alone was the salve for all the nation’s ills, America has ceased to be a battle between freedom and government; it is now merely a contest of who will restrict liberties in a way most pleasing to voters who have been shotgunning rage tweets.
Gone is the concern conservatives once held about concentrated power, wielded by popular majorities, by presidents, or by members of the Supreme Court. We are now all combatants in the war of all against all, in which conservatives don’t seem to recognize that all the powers they are currently granting themselves will one day be used against them.
And during this conflict, a famous American refrain is barely uttered in public anymore:
“Do what you want. It’s a free country.”