The Waning of the Culture War?
Peter Beinart says public interest in “culture war” issues is on the wane, not just as a transient phenomenon of the financial crisis, but as a turning of the great wheel of history. He says this isn’t the first time:
This won’t be the first time a culture war has come to a close. In the 1920s, battles over evolution, immigration, prohibition and the resurgent Ku Klux Klan dominated election after election. And those issues played into that era’s version of the red-blue divide, pitting newly arrived, saloon-frequenting, big-city Catholics against old-stock, teetotaling, small-town Protestants. In 1924, the Democratic convention split so bitterly over prohibition and the Klan that it took more than 100 ballots to nominate a candidate for president.
Then, says Beinart, that era came to a close in the 1930s driven to an end by a combination of economic problems and generational turnover. Beinart says something similar is happening today:
Today, according to a recent Newsweek poll, the economy is up to 44 percent and “issues like abortion, guns and same-sex marriage” down to only 6 percent. It’s no coincidence that Palin’s popularity has plummeted as the financial crisis has taken center stage. From her championing of small-town America to her efforts to link Barack Obama to former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, Palin is treading a path well-worn by Republicans in recent decades. She’s depicting the campaign as a struggle between the culturally familiar and the culturally threatening, the culturally traditional and the culturally exotic. But Obama has dismissed those attacks as irrelevant, and the public, focused nervously on the economic collapse, has largely tuned them out.
Palin’s attacks are also failing because of generational change. The long-running, internecine baby boomer cultural feud just isn’t that relevant to Americans who came of age after the civil rights, gay rights and feminist revolutions. Even many younger evangelicals are broadening their agendas beyond abortion, stem cells, school prayer and gay marriage. And just as younger Protestants found JFK less threatening than their parents had found Al Smith, younger whites — even in bright-red states — don’t view the prospect of a black president with great alarm.
I think we should be suspicious of arguments that seem to assume that US political history operates as a series of repeating long cycles. Realistically, the number of cases Beinart is working with here are somewhere between one and two, not nearly enough to use as the basis for meaningful predictions. It’s definitely true that the economic downturn is making GOP culture war attacks relatively ineffective. But something similar was true in 1992. Elections that take place during recessions are dominated by a desire to punish the incumbent party. But that doesn’t mean people don’t care about these issues anymore. What’s more, I would say that part of the reason the McCain-Palin camp’s culture war politics seems so lame is that McCain’s record has left him unable to campaign on Federal Marriage Amendment or the need to rounp-up immigrants and deport them. Unlike praise of small towns and vague condemnations of “fake” Virginia, those are real issues — genuine subjects of legislative activity that I can imagine people running and winning on. Not, to be sure, amidst a recession and with a hugely unpopular conservative incumbent. But I have a feeling both of those issues will be back soon enough.
37 Responses to “The Waning of the Culture War?”
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November 3rd, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Battles over immigration and (to our national embarassment) evolution are still being fought today. They never really went away, just into hibernation.
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I agree that immigration and gay marriage are not dead issues for the right. But it’s pretty clear that the payoff for playing those issues is diminishing due to demographic and cultural shifts. After all, neither McCain nor Palin are well-positioned to play the “progressive taxation is socialism” card, but they’re still trying to use it. By contrast, neither breathed a word about immigration; hell, heavily-accented “Tito the Builder” joined Palin’s Village People troupe in the last couple weeks. And Palin watered down (read: lied) about her views on gays in her one debate appearance, while Biden’s clear statement of support for gay rights, which suprised me, went totally unremarked. Clearly, some of those old Right dogs are not hunting the way they used to.
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
“Then, says Beinart, that era came to a close in the 1930s driven to an end by a combination of economic problems”
No, it didn’t. As Lichtman spends hundreds of pages in his book White, Protestant Nation describing is that most of the drys and conservative protestants remained as consumed by the culture war as ever. In fact, they often got even more insane and shrill over the 1930s and 1940s. They did lose some percentage of marginal adherents, enough to damage them electorally. But the hard-core remained quite large (if not electorally viable without allies) and got, if anything, more extreme. This is partially why we had the wild Red Purge after WWII. And the exact same issues (and usually the exact same people) were prominent in the 1920s and 1950s.
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Actually, we should be suspicous of the argument that Peter Beinart ever knows what the hell he’s talking about.
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Abortion, however, could become a 70% for 30% against kind of culture issue. That is a conundrum for the culture war set. I imagine something similar happened with prohibition. It was once a winning issue, but as the evidence came in that it was ineffective, the tide turned decisively against the prohibitionists.
I imagine we are close with abortion, at least with regard to the morally clear view – I bet a reasonable majority believes in allowing choice in the case of rape or incest, and that turning back the tide will be an increasingly difficult task. Same thing with Gay marriage — we have probably not yet reached a majority in favor, but it will not be too much longer.
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Somehow I don’t think of heard the last of the christian right on this stuff. Look how close prop 8 in Ca. is. If it goes down in a crash, then maybe, just maybe, he can begin to make this claim, but the polls are close on it. I wish these knuckledraggers would be pushed out to the margins, but I just don’t see it.
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:23 pm
But Matt, what do you think about the Iverson/Billups trade?
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
immigration will be back, because immigration is a real issue that actually effects people’s lives.
nobody cares about gays anymore (that is, the gays won).
guns are off the table because democrats caved.
abortion is clearly past its prime as a topic of political salience.
And last but not least we’ve turned the page on race.
The Culture War will go on–yglesias is right about that–but not, I think, over the same stuff. Or rather it’s still gonna be about sex and minorities and religion, but the actual terrain’s gonna be different.
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Biden’s clear statement of support for gay rights, which suprised me
Actually, both he and Obama voiced opposition to gay marriage, although Obama has triangulated by opposing Prop 8.
Somehow I don’t think of heard the last of the christian right on this stuff. Look how close prop 8 in Ca.
True. But the fact that it’s close, after the same thing (a ban on gay marriage) was approved by a 61-39 margin just eight years ago is a clear indication that the trend is not in the conservatives’ favor here.
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Beinhart:
Palin’s attacks are also failing because of generational change. The long-running, internecine baby boomer cultural feud just isn’t that relevant to Americans who came of age after the civil rights, gay rights and feminist revolutions. Even many younger evangelicals are broadening their agendas beyond abortion, stem cells, school prayer and gay marriage. And just as younger Protestants found JFK less threatening than their parents had found Al Smith, younger whites — even in bright-red states — don’t view the prospect of a black president with great alarm.
The economic challenges of the coming era are complicated, fascinating and terrifying, while the cultural battles of the 1960s feel increasingly stale.
Beinhart seems right here. Obama expressly ran against the Clinton vs. Bush, red state/blue state politics, and I bet a lot of young people were energized by his campaignin part by this. We’ll see what the turnout is. I find it an attractive message, that he won’t do the usual BS so he can actually get something done. We’ll find out if he wins, but he has run an impressive campaign. I do admit he cozied up to the Democratic establishment after he won the primary, but can you blame him for being cautious since he is the first black candidate with a credible shot? That’s why I gave him a pass on the warrantless wiretapping, while others hyperventilated.
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:02 pm
For my part, I don’t think culture war politics are done for, but, as others point out, the right has kind of hit a wall with how much more they can get out of this specific set of issues.
Culture wars will return, sooner or later (who knows which), but it will be with a different slant on current issues, the absence of some issues we hear about now, and all new ones not seen at the moment.
Immigration has always been an issue, but the specific concerns and focus of it tends to shift.
While other issues, like prohibition, tend to pretty much fade outside of a few cranks.
So, I think it will indeed be back, it just won’t look the same as it does today.
I think raft is right that gays and guns might be the issues to go, since, despite the anti gay amendments, public acceptance is moving along well and people just aren’t as scared of gays, even as much as they seemed to be eight or four years ago.
Heller, and yes, the democrats caving (or strategically dropping the issue, however you look at it) has sort of taken guns off the table for at least the short term.
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:02 pm
It should be pointed out that immigration lost its salience as an issue in the 1920s largely because immigration was severely curtailed and subjected to ethnic quotas designed to stabilize the ethnic mixture of America. Until the immigration act of 1965, and until the civil rights revolution turned non-European ethnics into voting blocs, immigration did not have the impact it had prior to the 1920s and after 1965.
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Beinart has no clue. Palin wasn’t discussing Ayers because of the culture war, she was discussing him because he’s a largely unrepentant terrorist, and is just one among the many past affiliates of BHO who are radicals, convicted felons, under FBI investigation, allegedly linked to organized crime, unrepentant terrorists, extremists, and on and on. In fact, it’s difficult to find a past BHO affiliated who’s completely mainstream.
Instead of reporting on that accurately, the MSM tried to cover it up. And, likewise with immigration. If the MSM told the truth about it neither BHO nor McCain would be considered possibilities.
And, would you believe that there’s a candidate who wants his own aunt deported, but who doesn’t support deporting millions of other illegal aliens?
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I’m wondering whether the it’s too late for anti-immigration forces. Anti-immigration is really about preserving the USA as a White Christian Anglo nation (it used to be about having a Protestant nation, but that’s already been lost). With non-hispanic Whites at 65% and declining, and with very little incentive for minorities to go along, you’d need to rally to the anti-immigration cause a huge majority of whites. I doubt that will happen.
The best they can hope is that Mexico & Central America become more prosperous and have lower birthrates.
BTW, I understand that Texas is no longer a white-majority state. Can we expect the Democrats to start carrying the state in Presidential elections?
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:51 pm
there’s a candidate who wants his own aunt deported, but who doesn’t support deporting millions of other illegal aliens?
I had an aunt I wanted deported, and she wasn’t even an immigrant, legal or otherwise.
November 3rd, 2008 at 5:21 pm
No culture war? We are at least getting a race war, right? Helter skelter?
I’ll have to agree with the consensus. It’s not that we’re past cultural or, hell, even racial politics and are entering the new American political utopia of reason and debate. It’s just the the horrific financial apocalypse has rendered these all unimportant for now. They both still have quite a number of last gasps left.
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
November 3rd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
“The Culture War will go on–yglesias is right about that–but not, I think, over the same stuff. Or rather it’s still gonna be about sex and minorities and religion, but the actual terrain’s gonna be different.”
This seems to be the dominant thought here in comments, and I agree. Yglesias is right to be skeptical of cyclic or realignment theories—he was correct recently when he alluded to the data-driven theory that voters simply punish incumbents when times are bad and that’s the extent of the explanation of voting patterns.
Even so, I’ve watched the evolution of this generation’s culture wars…the post-60s version. And it has evolved and changed. I mean, basically, the left won the culture wars. We didn’t win the economic wars (and I’m ambivalent about that because, by 70s standards I’m a centrist and by 00s standards I’m a leftist), but we sure as hell won the culture wars as much as we could expect here in the US. Movement on abortion has been regressive, true; but otherwise everywhere else has seen a steady leftward movement.
I suppose we need to be clear on the difference between the tenor of the national dialog and actual socioeconomic changes. In practical terms, it seems like (mostly) so little has changed and there’s so much still to be done (I’m thinking about racial/gender/orientation parity and such). But in terms of the national conversation and what are the fears that move voters to the polls…these issues are mostly decided. The cultural conservatives have gotten as much traction nationally as they ever will on these core issues, at least as they’ve traditionally utilized them. I do think that they’ll be taking advantage of residual, long-decaying fear in the same ways that they already are with some racial issues. But the sort of dog-whistle racial stuff that we seen in politics now is nothing compared to 35, or even 25, years ago. The same will be true from now on with regard to most of the cultural issues they’ve been utilizing.
Also, I agree with those who believe that the GOP is going to fail to avoid being marginalized by the hard-core religious right wing which will attempt a takeover of it starting this week. But they’ll cocoon themselves as a minority party and cultivate resentment and anger and hate which will be a force for many years to come. But I don’t think they’ll be the ones determining the agenda anymore.
November 3rd, 2008 at 7:45 pm
On gay issues, I think we will see the final end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and without a lot of drama, save from the usual suspects. We may eventually see ENDA pased (maybe after 2010, if the Dems hold their numbers in Congress). That’s about it. The DOMA will certainly be left in place, although we may see some marginal tinkering toward fairness, maybe with the tax treatment of DP benefits as part of healthcare reform.
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:02 pm
“I had an aunt I wanted deported, and she wasn’t even an immigrant, legal or otherwise.”
There are some ants that a lot of the South (and other places) would love to see deported . . .
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:04 pm
We didn’t win the culture war when we are fighting the Drug War.
November 4th, 2008 at 5:55 am
Not only is Palin extreme, she reminds me of the nineties rock band Extreme. They were at least as talented, and no more or less fruity looking, than any other big hair metal band, but their biggest weakness was showing up late to the party. So their only hit was the cheesy ballad, “More than words,” and I guess this lame analogy makes Obama – Biden the next Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
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