Conservatives are winning the culture war (for now)

The American press and progressives like to refer to conservatives as “culture warriors,” but the label ignores the fact that conservatives did not start the fight. All we have done is refuse the “progress” the left offers on sexuality and social justice. Daring to dig in our heels has made us warriors, and the press frames it as a fight against progress. Despite framing conservatives as “against” their better future, the left is losing, and we are winning.

The press has a strange habit. The media labels social conservatives as “anti-abortion,” “anti-trans,” and “anti-gay.” We are always shown as being against something, as opposed to being for life, for science, and for progress. Notwithstanding media framing, polling shows conservatives are winning as liberals go even farther left. For example, according to Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican-leaning research company that also helps produce NBC News’ public opinion polling, a majority of Democrats support what liberals labeled as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed into law in Florida.

The legislation, which was actually titled the Parental Rights in Education bill, requires parents to be notified if a school assists a student in transitioning to his or her non-biological gender and prohibits teaching about sex in kindergarten through the third grade. One could argue that the law does not go far enough and should prohibit such teaching through high school.

Progressives have attacked the law, claiming it would ban the use of the word “gay” in classrooms. Hollywood activists and Disney employees have protested. Two announcers at ESPN, which refused to discuss the NBA and China because it was a political topic, had an on-air moment of silence to protest Florida’s law. But a majority of self-described Democrats in Florida support the law even as the state’s Democratic Party has stridently opposed the measure.

The discourse in the news media outside of Fox News has largely been negative, but that negativity has not persuaded Americans to oppose the law. This comes after Lia Thomas defeated an Olympic medalist in an NCAA swim competition. Thomas is the transgender swimmer for the University of Pennsylvania who had a lackluster career as a male collegiate swimmer before undergoing a regime of hormone suppressants to compete as a female. Several of his teammates on the women’s team complain that Thomas still has his male sexual anatomy and makes them feel uncomfortable undressing with him in the locker room—but his coach likes a winner.

Progressives have overplayed their hand on all these issues. They reside in a distinctly secular, urban bubble. In that bubble, they reside with much of the major American press and cultural institutions. From Hollywood to academia, few voices remain who can tell progressives and, with them, the Democratic Party, that they are out of touch with American opinion.

With the election of Barack Obama as president, progressives decided the country had drifted left on cultural issues. Though it took the U.S. Supreme Court to force same-sex marriage onto the nation, there has been no real effort to push back against the decision. Progressives assumed the country was ready to move farther left. Perhaps, but not at the expense of basic science and our children.

Sadly, we see calls to surrender on cultural issues as a common theme among a certain set of Republicans in what, before Donald Trump, had been known as the establishment. Those more “moderate” Republicans might now be best described as a counterinsurgency bent on a restoration of “respectable” Republicanism. They are the kinds of candidates and spinmeisters who speak publicly about being pro-life and for girls in girls’ sports but do not want to ever actually do anything serious to stop the insanity. They are the types of Republicans who railed against Planned Parenthood while voting reliably for budgets that funded the nation’s largest abortion provider.

As the Supreme Court considers the Dobbs case that could end Roe v. Wade, some of these Republicans fret that actually ending Roe could hurt the GOP by inciting the Democratic base. So? It is the right thing to do. Regardless, however, right now, Republicans are winning on these issues. The Democrats, with a collapsing economy, abortion extremism, and a greater focus on putting boys in girls’ locker rooms and indoctrinating children on sex and race, are turning off voters. Republicans may overplay their hand with shrill rhetoric and by neglecting pocketbook issues. But for now, the GOP is winning the cultural fight as Democrats, from within their own isolated bubble, think “birthing person” is a normal thing to say.