Cultural fights are political opportunities

As the nation navigates the current election cycle, Democratic political operatives are beginning to sound the alarm that the Republicans’ focus on cultural issues is making significant headway politically. According to Politico, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is warning its incumbent members that issues such as critical race theory, open border policies, and efforts to defund the police are “alarmingly potent” and therefore must be confronted vigorously. The potency of these issues is not surprising, particularly in the aftermath of Republican Glenn Youngkin’s gubernatorial victory in the blue state of Virginia last fall, in a campaign where there was so much focus on CRT and parental involvement in school curriculum. However, what is ironic is that this conclusion runs counter to the deeply held political beliefs of the Republican Party campaign class that has broadly sought to run away from cultural issues for decades.

These strategists often instruct conservatives to focus only on the “kitchen table” or “pocketbook” issues that presumably attract independent voters—issues like lower taxes, homeownership, lower gas prices, and healthcare. They warn against engaging on “divisive” issues such as abortion, religious liberty, or the transgender contagion spreading among today’s young people. They look back in horror at Pat Buchanan’s speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention that reminded the party that the country was in the midst of “a culture war" that was "critical to the kind of nation we shall be … for this war is for the soul of America.” And they do everything they can to shape the agenda-setting process to fight on anything but these issues.

Before the rise of Donald Trump, the GOP scrupulously “managed” the fights away from cultural controversies or were dragged to the fight over the party’s objections. As an example, recall the events in 2015 when the country was exposed to the evil of Planned Parenthood’s selling aborted baby body parts off a menu to the medical community and boasting about it over dinner. The makings of a titanic moral struggle to stop the nation’s largest abortion provider from receiving taxpayer dollars was managed into a cul-de-sac of ineffectual investigations and hearings, and the funding continues to this day.

Why is this? First and foremost, cultural issues tend to be “cartel-busting.” In the same manner that a group of businessmen collude together to trade profit for market stability, the best way to understand the modus operandi of Republican Party elites is to think of them as a political cartel. They routinely cede political and policy gains to maintain the stability of the status quo. Cultural issues are a threat to that approach because they present the risk of their rank and file making a message error when the battle rages hottest against progressive issues, bringing disrepute upon the entire party. But primarily, the elites risk losing their tight grip on the power to manage fights and how they unfold. Cultural issues thus threaten the cartel’s center of gravity fundamentally. When you marry the perceived risk involved with the reality that many of these same Republicans—often of the Chamber of Commerce variety—either simply do not care about these issues or silently share progressive views on them, you have a recipe for endless inaction to the great frustration of the party’s voters.

The realignment that is now occurring within the Republican Party is forced by an insistence that cultural issues be foremost on the agenda, and it will create a profound tension until the party elites decide to demonstrate real leadership that is oriented toward results on these issues. Successive events—President Trump’s electoral improvement with black and Hispanic communities, Glenn Youngkin’s victory in Virginia, and, most recently, the recall of three school board members in liberal San Francisco—are dismantling the tired political consensus that cultural issues are political losers. There is a significant political opportunity to be grasped if this realignment occurs, as ordinary Americans across the country thirst for a movement willing to keep their families, their schools, and their communities secure from the overreaches of the progressive, secular left. And for Christians seeking to bless their nation through participation in the political process, an unapologetic concentration on cultural issues as a priority can only come as good news.