Will conservatives kill the vibe shift?

In a recent column for The New York Times, Ezra Klein proclaims that Donald Trump and the MAGA movement have killed the “vibe shift.” The cultural momentum that conservatives gained post-pandemic, particularly in the last year of the Biden presidency, is gone, Klein writes. Trump’s hand-picked candidates have lost elections, and his own administration has lost the approval of the public.

Part of what Klein describes is political. Border security and American manufacturing are popular, while theatrical arrests of anonymous parents and aggressive-yet-unclear tariffs are not. In that regard, Klein argues that the second Trump administration has been incompetent when it comes to delivering what the public actually wants. That’s a reasonable point. But Klein also looks into the current state of the conservative movement and sees an imminent re-surrender of cultural territory.

“Offense can be refreshing when injected into conformity,” he writes. “But cruelty as the dominant culture repulses most people.” For Klein, the MAGA movement’s public relations failures could bring the backlash to the “Great Awokening” to an early demise.

Klein’s prediction here is realistic enough to merit careful thought. For one thing, it’s not really far-fetched; 2020 wasn’t that long ago, yet its values and vibes feel much further away. If one backlash is possible, why not another?

Conservatives need to reckon with this. What we call a “vibe shift” is often just the cumulative effects of real people doing the hard work of change: debate, persuasion, and maybe hardest of all, just taking a stand. To give one example, more people should appreciate the roles that J.K. Rowling and Riley Gaines have played in rolling back the tide of transgender ideology. The personal experience and activism so boldly offered by Gaines alone has highlighted for millions of Americans the absurdities of erasing sexual differences. Meanwhile, Rowling has been using her wealth and fame to say common sense things about gender since before 2020 and has paid a real price to do so.

This example helps illuminate how Klein’s warning about right-wing mismanagement of the vibe shift is both true and untrue.

First, he’s right, because cultural shifts are not just ambient temperature changes. They require people and movements. This is an important lesson for conservatives to keep in mind at this moment. Truthful, talented people can effect change, but dishonest, opportunistic people and movements can spoil it. Since Charlie Kirk’s murder, the right has been facing an urgent pressure test with regard to how accountable it can hold its own members to the same tests of truthfulness it applies to the left.

This was the point of Ben Shapiro’s fiery and utterly compelling address at the recent Turning Point USA conference. Shapiro’s proclamation that “there can be no victory without truth” is an indictment of “no enemies to the right,” an ideology that has given far too much cover to liars and mercenaries within the post-Kirk right. If conservatives either cannot or will not distinguish truth from tribe, they will enable figures who will gladly light their credibility on fire in exchange for clout. This will have a double effect: It will replace public critics of progressivism with attention merchants, and it will build a plausibility structure that leads back to wokeness.

But Klein is also wrong. He writes as if the “vibe shift” were merely an infatuation with nonconformity, one that might have served a purpose for a moment but is now clearly out of date. He’s correct that shock and offense have very limited usefulness. But he misses that the backlash to the Great Awokening was only a symptom of something deeper.

James Wood has described exiles of wokeness as “reality respecters.” These are people who have grown to reject the secular progressive project, and as a result, are open to spiritual narratives that make more sense of the world they live in. “It is plausible,” Wood writes, “that the defense of the natural order—such as the distinction between men and women, the given goodness of our bodies, or the need for common sense border enforcement and immigration policies—might make others more likely to hear our claims about supernatural realities.”

Stories like transgenderism or marriage-averse, child-free living are ringing false with a growing number of people. Why? Because the vibe shift has happened from the inside out. Progressive culture’s image of the good life has failed its buyers.

What Klein’s analysis misses is that the vibe shift is really a quest for a much deeper and more satisfying story about the world. Bible sales are up, not because Scripture helps “own the libs,” but because what it says about human nature agrees with reality. Signs of religious awakening on college campuses, often ground zero for liberal dogma, also exemplify this trend.

Klein ends his column hoping for a future of progressive Democrats who appeal to religiously sensitive voters. That may happen, but it will not be enough. Just as lip service to progressive ideology wasn’t enough to keep every media elite on the same page, so too lip service to Christianity won’t be enough for those who just want to baptize a secular worldview.

Conservatives have the next few years laid out plainly in front of them. There is rich opportunity to counter the narratives of secular progressivism, take advantage of its broken promises, and persuade its exiles that the answers and healing they seek is found in Christian truth. It’s an opportunity that could be wasted if we value the wrong things. But make no mistake: It’s much deeper than a party or a president. These vibes won’t just go away.