>>2927397Something I don't see addressed when it comes to the culture war is how when each side gains brief cultural hegemony or dominance, people think the way to push back is going to "the other side", like that the issue people have with the excesses of
the present culturally dominant group are in fact because they are secretly part of the non-dominant group and not because those excesses are just that: excesses.
I think a lot of people link the present culture war to "muh GamerGate, muh SJWs" or whatever, but they forget that prior to that you had the evangelical culture war reach new heights in Dubya's first term. Like you had this contradiction in the late 90s and early 2000s that pop stars would dress as sluts, they'd be airheaded bimbos, but then they'd give some half-assed "Oh I'm actually saving my purity for marriage" nonsense. You had these psychotic displays of patriotism where Boomers were maxing out credit cards to buy Humvees because, bizarrely enough, ridiculous consumption convinced them they were contributing to the war effort.
Like if I remember right, Gay Marriage was originally used as a wedge issue
by Republicans. Because it was still unpopular enough for them to say, "Well you might not like us, but the Dems want to let two men get married!"
The idea of "blue haired social justice warriors" was a later invention that kind of coagulated toward the end of Obama 2. It was a misreading by liberals that they had way more power than they actually did. What helped things was that they just saw the entire cultural hegemony of right wingers collapse spectacularly with Bush and it seemed to just break the brains of conservatives. Like the Republican Party's autopsy after Romney lost in 2012 was just "we're too old, white, and racist and we have to change that". There's almost no greater assurance of your own hegemony than your opposition literally saying "well we have to be more like them and less like us."
The backlash against the excesses of liberal "social justice warriors" and the stunning victory of Trump did the same for Republicans what Obama's second term did for liberals, it convinced them "Oh the majority are on our side, they want more of what we're selling."
But the reality is neither side is actually "winning" the culture war, I'd argue most Americans are pretty socially libertarian. As soon as one side convinces itself it's "won" or is "winning" then they scare people away with ghoulish displays of their worst excesses. Like the Republican party is all Chuds and anti-social narcissists now, they can't even put the mask back on. So when some ICE douchebags murder a white woman in Minnesota the loudest voices on their side just keep screeching "BASED! BAAAAAAAAAAASED!"