How Trump helped lose the culture war

It’s strange though, how few people are aware of something as large and powerful and deeply rooted as what critical theory has become. It’s probably one of the largest religions in America by now. It has made enormous inroads with Democrats. There are a few holdouts on the fringe. Some old school democrats, labor dems, classical liberals. On the right, a lot of the educated women were (justifiably) shocked and alienated by Trump. That opened a wedge for a different moral narrative to make inroads and start to move them away from their positions. Critical theory has done that very effectively, thanks to book clubs and social media. Women like to read, and they like causes, and they like to share things, and they like to share caring about things. So lately the reading list for a lot of college educated (formerly conservative) women has looked like the reading list for the critical theory classes at a liberal university.

Conservative men don’t seem to be aa amenable to critical theory or postmodernism, but I believe that they’ve still been affected and infected by a lot of the perspectives and tactics of the postmodernists. Having had various tactics used on them, they’re eager to return the favor and wield the same weapons. And Trump certainly hasn’t helped set the tone for a thoughtful and reasoned discussion of anything.

Maybe it would have happened slowly of its own accord, thanks to the gradual cultural diffusion that shapes social norms. But I think the advancement of postmodernism into the youth and into Christianity, particular among women, was hastened by two historical events. First, the introduction of the smartphone. That just changed everything, our whole network of experience. Second, the election of Trump.

For all that conservatives and even some liberals have praised Trump as a defense against the advance of postmodernism and critical theory, I maintain that my original prediction about his term has, in fact, come true. Trump is flashy and belligerent and confrontational, but that’s just not how you actually win the culture war. You win through persuasion, through getting people to understand and appreciate the best version of your position. And Trump consistently serves up the worst, most shallow and thoughtless version of everything, even the good stuff. His election represented a betrayal for many people, a betrayal of principle, an unforgivable compromise. And the way he has warped government and his party to his personal use has been disgusting.

So I blame Trump for the loss of a lot of the best conservatives. Educated, high-conscience women that we really needed, that formed a compassionate and approachable backbone that helped balance out some of the more disagreeable and thoughtless elements in the party. Also he drove out or drove into hiding and retirement many of the true ideological conservatives, the people more loyal to the ideas and values of the party than to the party, who knew what they believed in and wouldn’t compromise. Trump wanted to be the conservative party, so he didn’t want competition from anyone or anything that demanded that it was something other than loyalty to him. Those people, men and women, haven’t joined the democrats, generally, and are very unlikely to embrace critical theory even if they do. But they’ve been disenfranchised and lost their party platform. I fall into that group myself.

For me, though, the loss of those educated, conscientious women is what really hurts. And it’s not clear whether we’ll ever really get them back. Trump drove the most important parts of the party out of it, in my opinion. And right into the waiting arms of critical theory. And I will never forgive him for that. Ever.

On the upside, the craziness of critical theory has started pushing some liberal democrats out of an increasingly authoritarian democratic party. They’re looking askance at their own lines now and wondering if maybe it’s worth taking another look at some brand of conservatism. And if Trump weren’t so crazy and hard to swallow, it would probably be an easier move for them to make. And he often forces them to compromise themselves to cross over. I can forgive Trump for that, I suppose. But I still regret it. Frankly, we desperately need to lose Trump, to lose this battle, to win the fight against critical theory and postmodernism. We need adults, not children. He’s pushing away our best people. He’s putting forward the worst version of the party’s platform (when he bothers to put it forward at all). He’s distracting. He’s disruptive. He’s incompetent. He’s a bad manager. And you can’t win a culture war with a general whose only real goal is his own advancement and who has no real investment in anything else (or the skill to follow through even if he did). He’s a sideshow. It’s like hanging on to a bad boyfriend because you can’t stand the thought of being back at square one. You’ve invested so much in him, you need him to be what you wish he was. But the more time you spend chasing that dead end, the more time you waste that could be devoted to finding better people and fighting the real fight.

Not that I enjoy the concept of the “culture war”. I happen to believe that the only way to win is to redeem the parties into the best versions of themselves and get them to work together. The democratic party right now is sick with critical theory. It needs a doctor to remove the ideological pathogen. And the republican party is sick with the cancer of Trump, who has spread his useless tissues all throughout the structure, making it less and less able to function. I’m not sure how to inoculate for critical theory yet. That a long term struggle, one that’s been gestating a long time and will take a long time to resolve. But Trump is at least discrete. He rose to where he is quite recently and quite surprisingly. And he can be got rid of (hopefully) by just voting him out. No doubt the long-term effects of him will last for quite a while, but at least we can send the man back to his golf courses and golden toilets.

So that’s my position. We need to lose this battle to win the war. I don’t think Trump is actually a help, in fact I think he’s making the war less winnable in the long run. That’s the problem of an incompetent and self-serving leader. They don’t actually advance the causes you hope for, they just make a show of it and make you feel like you need them while fomenting division and drama that actually provokes and exacerbates the problem (making them seem even more necessary). He’s a hustler.

Trump is hopefully just an awful enigma and a lesson learned. A failed tactic. And failed it has. In the real battle to win hearts and minds and redeem the parties toward the best and most reasonable and functional and healthy and balanced and upright versions of themselves, Trump has done far more than anyone I can think of to worsen the situation for everyone. So let us hope to God we can learn our lesson and make better choices in the future. The real struggle of our time isn’t to protect or defend or support Trump. Selling that vision is half of what was wrong with him. The real long-term struggle of our time is with postmodernism’s challenge to the whole project of liberal democracy. And that will require wisdom and courage, and wiser and better leaders who won’t put their own needs and desires ahead of their country.