It was a fun little cultural narrative while it lasted, but the time has come to retire the charge that the political right represents the instigation and perpetuation of the "culture wars." Even though the premise of the argument never made any sense, it still provided hours of material for hostile mainstream media outlets to harass and belittle socially-conscious Christians.
The label "conservative" itself invites the understanding that one is seeking to conserve, not revolutionize. A man dedicated to preserving tradition intrinsically finds himself in a position of defense, not aggression. Indeed, the rare areas where conservatives have been on "offense" these last several decades, say like abortion, it is always an attempt to win back what progressives already overran.
It is, and has always been, the nature of progressive revolutionaries to wage war on society's conventions, standards, and mores. They are the ones who have attacked the status quo on life, marriage, gender, sexuality, and all the other issues we consider part of our social fabric. They are the ones that have made conformity to their causes a prerequisite to avoid moral dismissal and ideological cancellation. They are the revolutionaries who can't see past their social agenda.
Take the Governor of California, progressive champion Gavin Newsom. Fresh off his recall election triumph, Newsom is facing a procession of statewide crises. Crime is spiraling out of control, the supply lines of commerce that run through his state's ports are more than clogged, water restrictions are now threatening California's businesses, COVID policies have strangled the business climate, and defecation in city streets, a crippling tax burden, a burgeoning debt, and worker burnout are all plaguing the Golden State.
But what is Governor Newsom directing his energies towards?
Who are the culture warriors again? Nothing is sacred, no part of society is spared from their revolutionary sword of progressivism. Not even comic books.
Yet apparently, to hear the media tell it, conservatives are extreme for wanting to prevent a 6-month-old baby girl in the womb from having her heart injected with chemicals used for death row executions. They are the real radicals, while the people writing comics about Superman transitioning into a pansexual while crying with AOC at the U.S./Mexico border are just the mainstream heartbeat of America.
Even when they push policies that result in this:
What are conservatives supposed to do in the face of that? Remain silent and abide it? When fascists are on the march, attempting to impose their corrupt will on the masses in such perverse ways that children are being irreparably harmed, good people have no choice but to resist. If that opens us up to criticism that we are "culture warriors," so be it.
It's preferable to the moral cowards we'd be if we didn't.
