Intraconservative fights have, in the past, been over whether we should fight a culture war rather than sticking to issues such as taxes, spending, and foreign policy. Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, whom I generally liked, tried to suggest a “truce” in the culture wars — whatever that might mean.
These days, conservatives’ intramural culture war debate is different. Instead of asking whether to fight the culture war, we’re asking which culture war to fight. Are we going to fight a culture war about how bad Hollywood celebrities are, how awesome a few Hollywood celebrities and athletes are, and how a philandering reality TV host just OWNED a bloviating cable news host?
Or are we going to fight to overturn Roe v. Wade, stop the march of toxic gender ideologies that result in child exploitation, and protect religious liberty in legislation and in the courts?
Are we going to fight for the gamer-gaters or for the unborn? Are we going to pose with AR-15s and Bibles to trigger a lib, or are we going to fight our school board to protect our children from racist brainwashing?
If the Right is going to win anything in the culture war, it’s going to have to pick its battles. I don’t mean we should stay away from difficult matters like transgender issues. I mean, we should stay away from stupid fights over Mr. Potato Head. That’s not because we may lose or get mocked for fighting them but because winning such fights isn’t that much better than losing them.
Also, we need to save ammo to make more friends. Matthew Walther put it well a year ago: “I do not wish to cheapen, for example, my opposition to abortion by making it synonymous with the hypothetical rights of gamers to enjoy unproblematized (as their opponents might put it) depictions of violence against women on their XBoxes. Yet this is precisely what seems to be happening.”
Walther, like me, is concerned about improving our culture. If instead, you’re concerned about getting attention, making money, or simply satisfying your urge to crush the other side, you’ll opt for a dumber culture war. And right now, I believe that a lot of the Right is choosing the dumber fight.
Pro-life advocate Allison Centofante has shown how CPAC is fighting the superficial, lib-owning culture war while dodging the fight to create a culture of life and defend tradition and faith and family. Read her thread on CPAC:
Not fighting the culture war isn’t a choice. It’s coming for us one way or another. We need to deploy our regiments to defend faith, family, and community — not to OWN Mark Ruffalo.
