Culture Wars
While you were arguing about bathroom signs and coffee cup designs, somebody rewrote the tax code.
Culture wars are battles over identity, values, and symbols — gender, race, religion, tradition — that consume enormous public attention while structural and economic issues go largely undiscussed. They feel urgent because they touch on who you are, not just what you think. That's exactly why they work so well as a distraction.
This doesn't mean these issues are unimportant. Questions of identity and rights matter deeply to the people living them. The manipulation is in the ratio — the amount of airtime, outrage, and political energy devoted to cultural flashpoints compared to the near-silence around issues like wealth concentration, labour rights, or corporate regulation. One set of issues gets you fired up and sharing posts. The other set gets handled quietly in committee rooms.
Culture wars also serve a sorting function. Once you've taken a side on enough cultural markers, you stop being a citizen evaluating policy and become a member of a tribe defending territory. Your political identity fuses with your personal identity, and any attack on your party's position feels like an attack on you.
The next time a cultural issue dominates the news cycle, don't just react to it. Ask what else happened that week that nobody talked about.
References
- Thomas Frank — What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004)
- Chris Hedges — Death of the Liberal Class (2010)
- Finkel et al. — Political Sectarianism in America (2020)