On Culture War

Its about the constitution

Washington DC 15 FEB 2025

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Introduction

This started as a footnote to another article. I think it is worth a stand-alone article to quickly explain what I see as a blind spot in pro-constitution advocacy. The left keeps falling into the culture war trap and it needs to get out of it if it wants to be elected again. This assumes of course that America will have free and fair elections again - not elections like they have in Russia that I fear are in our immediate future.

The Constitution is the ultimate DEI document

The foundational idea of America is equality. The Declaration of Independence declares ‘all men are created equal'. The Constitution is the legal guarantee of that equality. By definition, it is the ultimate DEI document.

The US Constitution provides mechanisms to preserve (courts) and expand (legislature) rights. The founders designed America as a political community founded on collaboration, shared interests, and a commitment to the common good. A society in which all members share in the benefits and responsibilities of citizenship. The idea of a ‘common-weath’ provides a bridge between individualism and citizenship.

The idea of America sounds great, but its legal realization will always be a work in progress. The category of those considered ‘created equal' has expanded over time as a result of civil rights struggles. To the ‘men’ in the declaration were added women, then slaves, then gays and so on.

Culture War

Culture war is a clever propaganda trick used by those who want to destroy the constitution. Rather than directly attack the general ideas in the constitution, anti-constiutionalists bait their enemy to argue individual particular cases way past their logical or socially acceptable extremes.

So rather than directly attack freedom and equality, they look for norm-busting and socially-awkward particular cases - the freakier the better - and attack them.

Pro-constiutuonal forces should respond by simply quoting the key ideas in the declaration and constitution. They speak for themselves. The moral authority of the constitution is absolute. Alternatively, they could engage in the reverse argument by forcing the extremists to identify and justify who should be excluded from citizenship. A thin edge of the wedge argument then stops that line of discussion cold.

Instead, they all too often take the bait and find themselves having to defend things that mainstream America views as extreme. This is propaganda gold for the enemies of the constitution.

Trans is the new black

Historically, black Americans were the scapegoat. Direct attacks on blacks simply for being black has finally become less acceptable. So new, easier, targets have been identified. Today the primary targets in contemporary culture war have shifted from ethnic minorities to fringe alternative lifestyles. Accordingly, ‘Trans is the new black'.

Rather than respond to the scapegoating of powerless groups by constantly repeating that “all people are created equal” and all peoples rights are just as protected under the law as anyone elses, pro-constitution advocates find themselves defending the most extreme and fringe examples culture warriors on the other side can find. As they should. All people should be defended.

Therein lies the trick. Scapegoating is easy. Defending against it is hard. It is easy to point to fringe alternative lifestyles and blame them for all the world's ills. Defending individual and particular extreme cases plays into the hands of those who want to destroy the constitution. At that point it is far too easy to present defenders of the constitution as abnormal, aberant, perverts and freaks. How many times have you seen the argument for same sex marriage extended to human-animal marriage as proof that same sex marriage is an aberration. The “groomer scare” is the new acceptable way of attacking homosexuality. “DEI” is obviously code for the N-word.

Identity politik

The left is justifiably proud of extending dejure citizenship to marginalized and exploited groups. However, this has transformed into an obsession with identity. That obsession has cost them elections. In her “Im-with-Her” campaigns, Hillary Clinton could never shut up about the value she attached to herself as a gender-busting glass-ceiling crushing hero. Instead, she should have set that to one side, and never shut up about how she would make mainstream America safer, stronger and wealthier.

Kamala Harris learned the identity lesson. She never took that bait. She focused like a laser on how she would do practical things to make everyone's lives better. Her overt patriotism and plans for a strong and respected America were on message. These were not the reasons she did not make it over the line. The endless trans-scare ads in marginal electorates sealed the deal. Along with the price of eggs. Perhaps more effort should have also been put into exposing the Trump Terror Network as a threat to the constitution and the world?

Transgression

In practice, as new groups have been accepted into the citizenry, and granted the full protections of the constitution, instead of reaching out to help others up, they have, on occasion, kick down. This explains 'Blacks for Trump' and the ‘red wave' in the Hispanic vote.

Equally, these groups have been taken for granted by the left for far too long. So they sent a message. The irony of maga being a white supremist movement that openly promised to deport Hispanics didn't matter to these groups anywhere near as much as giving them a platform for looking down on someone else the way others had looked down on them. So some of them became black nazis (for example) and hated 'trans' and ‘groomers’. Blacks and hispanics also simply did not like the idea of a woman president. That's a cultural reality in those communities that needs to be honestly addressed.

Transgression is a release from boring normalcy. It ties into the thesis that maga does not love Trump for what he does for them but what he does to others. The cruelty is the point. Maga feel so aggrieved they want to hurt others. They dont care if hurting others imposes costs on their own lives. It is ok to have $15 eggs and $400 insulin, so long as they have the street theatre of “illegals” being rounded up by Kristy Gnome in a cowboy Sheriff costume one moment and as an over-botoxed member of SEAL Team VI another.

Transgressor maga members willingly pay higher prices to watch the suffering of others. Its class war revenge porn. The irony is they dont know what class is in political terms, and so they dont understand that fundamentally they are fighting themselves. They are not fighting the ones actually exploiting them - the billionaire elite. In addition to voing against their interests (see costs above) they can't imagine that higher costs and violence of the system will come for them eventually. But it will. It always does.

Eroding the Base

One possible chink in magas armor is they are not reaching out to any factions in any of the government departments they are shredding. The FBI is an institution that has a strong authority bias. This is a psychological bias where people are excessively deferential to authority figures. So Trump has a natural advantage inside that agency.

The problem is he wants to clear house of anyone involved in his cases and those of his terror network. He does not seem to understand that many of his FBI supporters and those leaning torward him within the Agency had no choice but to conduct those investigations. By firing everyone, he is alienating his FBI base and providing reasons for anti-maga FBI to work hard against his agenda. The same applies to all the other agencies he will need on side in order to get away with his unfolding crime sprees.

If they all realise that the system will eventually come for them as well, they maybe motivated to stop him before he passes the point of no return. Look at the DOD in particular in this regard.

Conclusion

It is possible to protect minority groups and the constitution at the same time. The smart play is to prioritize the political messaging to play to the middle. Make it about the ideas that protect us all. Not about any particular person or event. If that means walking back the extreme elements of identity politics then a decision has to be made. Power or principle? With power, principle can be delivered for all. Without power, against a totalitarian dictatorship, all the principle in the world will only add up to a favorable obituary in an underground newspaper.