The War On Culture.
Donald Trump Is Waging War On Culture, But This Is Nothing New For Republicans.
“Right-wing populism is the herpes of capitalism.”
-Bill Fletcher Jr.
This quote, while comedic, also rings oddly true.
In essence, it means populism on the right is formed under the stress or strain of the economic system its propping up, similarly to how herpes can be triggered. Thus its critiques of the system will never be economical, but cultural.
This is the basis for the Republican war on culture.
They can’t speak to how the corporate class can be found at the root of all your problems, so instead they point you to the immigrants or things like DEI.
Think of it like this.
If you are convinced the issue is the other starving group, who happen to look or speak differently than you, you guys won’t team up on the ones hoarding all the food. The simplest way to achieve this? Keep the population ignorant on racial or cultural issues.
Hence again, the Republican war on culture.
Or as it’s been re-branded to under Donald Trump, “wokeness.” Which is just used as a catch-all term for any cultural thing Republicans don’t like.
Gender? Woke. Racism? Woke. Climate Change? Woke.
Oh you think immigrants are humans? Woke.
You believe women should vote? Woke.
Through this you can see the issue when Trump begins threatening to withhold funding from agencies indulging in “woke” practices as; he could mean literally anything.
Take for instance Trump’s executive order “Combating Anti-Semitism.” Which should be noted is a very pertinent issue in America, and should very well be targeted.
The issue is the only thing the order does is give power to agencies to deport pro-Palestinian protesters who are on student-visas. Which takes a constitutionally protected form of speech from an entire culture in this country.
Instead forcing silence and compliance as anything else risks you being deported without breaking any laws.
Or his new action on “Patriotic Education.” Which instructs schools to prohibit teachings of things like “unconscious bias” or “white privilege.” It also brings back the “1776 Commission.”
A commission Trump first created in 2020, made up of 20 or less conservative activists, of whom none are actual historians, but that weigh in on how history should be taught in this country.
Their positions include defending slavery, downplaying America’s role in it, and attacking civil-rights legislation.
The sole report they released before being disbanded by Joe Biden plagiarizes multiple conservative writers throughout while also claiming it's actually African-Americans receiving preferential treatment in this country.
Through this, mixed with his overturning of anti-discrimination measures in federal employment, or with his crackdown on diversity practices he is extending to the private sector, we can see how this battle on diversity is targeted specifically on the education and normalization of diverse cultures.
It is to keep in place the hierarchy that is inherent in any social construct, especially race, where white supremacy will always remain on top. Which race is important there, rather than ethnicity. As this is where Republicans want your understanding of culture to end.
There is a lot of overlap between the two, but where ethnicity is more cultural, historical, or ancestral, race is more social and physical. Race is also a lot more simple, and easier to generalize among subgroups of culture, which makes downplaying structural issues regarding them easier as well.
Take for instance Haitians. If you consider them in the racial sense in America they would be Black. This would be easier to look at them and say,
“There is no laws enabling discrimination based on your physical appearance, so structural racism isn’t a problem.”
This would still be incorrect, but it’s a much easier sell than dealing with cultural applications.
Where a Haitian may have to deal with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) discrimination due to their Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in a way a Moroccan black person born in New York couldn't understand. Or maybe a job discriminates against them just off the possibility of having to deal with this kind of thing.
The other side of this is by not educating on structural discrimination cultures still face not just in this country, but even in their own countries from this country, it makes it easier to write off their issues as something inherent to the culture.
The whole ordeal with the “eating pets” lie in Ohio is great representation of this, where there’s endless downstream effects that are culturally specific.
The overarching point is that most modes of discrimination, especially structural, focus on culture or ethnicity rather than race. This is again why conservatives want to keep you uneducated from this nuance.
As if you view them deporting Arab, pro-Palestinian protesters as anything but an act of discrimination, because brown people can still work the same jobs as white people, rather than blatant discrimination against a cultural group in this country, then they’re always one step ahead.