Who's Responsible for the Culture War?

One of the aspects of our modern politics that's particularly galling is the brazen dishonesty of the political class. President Trump's tenuous connection to the truth was well-documented, but those on the left are equally as bad, if not worse.

For more than three years the progressives lied to us about the Russian collusion business. More recently, Democratic spokespersons have, with a straight face, told us that it's not Democrats who want to defund the police, it's Republicans. Truth is often MIA in the culture war.

Speaking of the culture war, another mendacity that the left often foists upon us is that conservatives are the aggressors in the contemporary culture war, and that it's the political right which is responsible for the polarization of our politics and culture. This is so obviously absurd that it'd be funny were it not so serious.

The fact is that the left has for almost a century been seeking to tear down virtually every institution and value that have traditionally glued our diverse society together. The left has relentlessly attacked the family, the church, law enforcement, the military, our educational system, our economic system, our history, our traditional understanding of sexuality - almost everything one can think of - while conservatives have been waging a defensive struggle, trying to preserve what's good against the leftist onslaught.

Nevertheless, as soon as conservatives resist the left's assaults on our institutions and moral values, their opponents accuse them of being the aggressors in the culture war. Conservatives find themselves in the position of a man being repeatedly slapped in the face who puts his hands up to fend off the blows and is thus accused of being provocative, hostile and aggressive.

A good example of this is the left's response to conservative parents who protest against their children's schools for teaching their students that they're racists and ladening them with guilt for being white. The left professes dismay that parents would resist teachers inculcating Critical Race Theory and its racist offshoots in their classrooms, and it's the parents who are called racists for opposing this supposedly "antiracist" indoctrination.

Kevin Drum, himself a progressive, has a helpful set of graphs at his website which show quite clearly that our contemporary polarization is a result, not of conservatives moving further to the right, but of Democrats moving further to the left.

Drum analyzes six issues that divide progressives and conservatives, five of which might be considered cultural and one economic, and finds that on each issue Democrats have moved leftward in far greater numbers than Republicans have moved toward the right. For example, on immigration he notes that:

The Republican view of immigrants has bounced up and down a bit and is now up by maybe five points or so since 2000. The Democratic view has gone up by 35 percentage points.

(Note that by "up" I mean that the percentage share of partisans who hold the conventional partisan opinion has gone up. For Republicans, it means the share of Republicans who endorse the right-wing position has gone up. For Democrats it means the share of Democrats who endorse the left-wing position has gone up.)

In other words, Republicans (which should not be confused with conservatives, but which may serve as a stand-in for the purposes of this illustration) have become slightly more opposed to immigration over the last two decades than they were in 2000 whereas Democrats (liberals and progressives) have become more amenable to immigration by 35 percentage points.

On abortion the numbers are similar:

Among Republicans, the most extreme view on abortion (always illegal) has gone up by about two points since 2000. Among Democrats, the most extreme view (always legal) has gone up by 20 points.

On same sex marriage:

Democratic support for same sex marriage is up 50 points. Republican support is down 39 points (that is, they've moved 39 points away from the conservative position).

Republicans have become much more "liberal" on this issue but nearly as liberal as Democrats have.

On guns:

Among Republicans, the conservative point of view has gone up about 10 points. Among Democrats, the liberal point of view has increased by about 20 points.

On taxes:

The Republican view of taxes has gone down about ten points (probably due to the Bush tax cuts). The Democratic view of taxes has gone up by about 20 points.

Again, Republicans have moved somewhat toward the liberal position on taxes (high tax rates), but Democrats have moved in even greater numbers toward that position.

On religion:

Among Republicans, religiosity hasn't changed at all. Among Democrats, it's gone down by nearly 15 points.

Check out Drum's website to see his actual graphs.

The point that Drum is making is that the polarization we see in our politics and the aggressiveness we see in our cultural conflicts in general is largely a result of more Democrats moving further to the left while conservatives (Republicans) remain for the most part where they've always been. Although in some cases Republicans have moved a bit leftward, there's no case in which Democrats have move toward the right.