Has The Right Won the Culture War?

It's a legitimate question.

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

Back in the late summer of 2020 I participated in an extremely civil Pairagraph debate with Cathy Young on the question: “Is Left-Wing Illiberalism the Greatest Threat to American Democracy?”¹ Neither Young nor I are/were fans of rising illiberal trends in American life, but we disagreed about the source of the greater threat. I argued that the biggest concern emanated from the Trump administration; Young argued it was coming from the cancel culture of the left.

The animating force of Young’s thesis was that the illiberal left had assumed positions of power in what heretofore were thought of as either nonpolitical or small-l “liberal” institutions such as higher education, entertainment, and the broadsheet media. Because the left was rising in power in the dominant cultural institutions of the country, for Young it represented the greater threat. As she wrote in her initial argument: “True, the social justice activists have no political power (not nationally, anyway). But their cultural influence—not only in academia but in the media, in K-12 schooling, in art, publishing, nonprofits, even corporations—can hardly be overstated.” In her response essay she explained, “the Tucker Carlsons and the Jack Posobiecs can get away with things one-tenth of which would get you ‘canceled’ forever on the other side of the fence. But there is little doubt, I think, about which of these two worlds is culturally dominant today.”

I’m dredging up this debate not in the interest of self-promotion [For once!!—eds.] or in the interest of score-settling but to question Young’s premise again a half-decade later. Because as of January 2025 I am no longer certain which of these two worlds is culturally dominant.

Just to be clear — I am genuinely uncertain. That question mark in the headline is for real. I have a hunch that I’ll get to in a second, but it’s just a hunch, there needs to be further cogitation on it. But here is why I’m asking this question:

As 2025 begins, the right is poised to control all the major organs of the federal government: the executive branch, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court.² A core element of Trump’s second-term agenda will be to purge the bureaucracy of civil servants who might prioritize adherence to the rule of law or administrative procedures over Trump’s mercurial whims. When Trump rants about protecting Americans from “inside violent SCUM that has infiltrated all aspects of our government, and our Nation itself,” he is talking about everyone who does not agree with him. So in the short run, at least, the first half of the truism remains true.

What has changed, however, is the erosion of the left’s cultural dominance. In my debate with Young I questioned whether this was true in 2020. In 2025 it really seems worth questioning. Consider the following:

• Despite Bluesky’s juice, the fact remains that Elon Musk controls Xitter, a social media site that is still considerably larger. In 2020 Young described Twitter as captured by the left; I think it’s safe to say this description no longer holds.³ Meanwhile, tech moguls like Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman and Jeff Bezos have cozied up to Trump in recent months, part of what Michelle Goldberg dubbed “The Great Capitulation.” That has not stopped Trump’s incoming administration from threatening to go after social media sites deemed unfriendly to MAGA folks.

• Basketball is widely viewed as the most progressive sport. At the start of the 2024-25 NBA season, however, a lot of concern was voiced about declining ratings, though these seem to have been exaggerated.⁴ At the same time, the New York Times observes that Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has gained more popularity over the last five years than any other and that, “[UFC Chief Executive Dana White’s] longtime friendship with President-elect Donald J. Trump has transformed what once was a fringe sport into a culture and political powerhouse.”

• In higher education, readers might be aware that it’s been a challenging few years. Both conservative donors and conservative politicians have taken university leadership to task for — honestly, at this point I think it’s not engaging in more censorship of unpopular student opinions? The point is, universities have responded by cooperating more with law enforcement, taking aggressive action against some student journalism, and enhancing surveillance of protesting students. The result was a marked decline in student protests this past fall. At the same time surveys demonstrate increasing conservative skepticism about the utility of a college education. The result has been a massive turnover in university leadership and a proliferation of weak, temporary leaders with minimal national profiles or influence.

• The shifts in mainstream media consumption are also apparent. We know since the election that CNN and MSNBC ratings have plummeted while Fox News’ ratings have actually gone up. While the former trend is a predictable one after a presidential election, the latter is unusual. More generally, one can question whether nonpartisan cable news and broadsheet media are now the agenda-setters when it comes to news consumption. Semafor’s end-of-year media confessionals are shot through with prominent media folks acknowledging that the cultural landscape seems to have shifted rightward.

• Finally, as for corporate power, the past few years have seen a political and consumer backlash to a variety of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices among top multinationals. As I noted 18 months ago, “[conservatives] have succeeded in the more postmodern task of turning ESG into a partisan political football akin to critical race theory (CRT). Republicans have been fond of spotting CRT where it does not exist, thereby forcing school districts and universities to engage in what amounts to a de-risking project designed to reduce CRT’s profile.” Since then, ESG markets have shrunk due to capital outflows. This is for multiple reasons, but as one recent analysis noted, “with a political bullseye and fickle consumer support for ESG investments and corporate policies, maybe ESG has simply become too costly a strategy to pursue.”

So you will all excuse me if I wonder whether, over the last five years, the cultural ground has shifted dramatically to the right.

Now, full disclosure: I do not think it has shifted as far to the right as the bullet points above suggest. What I actually think is going on is an acceleration of Ideas Industry trends in which the erosion of trust in authority,⁵ rising political polarization, and growth in plutocratic power have further weakened traditional cultural gatekeepers. Last month Axios’ Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen concluded, “We used to get most of our information from ‘the news.’ Now, the information in our life pours in from a host of random inputs: a podcast ... someone tweeting ... a Substack ... a snippet of video — the sum of all the noise in our day and on our phone…. Our new information cascade is easier to manipulate than the traditional sources of rigorous reporting we all grew up on.” While it might be tempting to dismiss this as Axios twaddle, they’re not alone in reaching that conclusion.

A more fragmented cultural landscape is a relative win for less empowered cultural interests on the revanchist right and a relative loss for those interests with a stake in institutional prestige. This does not mean the right is now culturally ascendant, but it does mean that neither progressive nor “nonpartisan” elites possess the cultural cachet they did even a half-decade ago.

But again, this is a hunch. I am not sure. And the implications of the actual answer are worth considering. For decades it has been a truism in social commentary that the right has been the dominant political force while the left has been the dominant cultural force. The concurrent irony has been that both sides would prefer the other’s sinecure, because conservatives believe that politics is downstream of culture while progressives believe the opposite to be true.

I am no longer certain whether this truism still holds. And if it turns out the right controls both the ascendant political and cultural institutions in the United States, that presages a very different next decade than what many were expecting even a year ago.

What do you think?

1. If you’re interested in the entire exchange, start with Young’s initial argument, then my response, then Young’s reply, and my final wrap-up.

2. The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World is certain that Chief Justice John Roberts would not like that characterization of SCOTUS. The hard-working staff would also very much like Chief Justice Roberts to engage in some introspection before scolding others about the erosion of trust in the federal judiciary.

3. It really is that simple.

4. Women’s basketball is even more progressive and more popular than ever — but the whole Caitlin Clark phenomena has also become politicized in weird ways.

5. Let me add that folks ranging from Chris Hayes to Nate Silver are correct to point out that an awful lot of this erosion of trust has been earned.