Ahh the culture wars. The seemingly never-ending American debate about everything from artwork to bedroom behavior. What would the country be without it? I cannot answer this because for all of my life, it has consumed political debate. I grew up in a conservative home, one who thought that Bill Clinton was evil incarnate and listening to rap music would make me a cocaine pusher. I think there is something to be said that politics is downstream from culture (Breitbart). If we weren't arguing about Piss Christ or Critical Race Theory, what would we have? It feels almost un-American to think of an alternative. And this is why politicians continue to push it. It grabs at our conscience and our heartstrings more than discussions about foreign policy and bureaucratic enforcement of laws. We pay attention to celebrities' words but don't read anything by politicians unless it is in the extreme, or addresses said celebrities.

Isaac Butler's book unpacks the history and politics behind the divisiveness of the culture war, from the 1970s to the present, using the most significant, nation-wide examples of division. AIDS, pornography, The Last Temptation of Christ. Significant in his telling the National Endowment for the Arts, which conservatives have eyed with moral disdain and liberals have eyed as freedom of expression. Butler makes clear how this organization has now, under the Trump administration, been not defunded (as much as Elon Musk proclaimed)- it is still being funded- but has become a tool of conservatives. The ultimate takeway: the culture war about the culture war. The culture war gone meta.

The success of the culture war in the public mind is the consistency of doomsayers, on both sides. It's easy to do in the social media age. How to break the cycle? Pay less attention to the things that have seemed to captivate our attention so much. Easier said than done. They know it.