The 2022 midterm campaigns are in full swing and this year, it’s all about the culture. Indeed, at the most recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), cultural issues were at the forefront of the conversation, especially when it came to the overall messaging strategy coming from the conservative movement.
The GOP’s hyperfocus on the culture is no accident.
Several high-profile Republicans have freely admitted that issues being fought over in the public square are related more closely to cultural matters than policy, which is a significant departure from the GOP’s typical modus operandi. Indeed, over the past few years, the right has seen a distinct shift away from touting policy as often as the culture.
While addressing the audience at CPAC, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said “you can always cut taxes. You can always roll back regulations. You can always elect better people,” and noted that “when freedom is lost and it’s eroded, it is so hard to reclaim it and to get it back.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis expressed similar sentiments, pointing out that Americans moving to the Sunshine State are doing so because they are “fleeing leftist governments in this country.”
The governor also pointed to the rise of wokeism and Marxist thought in America’s institutions as a point of concern. “Wokeism is a form of cultural Marxism. It is not just about raising taxes and bad economic policy. It’s about tearing up the fabric of society and trying to replace it with something that will be much, much more sinister,” he insisted.
The Washington Examiner reported:
A survey of 2,574 attendees asking the three issues most important to them found that cultural issues reigned supreme over economic matters. Election integrity was the most popular at 49.1%, immigration and the border wall at 47.6%, constitutional rights at 42.7%, and inflation and cost of living coming in at 26.6%. Taxes, budget, and spending ranked seventh at 16.2%.
Matt Schlapp, president of the American Conservative Union, the organization that hosts CPAC, observed how political discourse has changed in America. “The battle line fell back. We used to assume we had certain things in common and then we could talk about public policy that we would prefer. And that changed. We don’t hold these things in common anymore, and that has everyone’s attention,” he told The Examiner. “Parents aren’t domestic terrorists. Cops aren’t the force of evil. They actually keep us safe. … Gender confusion, girl sports, you can go on and on and on.”
Saul Anuzis, president of the 60 Plus Association and former Michigan Republican Party chairman told The Examiner:
“What actually moves independent voters and brings back a lot of the women voters to the Republican Party that we had lost — much of it has been kind of those cultural issues, whether it’s critical race theory, whether it’s young men, you know, playing in young women’s sports, whether it’s parents being ignored.”
Anuzis pointed to the drastic transformation the Democratic Party has undergone over the past few decades. “This is not your parents’ Democratic Party. Guys like John F. Kennedy couldn’t even get nominated in the Democratic Party today, and so that’s really pushed people away,” he said.
Rubio, DeSantis, and Anuzis have each touched on a truth that has become more apparent over the past five years: Culture trumps policy. Pun intended.
One only needs to look at a recent internal poll conducted by Democrats analyzing the political landscape. Politico reported on the results of the survey and they revealed that the GOP’s attacks on Democratic politicians were actually doing significant damage. From the report:
And the party’s House campaign arm had a stark warning for Democrats: Unless they more forcefully confront the GOP’s “alarmingly potent” culture war attacks, from critical race theory to defunding the police, they risk losing significant ground to Republicans in the midterms.
Apparently, the results were pretty alarming. The group made several recommendations to help left-leaning candidates fend off cultural attacks from the right:
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is recommending a new strategy to endangered members and their teams, hoping to blunt the kinds of GOP attacks that nearly erased their majority last election and remain a huge risk ahead of November. In presentations over the past two weeks, party officials and operatives used polling and focus group findings to argue Democrats can’t simply ignore the attacks, particularly when they’re playing at a disadvantage. A generic ballot of swing districts from late January showed Democrats trailing Republicans by 4 points, according to the polling.
It seems there is more than enough evidence demonstrating that culture war issues are working in Republicans’ favor. Indeed, like Virginia’s gubernatorial election, they are hoping topics like Critical Race Theory, COVID restrictions, and others will help them crush their opposition in November, and it is likely they will get their wish.
However, it seems appropriate to issue a caveat.
While culture war debates will help the GOP win the House and possibly the Senate, they will not keep them in power as time goes on. At some point, it will not be enough to simply criticize the Democrats for being a destructive influence on American society.
If Republicans wish to win a long-term victory, they must focus more on showing the American people what they are for rather than just what they are against. The policy conversation has to come up at some point, and the GOP better be able to lay out viable proposals that will improve the quality of life for Americans. Even further, they need to effectively execute their plans when they have the power to do so. Otherwise, it will not take long for that pendulum to swing back the other way.
