Is “culture war” becoming an entirely meaningless term? This article from Politico, on Florida’s decision to take up permitless carry, suggests that it might be:
Democrats also see the proposal as another in a long line of culture war-infused bills DeSantis will champion during the legislative session to further energize his conservative base as he prepares to run for president. In the past few week alone, DeSantis has asked lawmakers for a sweeping criminal justice bill packed with policies generally supported by conservatives, rejected an Advanced Placement course focused on African-American history, a move that has gotten him national criticism from those who think he is whitewashing American history and signaled he will push for legislation cracking down on teacher’s unions, which are the last bastion of reliable political support for Florida Democrats.
But none of those bills are “culture war-infused,” are they? At least, not unless “culture war” has become a totally empty term that, in effect, just means “part of our normal political debate.” The permitless carry bill is a gun bill. It changes the laws regulating firearms in Florida. The second bill — “a sweeping criminal justice bill packed with policies generally supported by conservatives” — is a criminal justice bill. The third move — the rejection of “an Advanced Placement course focused on African-American history” that smuggled in all manner of absurd progressive dogma — is an education bill. The fourth — “legislation cracking down on teacher’s unions, which are the last bastion of reliable political support for Florida Democrats” (which is a pretty misleading way of describing a bill that ensures that Florida’s constitutionally guaranteed right-to-work provision is meaningfully applied to teachers, while raising their pay across the board) — is also an education bill? Or, depending on how you see it, it is an employment bill or labor bill.
I suspect that some of this is just journalistic laziness: Much as, a few years ago, journalists started inserting the word “blockchain” inappropriately into every other story, now they are abuzz about “culture war.” But there is something more sinister at play here, too, and that something is terminal bias. Most members of the press proceed reflexively from the assumption that the Democrats are normal, and that those who disagree with them are weird, wrong, or dishonest. Why did the media insist that those who defensively disagreed with the proposed ban on gas stoves, rather than those who had proposed or defended that ban, were guilty of starting a “culture war” around gas stoves? I’ll tell you: Because it was simply assumed that, if the Democrats were proposing it, it must be a good idea, and that, if the Republicans were pushing back, they must be being “political.”
So it is here. Irrespective of whether you like or dislike the laws that Florida Republicans are working on, they are well within the range of questions that governments are obliged to address. By describing every single policy that the GOP has proposed as indicative of a “culture war,” the press is signaling nothing more sophisticated than that its members like the status quo, and dislike those who wish to change it. That’s fine, of course. It’s a free country. But the word for that isn’t “culture war.” It’s politics.