The right wing may have stolen the Supreme Court, but liberals won the culture war: Lyngar

Edwin Lyngar | Reno Gazette-Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption 75% of Americans say immigration is a good thing...but there’s a catch 75% of Americans say immigration is a good thing according to a new poll. Rob Smith has all the details.

Things seem bleak today, but I feel hopeful. Donald Trump’s latest right-wing pick for the Supreme Court likely will be confirmed, pushing America’s highest court far to the right of American public opinion and good taste. By vast margins, Americans support the rights of women, minorities, immigrants and the LGBTQ community. Despite the conservative tilt of our corrupt and broken government, the culture war is over and liberals have won.

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There are mountains of evidence. According to Pew, 62 percent of American adults support gay marriage, a staggering shift in only a few decades. Similar numbers support marijuana legalization, including a majority of Republicans. Let’s visit a classic: the “sex before marriage” question which, according to Pew, doesn’t concern 59 percent of Americans in the slightest. Americans support birth control by almost 90 percent, despite the lies and nonsense of a few extremists. Despite Trump’s ugly nativism, a massive 75 percent of Americans support immigration.

Find me any “classic” culture war issue, and I’ll show you why it will be totally irrelevant in 20 years. Growing up in the '80s, I never would have believed this kind of cultural shift was possible in my lifetime, yet here we are at near-total progressive consensus on most social issues and it’s not even close. This is a moment for hope.

Even the third rail of social politics, abortion, is not as divisive as we’re told. Abortion is supported by 57 percent of Americans. It’s easy for men to shrug off the abortion debate, but for women, the control of their lives and bodies is sacrosanct. You can’t have freedom when the government can make laws over your most intimate relationships and medical decisions.

Just the beginning

The numbers are only going to get worse for social conservatives. Attitudes from my generation, Gen X, are more permissive than the overall polls I cited above, and the glorious cohort of younger generations are far more progressive on social issues than mine. But it’s not only social issues. Three-quarters of Americans want rich people to pay more taxes, and Trump’s needless tax cuts for the wealthy grows more unpopular by the day. How can we even call ourselves a democracy when an ever-smaller slice of America is pushing policies that most citizens find abhorrent?

I lay the blame for this disconnect wholly at the feet of the religious right, a shrinking number of Americans who wield disproportionate political clout, especially in judicial nominations. Christians have lost the culture completely, but they think they can impose their religious doctrines on unwilling Americans using a hijacked judiciary. When religious fundamentalists talk about “building a kingdom on earth,” I never realized their preferred tool was an idol-worshiping, thrice-divorced serial adulterer who lies, steals and covets as a matter of course. Whatever would Jesus say?

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Despite my own atheism, I support the rights of religious people to practice their faith any way they like, just so long as they leave me alone. But this is never enough for them. We only have heated debates over culture because some religious people can’t stand the idea of other people living their lives differently. Like a budding date rape, the religious right can only force itself on the rest of us for so long before it becomes a crime. The culture war itself is an artificial creation designed to bolster a dying political party that long ago lost the battle over ideas.

Fight isn't over yet

Even though we’ve already won, our corrupt minority government still can spread misery and chaos for untold numbers of vulnerable people, and they have shown a voracious appetite for cruelty at the individual level. The people who currently represent us in Washington, Senator Dean Heller and Congressman Mark Amodei, are rubber stamps for a tyrannical, out-of-touch minority. We can never forget that Trump lost the popular vote by millions, just as Republicans cling to power only through gerrymandering, voter suppression and outright fraud. We can no longer tolerate this level of antidemocratic behavior.

Our forebears won so many battles to expand the rights of ordinary people, from women’s suffrage to the Civil Rights movement to interracial marriage. We always believe that victory is inevitable. It’s not. Our country is under attack like never before by retrograde religion, big business and a wholly corrupt political party that represents a small fraction of the nation at the expense of the will of the people. The numbers are evident and beyond dispute. Our only recourse is to translate overwhelming public opinion into action at the ballot box to end the assault on democracy and our fellow citizens.

Edwin Lyngar is a Reno resident and freelance writer.