Is America On The Brink Of A Cultural Renaissance?

In the first few months of the 2024 Trump administration, I have seen just how much politics and policies can impact culture. America has made drastic strides in turning away from the bleak path of repressing free speech, valuing the freedoms of the minority over the rights of the majority, and pursuing equity at the cost of equality. 

From Doubt to Cautious Optimism: A Surprising Shift in Perspective

If you had told me 4 years ago during the 2020 elections that I would be writing anything close to a positive article about Trump, I would have been shocked. While I did see merit in many of his policies, to me he seemed far too absurd, inarticulate, and unpredictable to earn another term as president. I did not (and still do not) have a high opinion of his character. Living in Chicago in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic and race riots, I felt he did little to stop the insanity that seemed to have overtaken my city. 

During this 2024 election, Trump struck me as brash and unrefined as usual, better suited for a reality TV show than the presidential office. While I still love a good Trump meme as much as ever and don’t have a high regard for his public speaking, this time he had a truly remarkable team surrounding him. As my kids played outside in leaf piles this fall, I was cheering for JD Vance during the vice presidential debate as I stirred a pot of spaghetti in my kitchen. 

A Cultural Shift: How Bold Policies Are Redefining America

Still, when Trump came into office, I hadn’t hoped for more than the price of food coming down and housing costs to decrease. I continue to hope for those things, but I’ve been blown away by how quickly the Trump administration is putting policies in place to reverse the identity politics of the past 4 years. He has dismantled DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), banned biological men from women’s sports, mandated that gender identity is not a valid categorization due to its fluidity and ambiguity, and declared that no flags besides the POW and hostage flags can be flown with the American flag outside US facilities, therefore implying that a flag symbolizing people’s sexual preferences will no longer be an identifying symbol of our nation. Politics do indeed impact culture. 

The Power of True Tolerance: Embracing Boundaries and Critical Thought

This has all come at a time when Americans are becoming less tolerant. That may sound like a negative, but it’s not. Tolerance on all sides, with boundaries and critical thought, is an admirable goal. One-sided tolerance without boundaries can lead to mandating beliefs and censoring speech. D.A. Carson explores this in his book, “The Intolerance of Tolerance”. He explains that our society has conflated tolerating with accepting. Our culture now suggests that to be truly tolerant, you must not only allow the expression of differing views but also affirm them as equally valid. This, Carson argues, leads to intellectual dishonesty and the suppression of critical thinking, which is both intellectually unsustainable and also socially detrimental.

Censorship and Doublethink: The Threat to Free Thought

What we have rapidly been heading towards for the past 4 years is the oppression, regulation, and prescription of thought, speech, and action. Just a few examples of this include a 7th grader being sent home because he wore a shirt stating there are two genders, a counselor being told to adhere to the government’s view on gender identity and sexual orientation in their private counseling sessions, and a Wyoming college sorority being forced to allow a man into their sisterhood and requiring them to tolerate his licentious behavior. Similar to George Orwell’s dystopian future in “1984”, our culture has been developing censored ways of speaking through creating new words. For example, making up your pronouns, the myriad of gender identities, and being “fact-checked” for questioning Covid regulations.

Another common theme in Orwell’s book is the requirement by the government that citizens practice “doublethink”: accept two mutually contradicting meanings while holding them both to be true, choose to forget memories and lose the ability to form independent thoughts. I can’t think of a better description of the entire concept of gender identity and how American culture (and the American government in the past four years) has handled it. Gender identity, we are told we must believe, is fluid. It is an immutable characteristic, yet also subject to change. We are told to believe that someone is a woman and to affirm it in our speech, categorization, and treatment, but be willing to completely flip if the person changes their mind. As D.A. Carson argues in his book, the process of seeking truth, engaging with different viewpoints, and being willing and able to defend your own beliefs are crucial to society. After all, “The truth will set you free.” This is hindered when all beliefs are required to be considered equally valid, regardless of their basis in reality. 

We must firmly oppose harmful agendas and philosophies, without attacking their victims.

Building a Balanced Future: Embracing Change with Care

I think this cultural reset can potentially evolve into a more balanced political climate. The difficulty with social norms is they will always exist. There will always be ostracized things, which is good and necessary. It limits horrendous and damaging things that are still generally frowned upon like child pornography and rape, and it used to limit actions such as child mutilation and sexual vulgarity in public. 

Trying to cast off all social norms is not the answer, as the last several years especially have shown us. However, I think conservatives need to be incredibly thoughtful and intentional with how we reshape culture over the next 4 years. Humans by nature are clannish and prone to demonizing the “other side”. Power can lead to cruelty. I think conservatives need to be measured in how they embrace their newfound freedoms. We need to be careful to not take a page out of the left’s book and begin canceling one another or using our freedom to dehumanize individuals. We must firmly oppose harmful agendas and philosophies, without attacking their victims.

Ensuring Freedoms Without Compromising Rights

A major issue we have to consider is how giving unlimited freedoms to some leads to taking rights away from others. All freedoms are not rights. Every person has the freedom to do whatever they please, but they do not possess the right to do so. What has happened in America through suppressing speech and stigmatizing open debate on controversial topics is that some of the majority’s rights have had to give way for a minority of people to exercise freedom without restraint or repercussions. 

Trans people’s subjective view of themselves does not change the objective reality of the world. While those who genuinely struggle with gender dysphoria certainly need compassion, agreeing with their delusion of a shifting reality only exacerbates the problem, both for the individual and for society. It is crucial to ensure that individual freedoms do not infringe on the rights of others. Women have the right to privacy in gendered restrooms, and to compete only against other women in sports designated by sex. The confusion of freedoms with rights is what has led to infringing on the rights of the majority in order to accommodate the freedoms of the minority. 

All freedoms are not rights. Every person has the freedom to do whatever they please, but they do not possess the right to do so.

Freedom vs. Rights: Finding Balance in a Changing Society

Something interesting about the left is how it seeks to overrepresent minorities, whether it be racial, social, or sexual minorities. To be clear, I believe that it is important to treat marginalized groups with dignity and fairness and to help socially and financially disadvantaged people. I believe that people blessed with much have a moral obligation to help those less fortunate and that a good government will do all it can to reduce poverty and discrimination. However, I do not think it is wise for the government to focus on the minority at the cost of the majority. The reason we have traditionally done what is best for and desired by the majority is because it benefits the most people. Our forefathers wisely recognized that equality for all was a worthy goal to strive towards, while equity for all was not achievable or realistic. 

One distinction between the right and the left is that the left incentivizes being disadvantaged and failure to thrive as social currency. Abigail Shirer points out in her book “Bad Therapy” the common phenomenon among adolescents to use their mental illness as a conversation piece, almost like a trend. This trend applies to adults as well. Those with the most disadvantages are often granted the most deference. While this is wrong, we need to be careful not to go to the opposite extreme by neglecting and despising the most vulnerable in our society. The right should seek to help those truly disadvantaged through life circumstances and give them the opportunity to rise above their challenges. Republicans have an opportunity to prioritize the majority while also fostering support for the less fortunate. We would do well to establish family-friendly policies, thoughtful welfare, intentional immigration laws, and, crucially, not ostracize the people who need and use this help. 

Restoring America: Compassion, Common Sense, and Cultural Change

Policies influence culture, and Trump’s administration has taken a surprisingly swift approach to dismantling many policies that were impacting American culture negatively. I think that if conservatives are mindful of seeking unity across party lines, avoid dehumanizing the victims of liberal agendas, and strive for common sense paired with compassion, we have a unique opportunity to restore America to its founding principles of being indivisible, where liberty and justice are for all.