The more obvious it becomes that our domestic political struggles are in fact part of a much larger spiritual war over the fate of western civilization, that we are today engaged not so much in a political fight as a religious battle between good and evil, the stronger the urge seems to be among Republican politicians to deny this reality and take refuge in the comforting political narratives of the past.
A perfect case in point was a tweet last week from Kari Lake’s permanent campaign, which managed in one fell swoop to channel the deeply misguided political analysis of the entire neocon Washington establishment: “No one is saying not to fight the culture war. But it’s simply not the most critical issue heading into 2024.”
“The GOP must show the country how it plans to turn the economy around & prevent World War 3,” she added. “We need to take this country back from @JoeBiden before we can take our culture back from his friends.”
Ah, yes. The comforting fiction that if we can just show voters how we plan to turn the economy around, surely then we’ll regain power, surely then we’ll have a mandate from the people — and then (and only then) we can “take our culture back.”
With apologies to Lake, who before the midterms seemed to have a bright political future in the emerging populist GOP, this is absolute nonsense. On the one hand, it’s a desperate cope, the embodiment of the stale, low-energy politics that have kept
