Watercooler Blind Spot: The Left Is NOT Winning The Culture Wars

When the Left brags about winning the culture wars, they point to gay marriage. After all, thanks to the Supreme Court, in just about 10 years, we went from gay marriage being unthinkable to being the law of the land. And then there are the polls that show a majority of Americans back gay marriage. So case closed, right?

Actually, no, and for a few reasons.

First off, beyond the polls (and after being told Hillary Clinton had a 95% chance of beating Donald Trump, I think we all know how useful polls are), when it came to the actual process of democracy, gay marriage was not popular. Outside of a handful of exceptions, through duly elected legislatures and outright referendums, same sex marriage failed in state after state after state, including California.

If it weren’t for the tyranny of the judiciary, voters and their representatives would have ensured that same sex marriage was still outlawed almost everywhere.

Let’s now look at some other hot-button cultural areas: including guns, abortion, identity politics, and pop culture.

Despite a three-year media jihad against guns, the Left has lost this battle bigly. Concealed carry is sweeping all but a few stubborn states and guns sales are through the roof. If we are going to discuss polls, let’s at least look at one with a contextual tracking history. In the most recent Gallup poll, only 36% of Americans favor a ban on what the media demonizes as assault weapons. That’s the lowest number in the poll’s two-decade history, and it comes just after that three-year jihad.

On the issue of abortion, ultrasounds that show an actual baby as opposed to a glob, advancements that keep premature infants born after just 20 weeks alive, the power of social media that allows these truths to bypass the media filter… Most of the political and moral momentum has put the Left on defense.

As far as identity politics, Democrats went all-in after Barack Obama’s 2008 victory and look at the results. Nationally and regionally, Democrats are nearly wiped out. At every level of government, Democrats have lost over 1,000 seats. This is the worst shape the party has been in since Republicans took their slaves away 150 years ago.

With every mainstream media outlet, most every college campus, and a ton of pop culture outlets relentlessly pumping out the propaganda of identity politics, who beat The First Woman President? An old, white Republican named Donald Trump, the most politically-incorrect candidate since Lyndon Johnson.

Worse still for Democrats and their media – and this is not a typo – 54.4% of Trump’s coalition is made up of women and minorities.

Believe it or not, although they hold all the levers of power, even in the area of pop culture the Left is in retreat. Look at your local multiplex. Issue movies are dead, and the few that are produced flop.

Today’s movies are almost all escapist spectacle, superheroes working together in apolitical stories that utilize conservative and/or humanist themes about self-sacrifice, individualism, and the value of human life. Outside the spandex, Hollywood’s most popular franchise involves gas-guzzling muscle cars and a group of rebels who don’t trust the government, do believe in family and pray before every meal. The eighth installment of The Fast and the Furious arrives in May.

As far as television, while foo foo elites obsess over the low-rated Girls, a pro-abortion storyline on Scandal, and the latest in the destructive fad of transgenderism, elsewhere we are bombarded with countless shows that embrace that part of the American spirit most anathema to the Left – rugged, masculine individualism; entrepreneurs, devoted Christians, gear heads, gun owners, nuclear families, and homeschoolers…

Duck Dynasty, American Pickers, Doomsday Preppers, Pawn Stars, Moonshiners, Gold Rush, Mega Race, Diesel Brothers, Deadliest Catch, all those Alaska shows, Street Outlaws, Road Hawks, Swamp People, Mountain Men…

By far the most popular show on cable is The Walking Dead, which is primarily about the fight for liberty and family, a show that personifies e pluribus unum, the exact opposite of multiculturalism. White, black, Asian, Hispanic, ginger and gay characters all work together in a world where identity politics have been obliterated, where moral authority is earned, not simply handed to those with the “correct” skin color or sexual orientation.

Belief in God ticked up last year to 89 percent. The Super Bowl, one of the most culturally conservative events on earth, grabbed 111 million total viewers last month. That same month, the left-wing Oscars averaged just 32.9 million.

The Left is so not winning the culture wars, identity politics is the only thing that has ever put a dent in football’s popularity. The Left is so not winning the culture wars, they are now forced to pretend they respect and honor our veterans and flag. That just wasn’t the case a generation ago.

Democrats and their media are finally coming to terms with a polling blind spot. Basically, blinded by their own bubbled world, our elites under-sampled people not like them – meaning the rural working class. Moreover, the media’s ongoing assault against these voters as ignorant racists has had the additional effect of making them difficult to poll. They either won’t talk to pollsters or outright lie to them (which is what I do).

So let’s add to this “polling blind spot” a “watercooler blind spot,” where elites are so wrapped up in themselves, in their own supremacism, in Katy Perry, HBO, The New York Times, Jake Tapper’s sick Twitter TrumpBurnz, Planned Parenthood memes and vagina hats, that they have lost all touch with the cultural world the rest of us inhabit.

In other words, that massive media and cultural propaganda machine created to make normal people feel outnumbered has failed.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.