The Future is looking Big, Beautiful and Bright for Conservatives!

The internet has been abuzz with three interesting graphics or charts which indicate that the culture war as we have known it may be coming to an end. And conservatives are winning it!

The world is a complicated place. Political debates are everywhere. Things are changing fast. Yesterday’s peacenik (“No Blood for Oil!”) is today’s “I stand with Ukraine” statement, which often appears along with the Ukraine flag on numerous on-line bios. Yesterday’s equal Rights for all is today’s special Rights for Trans. And yesterday’s “free market capitalist” is now today’s “tariffs are awesome!” President Trump is at the heart of this change, but he is also the beneficiary of various cultural shifts which are necessarily out of his control.

Since the advent of political parties, we have, no doubt, been divided. One side hated Nixon and Reagan, while the other side hated Carter and Obama. But where are we today? Who are we? How do we decide the big issues? What informs our decisions and stances, if they are even informed at all? Are we hopelessly divided along emotional and intellectual lines?

Three Snapshots of a Changing World

We can distill the current context by making use of three graphs. The first is a heat map that contrasts liberal vs. conservative moral priorities. The second looks at voting patterns by demographics. And the third is a comparison of intellectual diversity between the Left and Right. Let’s look at each for more understanding…and a lot of good news.

It’s Not About Who Cares the Most, but About What

I saw this graph at least a dozen times on social media before I bothered to figure out what it was. It’s actually quite simple: this heat map indicates moral priorities. In the graph, moral priorities that are closest to you are located towards the center. So it starts with family, community, state, nation, world, and from there it moves out to abstract and impersonal objects. The least personal concerns are the furthest out from the center. Conservative concerns are on the left, and liberal concerns are on the right. (with no irony intended). What is shows is that conservatives prioritize that which is closer to them, while the Left prioritizes that which is abstract and distant.

One way to summarize this is by observing that the average Leftist appears to care more about the environment than their family, and the average conservative appears to care more about their family than the environment.

So if it feels like we are talking past each other, we most certainly are. At best, Leftists seem to have a funny way of showing concern for their immediate family. For example, the Left believes that ending climate change somehow serves to help their neighbor by applying some type of abstract moral calculation. But the abstraction of moral concern is exactly what justifies the hypocrisy on the Left; they claim the high moral ground on each and every issue, but then outsource the solving of those issues to distant, federal, or international groups. So as an example, and according to this map, conservatives would be like the Good Samaritan who stops to help the person on the side of the road, while Leftists who initially ignore him, will work to change external systems that (at best) will attempt to prevent persons from being beaten up in the first place.

This mindset and the hypocrisies it produces are observable. As examples, we can see:

- Leo DiCaprio flying on a private jet to attend a climate change summit;

- A “Save the Whales” bumper sticker placed next to a Planned Parenthood one;

- Wealthy persons living in secure gated communities, while at the same time defending open borders;

- Atheism mainstreamed while the Leftist moral system is defended to the hilt.

While it is cliché to say that communism works on paper but fails in real life, the heat map explains how and why the Left remains “utopian.” Their moral concerns appear to be blatantly divorced from local existence. They ignore their closest friends and family in favor of greener grass. In the end, it will always be close to impossible to agree on social policy with such people.

It is Definitely a Guy Thing

Chart #2 shows the gender gap in voting. This gap seemed to explode this year, mostly because working class men tilted Right (indeed, the final bonus chart indicates that young white men are now more conservative than white men over 75). On the other hand, a recent CNN exit poll has indicated a +39 edge for single women towards Harris. While I haven’t been able to reproduce that number, existing data does show a +24 gap among all college educated women. Simply put, it appears that without the support of single women, no Democrat can ever be elected.

This is both good news and bad news. The good news is that it’s fixable! If good men can offer these women something better than the Left provides—namely marriage and family—then these newly-married women will eventually become more conservative. The bad news is that getting married may prove more difficult than before, as both sexes currently don’t see the world in the same way.

Ultimately, what the Left offers women is quite dark: abortion, a workplace that is often stressful, sexual decadence, as well as rampant materialism. These all leave the soul starved for meaningful relationships, let alone marriage. The Left has been able to sell “freedom” to these women…but for how long can this lie last?

Diversity is our Strength! Ok, but “diversity” of What?

Finally, one can observe that the intellectual diversity on the Right is something to behold. There is a link that refers to an academic paper, although you don’t need to read a white paper to see it; the podcast charts do the job.

The current MAGA coalition includes everyone from Curtis Yarvin to Steve Bannon to Charlie Kirk to Dave Smith (well, sometimes Dave Smith). Individuals from the religious to the non-religious, libertarian to monarchist, pro-tech to Luddite, conventional and handsome to gnarly and obscene are now gathered under the same big tent.

Yes, it could eventually fracture. In fact, Elon Musk’s departure initially felt like the beginning of the coalition’s end. But that didn’t happen. Neither did the Iran bombing or the bungled Epstein file situation. The coalition has held, primarily because there is a collective feeling that we can all get much more of what we want if conservatives continue to hold political power.

If you look carefully at the media landscape, you can see that all of the intellectual energy currently appears to be on the Right. The Left has lost its monopoly on institutional media and is trying to figure out a message, as well as a reason to exist beyond just mere power. Today, if you really want to take into account politics, culture, art, religion, and philosophy, you are likely to end up on the Right in some capacity. If you want to hear a thoughtful debate, it cannot be between two people on the Left. Without a doubt, the Right is an interesting place to be in 21^st century America.

The Culture War Continues, but it is Changing!

All of this is good news. In every way, the Left is currently shrinking. And the young are becoming more conservative. The Left is taking up less and less space in our culture. Fewer demographics believe in Leftism, even if one particular demographic believes in it rather strongly. And the Right has their priorities in order. They will have children and families, while the Left will produce childless seniors with “Save the Environment!” bumper stickers plastered on their EVs.

The Right is winning and is no doubt on the correct side of the culture war. But the Right needs to continue to lean into its exclusively Christian foundations, while at the same time perhaps losing a little of the uncontrolled machismo energy. There will always be fringes that disagree. But the Right is now a very good place to be.

Bonus chart:

Photo Credits- Christian Science Monitor, X, Inside Higher Ed, Gateway Pundit and.