Episode Details

In this episode, we trace the genealogy of the "culture war," a metaphor for political polarization that has moved beyond policy debates into a conflict over values, morality, and lifestyle. We begin by unpacking the term’s 19th-century origins in the German Kulturkampf—a struggle between the state and the Catholic Church—before exploring how it re-emerged to define American politics, from the urban-rural divides of the 1920s to Pat Buchanan’s declaration of a "religious war" in 1992.

We discuss the evolution of these conflicts through the "Great Awokening" and the rise of social media, looking at how modern political strategies have shifted toward "owning the libs" and utilizing pop culture controversies, such as Gamergate, as proxies for ideological battles.

Finally, we go global to examine how culture wars manifest outside the U.S., including Australia’s "history wars" over Indigenous rights, the class-based cultural divides of Brexit in the UK, and the "export" of American identity politics to the African continent. Join us as we ask: Is the culture war an inevitable clash of values, or an artificial conflict manufactured by elites to secure power?