The "culture war", as some refer to it as, is a very complex issue...and one where entities on both sides have been culprits in "raising the temperature" so to speak.
In some aspects, Trump is/was a cause of some of the turmoil, in other cases, he was a symptom.
Throughout time, there's always been the classic battle of "progressive vs. conservative", with the Overton Window moving slowly and gradually toward the progressive side over time.
Typically, the move toward progress on 'hot button issues' spanned a time period 30-60 years for the cycle of:
1) inception and raising awareness ->
2) gaining more broad support ->
3) changing of cultural attitudes ->
4) those cultural changes being reflected in meaningful legislation.
(whether it be the Women's suffrage movement, marijuana legalization efforts, same sex marriage efforts, etc...)
However, sometime over the past few decades, the timeline demands from some on the progressive side (in particular, many in the younger demographics) changed drastically. It went from the aforementioned steps and timeline...to completely skipping steps 2 and 3, and basically having the attitude "
We found this thing that's an injustice, so we want things changed by next Monday, and if it's not, everyone who's objecting is an outdated, narrow-minded bigot"
That instantly creates a bulwark mentality from the other side...and when that happens, their primary focus becomes "How can I stop the other side from making this swift, radical change that I don't feel very comfortable with?"...even for changes where, given enough time and exposure, they may become more receptive to.
For instance, if you look at these two issues:
The meaningful changes did end up occurring...but it was only after there was that broadening of support and organic cultural changes. They didn't occur by 18-25's demanding that things be changed next week, and resorting to "
in your face activism" when they weren't.
So basically the powder keg is created by the elements one side claiming "We want this thing (that we know half the population still isn't too sure about) and we want it right now! Anyone who doesn't agree with us is narrow-minded, their opinions should be disregarded, and they shouldn't have a seat at the table", and the other side going on the immediate defensive by rallying around a demagogue who claims he's going to fight back against it, but spends half of his time trying to publicly delegitimize any institution that calls him out on his nonsense, and then tells his followers that "that institution over there is part of the radical agenda you elected me to fight against".
Or, a more brief way of putting it, I see the recipe that created our current powder keg as:
- Impatience and dismissiveness from the left.
- Trump playing on the defensiveness of his followers and attempting to make them even more defensive than they already were.
I don't think I'm alone in my thought that, had there not been a massive push for rapid cultural shifts (at a pace that far exceeds other similar shifts), woke-ness, and cancel culture in the years leading up to 2016, it probably would've been a different, "regular", republican on the ticket in 2016.
