How Culture Warriors Seized the Right
Once the foot soldiers of the right-wing movement, social conservatives are increasingly setting the agenda, arguing for a state that takes an active role in shaping and preserving traditional institutions like the nuclear family. However, this vision of family offered by social conservatives is inextricably linked with a disturbingly retrograde view of gender, sexuality, reproductive rights, and American history.
On a new episode of How to Save a Country, hosts Felicia Wong and Michael Tomasky talk to Julie Kohler—writer and host of the podcast White Picket Fence—about the role social conservatives played in American politics in the past, and the increasing power this coalition wields in politics today.
“If you really endorse this notion that the state should be playing a role in establishing moral culture, what you can end up with is a comfort with, if not open embrace of, illiberal authoritarianism,” Kohler says.
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