How The American Right Squandered Its Cultural Dominance
The biggest story of the last year is that Trump has, in a very short amount of time, squandered most of his cultural capital by running a directionless and incompetent administration.
Cast your mind back a year ago.
It’s early 2025.
Donald Trump is set to be inaugurated for the second time after pulling off the most remarkable comeback in American political history since Richard Nixon in 1968. In a stunning upset, he has swept every swing state, becoming the first Republican candidate to win the popular vote in twenty years. Progressives haven’t just been defeated, they have been humiliated, forced to concede that their positions on issues ranging from immigration to crime to transgender rights are broadly unpopular and at odds with large swathes of the public. The multi-racial Obama voter coalition, which Democratic party strategists hoped would be the blueprint to secure total liberal dominance indefinitely, had fractured and been replaced with a new synergising force, one significantly younger and more diverse than anything the GOP had fielded.
The 2024 election seemed to signal a paradigm shift in not only American politics, but cultural discourse as major cultural institutions like Disney and Netflix shifted rightwards, axing DEI schemes and amplifying conservative voices in the hope of currying favour with the new administration and integrate themselves with what they thought to be a burgeoning political movement that would define the next generation.
For the first time, Trump had tangible cultural power, particularly in the sports world. He attended Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans where he was received enthusiastically. Pro athletes celebrated goals and touchdowns by breaking out the “Trump dance.” Amongst the Left, there was growing consternation that the Right had achieved massive cultural power through influencers, popular YouTube shows, and comics, causing many journalists to loudly proclaim the death of the liberal experiment.
The rise of the “Trump dance”—seen everywhere from college football stadiums to international soccer—was a sign of the wider cultural normalization of Trump. He had gained ground with a lot of people who, not so long ago, didn’t like him at all. Young men, in particular—not just white men without college degrees, but from a wide array of social, racial, and economic backgrounds—had warmed to the president. They thought he was funny, someone worth imitating—and, importantly, saw no social cost for embracing him.
And Trump was winning over these people in part because America had wholly rejected the liberal cultural hegemony it had been subjugated to for 20+ years. Democrats had become the condescending, morally-lecturing HR department, who demanded that every joke, every comment be filtered through a before approval. They wanted to police the thoughts and speech of every person who dared to stray outside their socially acceptable perimeters.
Fast forward to the present. While an eternity feels as if it’s passed since then, the cultural dominance enjoyed by MAGA lasted fleetingly, a brief cacophony that drowned out the airwaves and spread its tentacles across the internet zeitgeist before ignominiously retreating just as quickly as it had emerged. Trump now prefers to stay at home tweeting from the refuge of Mar-A-Lago rather than wallowing in the adoration of the crowds. All of his allies are too afraid to show themselves in public in fear of rallying protestors. And the best counter-programming his allies can come up with is a performance by one of the most talentless, washed-up performers American culture has produced in the last quarter-century whose song lyrics consist of mating with fish.
Is it any surprise then that Trump’s support among young people has cratered over the last year, with approval among voters aged 18 to 29 at 25% and 67% disapproving, down from 50% approval and 42% disapproval in Feb 2025. His popularity is just as dire with Latinos and Asian-Americans, two demographics instrumental in his election victory. A lot of this can be attributed to a case of the midterm blues, voters growing disillusioned as the lofty campaign promises hit the wall of reality, but the extent and pace at which Republicans have lost their mandate is unprecedented in modern American history.
This is a familiar, lowly position for the right, which has spent most of the last half-century whining about how American popular culture is mean to conservatives. But what is surprising is that, a year ago, it seemed like that was finally changing. The right had made real progress, from podcasters (and comics) like Joe Rogan and Theo Von to comics (and podcasters) like Matt Rife and Tony Hinchcliffe, to the aforementioned athletes doing the Trump dance last fall and winter.
Instead of delivering the results he had campaigned and been elected on - reducing the cost of living, ending the forever wars, streamlining bureaucracy with efficiency savings - Trump has betrayed everyone who voted for him, chasing the adoration of the Zionist lobby, aided by a cadre of sycophants who dare not to question their infallible messiah. The end result: an increasingly isolated administration.
The biggest story of the last year is that Trump has, in a very short amount of time, squandered most of his political capital by running a directionless and incompetent administration that stumbles from one scandal to the next with very little tangible accomplishments to brag about. He has hemorrhaged the vast majority of his newly-won supporters and even alienated long-term allies. But the second biggest story is that the Right has squandered all of the cultural capital his election brought them.
It’s a damning indictment of how political movements entirely predicated on nothing more than grievances and tearing things down without any other purpose rather than blind rage are not built to last. Fundamentally, they are destined to fail because their very foundations are built on little more than a continuous cycle of resentment, fueled by professional outrage tourists who offer no compelling alternative. Dominating culture makes it a lot harder to be mad at things, so they prefer to shout from the sidelines in perpetual opposition.
When you look at liberals, you see artists, musicians, directors, writers - a versatile ensemble of creatives responsible for the media we all lovingly consume. It’s through this vector they subconsciously shape and mold public opinion. There is something of substance for people to latch onto. The right has no such thing. It doesn’t nurture talent. Creatively bankrupt, they’re back to pretending to like Kid Rock, while everyone in the country gets to enjoy the Super Bowl halftime show.