Stop.
I’m serious. You want to know how to win the culture war? You really want to know?
Stop.
Slap yourself in the face. Do it now.
Go splash some water on your face. Dry yourself off.
Sit down again.
Stop.
You cannot win the culture war by fighting on the battlefield of culture. It’s how most wars are won so I understand why you want to do this. But that is not how the culture war works.
Or, see it another way.
What we’re in now is not a culture war but the last stage of a culture war. This is the clean-up stage. If we are in a culture war, the only reason that we haven’t technically lost is that we haven’t fully surrendered, and the only reason we haven’t surrendered is that we can’t agree on who is going to sign their name.
If this is a war, those of us who are anti-conservative (let’s just call it what it is) have small guns to shoot our culture bullets out of. The other side has all the big guns. The New York Times and news media. All television networks and similar internet outlets, all production studios, all financiers. Every voice in government is vetted by them or, at best for us, cannot provide enough opposition for it to matter.
If this was a real battle fought with our modern weapons, we’re in a position which we cannot win from on the battlefield. Our small guns are not going to take out their big guns. If this was a real battle, we have two main options: take out their guns or take over their guns. But we’re not fighting this on the battlefield, we’re going around.
There are calls for creatives to focus on stories of hope, focus on writing characters that we can be proud of, that are heroic. People think that writing appealing villains is a luxury. This is childish in a literal sense. A child might think that if they tell a story compelling enough that it will change the world. Becoming an adult should be about, in part, realizing that the world does not work that way. The existence of a story changes nothing.
Remember: Paul Ryan loved Rage Against the Machine.
Remember: Kurt Vonnegut said that artists made not a whisper of difference on the Vietnam War.
If “creatives” have a purpose in a moment of oppression, that purpose must be propaganda. There is no other thing for creatives to do. They must motivate the right people and demoralize the enemy. They must make it clear what the stakes are and why they must be fought for.
This is different than simply “writing heroes”. Propaganda is direct and purposeful. It is not an example or an interpretation, it is a message. Propaganda has a proven effectiveness and value for revolutionary and anti-oppression movements. Whatever value entertainment has, it is less than propaganda in a fight like this.
But when you are creating propaganda, you are not fighting the culture war. You are fighting the political war. Your goal is not to “change the culture” but to deliver a message to like-minded people so that they will take some action.
Take the institutions. That’s how you can start turning things around. When the society is in a good place, the culture will start to reflect that on its own. And if you are really that concerned with culture in particular, if you are desperate to fight on the battlefield again, you will only get there by taking the institutions, by getting yourself the big guns.
If you want to win the culture war, win the political war. There is nothing else for you to do. Give up the idea that writing your little story is a project that will defeat fascism. You can help but not by doing that.