For a time, it was fashionable to declare that Americaâ??s culture wars were over. â??Culture wars issues not only had a very low profile in the [2008] campaign,â? the Center for American Progressâ??s Ruy Teixeira wrote in 2013, â??but, where conservatives did attempt to raise them, these issues did them little good. .â??.â??. There will be diminishing incentives for politicians to take up these causes for the very simple reason that they are losers.â?
And yet here we are, in 2016, with the culture wars still going strong. Gun control, religious liberty, Black Lives Matter and funding for Planned Parenthood are all high-profile issues in the presidential campaign. Perhaps the most intense battle, though, is the one over immigration, which National Reviewâ??s Reihan Salam correctly identifies as a â??fight over the future of American national identity in the face of rapid and accelerating demographic change.â?
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