GUEST POST BY DAVE MILLER

 

Conservatives have perfected the art of being culture warriors. Be it LGBTQ rights, political correctness, wokeism or a desire to return to the mythical Leave it to Beaver times of the 1950’s, today’s MAGA backers return to these issues more often than the swallows return to Capistrano.

To hear the GOP opine on the issues of the day, you’d think the biggest problems we face in the US have nothing to do with inflation, crime, the ongoing war in Ukraine or what’s going on in China.

Obsessing over books about kids with two mommies, drag queen story hours or trans swimmers lapping the field in a local swim meet has become a staple of right wing commentary in print, online and on television. You’d think average Americans were being confronted and knocked off their cultural axis everyday as they run their errands, shop for groceries or worship at church.

I’d hazard a guess that the great majority of worried conservatives have never met a trans person or a drag queen and have never knowingly shared a meal with anyone gay. They’ve never sat and listened to their stories, heard their pain or listened to the average LGBTQ person share their dreams to be doctors, scientists, actors, or even an athlete.

Mostly the cultural conservatives in our country are reacting to the extremes, or fringes of the groups of which they disapprove. Because those fringes typically make the most noise, get the press and yell the loudest. And while there are indeed extreme fringes of the LGBTQ crowd, as we would see in any movement, they remain just that, extreme and mostly on the fringes.

What’s interesting about all of this is that the left has mostly ceded the ground around the issues of cultural disintegration, rarely offering a defense.

As a child growing up in the 1960’s, almost immediately after Thanksgiving I was checking the mailbox everyday for the Sears Christmas Wish Book. Weighing in at about 32 pounds and more than 500 pages, it was Mecca for any kid needing to make his shopping list for Santa.

To be able to look at everything available and imagine it in my hands was an amazing experience. Undoubtedly, Sears was a major driver in our country’s evolution from a saver economy to one that spends with abandon on stuff we didn’t really need. 

But desperately wanted. 

I bring up that big Wish Book because what our eyes saw on those pages drove our culture, for better or worse. And what conservatives see and hear in the media they consume drives their culture. If all they see are skewed images of the culture they desire being swayed beyond their recognition, should we not expect them to be worried?

But as always, there’s another side to the culture wars that few of the cultural conservatives are considering, and it comes in a Christmas ad that arrived in my mailbox recently. There as I stood checking through everything looking mostly for what I could throw away was a flyer from Sportsman’s Warehouse, an outdoorsman’s store based in Utah.

On the front cover and inside that ad were images of the various guns you could easily walk in and buy. Just as I imagined myself with all the toys in that Sear’s Wish Book, I bet more than a few kids saw that ad around the house this week and started dreaming of the day they’d own a Smith & Wesson M&P Sport II Modern Sporting Rifle with a 30+1 capacity. Or maybe even their very own Sig Sauer P365 XL 9MM handgun with a 12+1 capacity.

Conservatives are right at one level.

We are in and should be in a cultural war. But let’s be honest, it is not the ideas on the left that should have America worried. There are few if any mass shootings perpetrated in churches, markets and schools by LGBTQ or leftist crowds run amok. Parents in Uvalde are not nearly as worried about gay teachers as they are this…

The growing problem of gun violence and the gun culture in America. That culture is literally killing people each and every day, and is self perpetuating generation through generation.

I grew up loving to fish and be outdoors. Everyday outdoor magazines were in my house showing off the latest in fishing and hunting gear. And yes, that included rifles, shotguns and ammo alongside lures, bait and the latest Zebco rods for fishing.

I’m not a gun prude in any sense, but let’s be honest. 

Cultural conservatives are worried sick that Johnny may one day love Steve, or decide to become Amber. They’re worried they won’t be able to spread supposedly funny racist tropes in mixed company anymore. But what does not seem to concern them much about our culture is the fact that gun violence in the US is out of control, killing more than 20,000 Americans every year.

Why are cultural conservatives, MAGA backers and the GOP not as upset about how the gun culture negatively impacts America and robs families of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters each and every day as they are about historically marginalized groups simply fighting for a place at the table or others asking people to moderate offensive speech? 

Dave Miller