By Debabrata Biswas
BOSTON: America is having a midterm election for the Congress in November this year which will be very important for the future course of politics in this country and its impact worldwide. In this upcoming election, the Republicans, as it appears, under the present circumstances, have all the ingredients of winning- a not so popular president, economic issues like inflation (record high at 8%), a discouraged Democratic base and also the historical precedent that the party in Govt. almost always loses the midterm election.
But still then the GOP (Republicans) are going whole hog into a cultural war. A cultural war is conflict between social groups and parties for gaining dominance of their values, beliefs and practices. The reason behind this cultural war waged by the Trumptists can be explained in the light of the political theory of ‘Cultural Hegemony ‘ propagated by Antonio Francesco Gram sci, the famous Italian Marxist revolutionary and philosopher, who faced Facism under Mussolini himself and died in his jail. In his theory of cultural hegemony, he described how the capitalist class, the bourgeoise use cultural institutions, i.e superstructure of the society to maintain their power. Instead of brute force they use their ideology, how fake it might be,by continuous propaganda .Hegemonic culture propagates its own values and norms until they become the ‘ common sense ‘ values of all and thus maintain the ‘status quo’.
The Republicans are upset by the real social ,economical and political changes, such as civil rights, feminism, abortion rights, gay marriage, teaching of racial history (CRT) in school, guaranteeing transgender’ s access to school locker rooms and sports, diversity in administration and employment etc. Conservatism in its core is the opposition to change, for better or worse, and especially revolutionary rapid changes .Rabindranath Tagore portrayed this characteristic of conservatism subtly in his allegorical drama ‘Achalayatan’.
Their vehement opposition to gun law restrictions, despite so many regular cases of gun violence and killings in USA, reflect this attitude .Devoid of any political and economic agenda, they turn every issue from corona virus to war in Ukraine into a topic that they can inject their grievance politics into it.
What links many hot button issues by the Republicans is children, whether unborn or at school. They are portrayed as vulnerable to sinister forces aligned with democrats whom they frequently call as devils and pedophilics. They concentrated their cultural war on school education. In most of the Red states, such as Florida, Texas, Virginia, they put ban on teaching racial history of America in schools. They vehemently oppose critical race theory(CRT) which states that US social institutions ,(e.g the criminal justice system, labour market, housing market, healthcare and education system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations and procedures that to differential by race. At least 30 states, governed by Republicans, introduced or passed laws that restrict CRT teaching in schools and also what teachers are allowed to say in his classes about race and American history.
- Youngkin, governor of Virginia signed a bill so parents could sent ‘ reports and observations’ about perceived violation of the state laws like ‘Don’t say Gay’ bill which prohibits discussing gender issues in schools. Florida governor De Santis recently waged a war against ‘Disney World’ in Florida as it expresses its opposition to the ‘Don’t say Gay’ bill ‘ , despite the fact that Disney is the biggest employer in Florida, about 75000 . Many of them are transgender or gay..Cultural political message is more important to the Republicans than economy or prosperity.
Texas and many other states run by GOP passed laws that bans abortion six weeks after pregnancy, even it happened by rape or endanger the life of the woman. The Texas bill is known by name ‘Sue thy neighbour’, as anybody within the state can sue the offender and will get paid by the state $10,000 for that. It is like a bounty on abortion. Those who would violet this law could go to jail for 15 years.
Although Trump lost the White House Trumpism is thriving in 30 states out of 50 states in US. In those a record of 300 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced this year. Almost all of them are targeting transgender youths. They put ban on trans youth to participate in school sports, denied gender affirming medical care and even to use the correct restrooms in school.
It is almost a universal phenomenon that conservatives try to induce conservativeness into culture, by twisting history, by imposing code of conducts, suppressing individual freedom and choices, suppressing freedom of press and media and by waging constant war against liberalism and progress. In India, the decision to exclude Mughal Period in school curriculum and introduction of religious prayers before school’s start in some states are evidence of this attitude. That Trump would call press and media ,which have their rights defined clearly by the US constitution, enemy of the people and that the conservatives would stand against ‘Woke Culture’ , in other words against any awakening of thoughts and deeds ,uis no wonder to any clear headed man. In a most advanced country like US, there are still so many people (about more than 20%) those who believe that the Earth is flat, brings no surprise if we look into this through the prism of cultural hegemony.
The mood among Democrats is dire, with growing fear that a toxic mix of cultural war attacks and spiking inflation will doom their prospect in November election. In response, some democrats have argued to veer the party to right, at least to the centre. Their approach is bipartisanship. But it has alienated the key base of the party, such as the students and young educated one and people of color. It will be a wonder if the Democrats can fight back the onslaught of cultural hegemony war of the Republicans and win off their hesitation in offense and hang on to their majority in the upcoming midterm election. (IPA Service)
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