When O’Rourke decries culture war, what he really wants is for the right to surrender
Beto O’Rourke’s early message in his campaign for governor is simple and compelling: Look at all the nice things we could have if it wasn’t for this darn culture war.
On guns, abortion and education, the Democrat argues, our politics is poisoned by “these culture war issues, this extremism,” emanating from Gov. Greg Abbott and the other Republicans who control state government.
What he never quite gets around to, though, is telling his own side to lay down its arms, or even take a single step back from the battle lines.
It’s a common patter in politics: Democrats accuse Republicans of ginning up fake issues to fire up their base voters. And Republicans have a similar go-to, warning that Democrats seek to transform society in a way that “real Americans” won’t recognize.
The thing is, progressives often agree on the transformation part. For years now, they have been the aggressors in the culture war.
It’s not the right that’s trying to replace “mother,” a term known in every society since the dawn of time, with “birthing person.” It’s not the right that wants schoolchildren taught to obsess over race or math class altered to avoid the notion that there are right and wrong answers.
There’s no sign O’Rourke will rebuke such overreaches. And he’s not necessarily leading the way. But he made it clear early on that he won’t retreat an inch when he said he still advocates for mandatory government confiscation of rifles such as AR-15s.
“We don’t want extremism in our gun laws,” he has said about permitless carry. But it’s every bit as extreme, if not more so, to forcibly take private property from law-abiding citizens in the name of preventing a relatively tiny number of misuses of such guns.
So, when O’Rourke says that he can lead Texas to a whole new level if we can just get past the culture war, it’s clear what he’s calling for: unconditional surrender on the right.
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