Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

The American Schism in 2025: The New Cultural Revolution

Part Six of The American Schism in 2025

Opinion

The American Schism in 2025: The New Cultural Revolution

A street vendor selling public domain Donald Trump paraphernalia and souvenirs. The souvenirs are located right across the street from the White House and taken on the afternoon of July 21, 2019 near Pennslyvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

Getty Images, P_Wei

A common point of bewilderment today among many of Trump’s “establishment” critics is the all too tepid response to Trump’s increasingly brazen shattering of democratic norms. True, he started this during his first term, but in his second, Trump seems to relish the weaponization of his presidency to go after his enemies and to brandish his corrupt dealings, all under the Trump banner (e.g. cyber currency, Mideast business dealings, the Boeing 747 gift from Qatar). Not only does Trump conduct himself with impunity but Fox News and other mainstream media outlets barely cover them at all. (And when left-leaning media do, the interest seems to wane quickly.)

Here may be the source of the puzzlement: the left intelligentsia continues to view and characterize MAGA as a political movement, without grasping its transcendence into a new dominant cultural order. MAGA rose as a counter-establishment partisan drive during Trump’s 2016 campaign and subsequent first administration; however, by the 2024 election, it became evident that MAGA was but the eye of a full-fledged cultural shift, in some ways akin to Mao’s Cultural Revolution.


For those who might be offended by this analogy, allow me to explain. For sure, during the social chaos of the decade-long Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, turmoil, bloodshed, and hunger ruined millions of lives. What enabled Mao to solidify state power was his mobilization of the younger generation of Chinese to ostracize hundreds of millions of Chinese elders, many of whom were humiliated and murdered, others driven to suicide. Student gangs and Red Guards regularly denounced and physically attacked common citizens showing any sign of “bourgeois” propensities. During one of the great tragic episodes of the 20th century, Chinese society was viciously torn asunder and restructured under a totalitarian state.

Thank heavens, nothing anywhere near that horrific has happened on American soil. Nonetheless, the stunning manner in which the 80-year-old post-WWII order has been turned on its head merits the comparison. The concept of “culture” usually composes five main elements: values and beliefs, symbols, language, and rituals, and each of these has shifted markedly in the last 10 years. The rejection of “woke” progressivism has not only seeped deeply into much of the electorate but the demonization of the traditional bastions of knowledge has led to a devastating hollowing out of both public and private American Institutions. The U.S. is losing its grip as the most desirable place in the world that intelligentsia chooses to study in, work in, and make vital contributions to.

Of the many aspects of the new emergent culture, one frightening leitmotif is the assault and attempted redefinition of the present-day concept of masculinity. As exposed in the recent mini-series, Adolescence, millions of young men are regularly following influencers ranting about their perceived loss of status in contemporary society. Many of these voices in the “manosphere” advocate an almost cult-like call to action for a retrograde return to the masculinity of a bygone era. Facing bleak prospects, working-class men without a college degree have been especially drawn to these movements where they can give expression to their grievances. In a chilling development, their pent-up acrimony has given expression to a misogynistic scorn directed at high-functioning women, or other elites, from whom they feel left behind.

Moreover, there is a new generation of young men who were children when Trump first ran for office, and whose political imaginations were ignited by his rise to power. As expressed in a recent article in the Free Press, “They have no memories of belonging to—or being accepted by any party or cultural milieu except Trump’s. And for them, Trump is not just a disrupter, an excuse, a historical symptom, or an accident.” He represents a role model for a new cultural order in which EVs and wind and solar energy are “effete” solutions adopted by “girly” men, while “real men” rely on “big beautiful clean” coal and gas-guzzling combustion cars. The level of humiliating scorn directed at former President Biden in social media provides a shocking demonstration of this alarming trend.

Other characteristics of this new ascendant American culture include: first, a nationalism that fears immigration and makes a clear distinction between true “heritage” Americans and other citizens; second, a traditionalism that distrusts and ultimately rejects modern expertise and a globalized economy; and finally, a flat-out rejection of the contemporary progressive framework that aims to temper human biases and tribal urges by defining new respectful behavioral norms more attuned to a pluralistic society.

Note that many of these cultural elements conveniently function as the supportive pillars of a totalitarian state, such as the focus on societal order and the control of a new common narrative. And, in a corresponding parallel, these same themes have been gaining momentum in the populism movements in Europe.

In their now critically acclaimed book, The Fourth Turning, authors William Strauss and Neil Howe described how cultural change often moves in 100-year cycles, swinging like a pendulum between different values, priorities, and ideologies, especially during periods of crisis following an unraveling.

It would be foolish to try to predict the full impact of the MAGA cultural movement on our nation's ability to address urgent challenges at home and abroad. Therefore, I am not eager to offer a normative assessment of this cultural shift. However, I believe we should be circumspect and ask the following questions: will this new cultural ethos provide a conducive environment over the next 50 years for addressing our gravest threats: A) managing climate change; B) crafting a stable and more peaceful international order; and, C) developing an AI infrastructure that is trustworthy and safe? Moreover, with the menace facing our democracy in addition, will our nation’s deep-seated capacity for self-improvement prevail?


Seth Radwell is the author of “American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing our Nation ” winner of last year’s International Book Award for Best General Nonfiction. He is a frequent contributor as a political analyst, and speaker within both the business community and on college campuses both in the U.S. and abroad.

Read More

On Live Facial Recognition in the City: We Are Not Guinea Pigs, and We Are Not Disposable

New Orleans fights a facial recognition ordinance as residents warn of privacy risks, mass surveillance, and threats to immigrant communities.

Getty Images, PhanuwatNandee

On Live Facial Recognition in the City: We Are Not Guinea Pigs, and We Are Not Disposable

Every day, I ride my bike down my block in Milan, a tight-knit residential neighborhood in central New Orleans. And every day, a surveillance camera follows me down the block.

Despite the rosy rhetoric of pro-surveillance politicians and facial recognition vendors, that camera doesn’t make me safer. In fact, it puts everyone in New Orleans at risk.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Manosphere Is Bad for Boys and Worse for Democracy
a skeleton sitting at a desk with a laptop and keyboard
Photo by Growtika on Unsplash

The Manosphere Is Bad for Boys and Worse for Democracy

15-year-old Owen Cooper made history to become the youngest male to win an Emmy Award. In the Netflix series Adolescence, Owen plays the role of a 13-year-old schoolboy who is arrested after the murder of a girl in his school. As we follow the events leading up to the crime, the award-winning series forces us to confront legitimate insecurities that many teenage boys face, from lack of physical prowess to emotional disconnection from their fathers. It also exposes how easily young men, seeking comfort in their computers, can be pulled into online spaces that normalize misogyny and rage; a pipeline enabled by a failure of tech policy.

At the center of this danger lies the manosphere: a global network of influencers whose words can radicalize young men and channel their frustrations into violence. But this is more than a social crisis affecting some young men. It is a growing threat to the democratic values of equality and tolerance that keep us all safe.

Keep ReadingShow less
Your Data Isn’t Yours: How Social Media Platforms Profit From Your Digital Identity

Discover how your personal data is tracked, sold, and used to control your online experience—and how to reclaim your digital rights.

Getty Images, Sorapop

Your Data Isn’t Yours: How Social Media Platforms Profit From Your Digital Identity

Social media users and digital consumers willingly present a detailed trail of personal data in the pursuit of searching, watching, and engaging on as many platforms as possible. Signing up and signing on is made to be as easy as possible. Most people know on some level that they are giving up more data than they should , but with hopes that it won’t be used surreptitiously by scammers, and certainly not for surveillance of any sort.

However, in his book, "Means of Control," Byron Tau shockingly reveals how much of our digital data is tracked, packaged, and sold—not by scammers but by the brands and organizations we know and trust. As technology has deeply permeated our lives, we have willingly handed over our entire digital identity. Every app we download, every document we create, every social media site we join, there are terms and conditions that none of us ever bother to read.

That means our behaviors, content, and assets are given up to corporations that profit from them in more ways than the average person realizes. The very data and the reuse of it are controlling our lives, our freedom, and our well-being.

Let’s think about all this in the context of a social media site. It is a place where you interact with friends, post family photos, and highlight your art and videos. You may even share a perspective on current events. These very social media platforms don’t just own your content. They can use your behavior and your content to target you. They also sell your data to others, and profit massively off of YOU, their customer.

Keep ReadingShow less
A gavel next to a computer chip with the words "AI" on it.

Often, AI policy debates focus on speculative risks rather than real-world impacts. Kevin Frazier argues that lawmakers and academics must shift their focus from sci-fi scenarios to practical challenges.

Getty Images, Just_Super

Why Academic Debates About AI Mislead Lawmakers—and the Public

Picture this: A congressional hearing on “AI policy” makes the evening news. A senator gravely asks whether artificial intelligence might one day “wake up” and take over the world. Cameras flash. Headlines declare: “Lawmakers Confront the Coming Robot Threat.” Meanwhile, outside the Beltway on main streets across the country, everyday Americans worry about whether AI tools will replace them on factory floors, in call centers, or even in classrooms. Those bread-and-butter concerns—job displacement, worker retraining, and community instability—deserve placement at the top of the agenda for policymakers. Yet legislatures too often get distracted, following academic debates that may intrigue scholars but fail to address the challenges that most directly affect people’s lives.

That misalignment is no coincidence. Academic discourse does not merely fill journals; it actively shapes the policy agenda and popular conceptions of AI. Too many scholars dwell on speculative, even trivial, hypotheticals. They debate whether large language models should be treated as co-authors on scientific papers or whether AI could ever develop consciousness. These conversations filter into the media, morph into lawmaker talking points, and eventually dominate legislative hearings. The result is a political environment where sci-fi scenarios crowd out the issues most relevant to ordinary people—like how to safeguard workers, encourage innovation, and ensure fairness in critical industries. When lawmakers turn to scholars for guidance, they often encounter lofty speculation rather than clear-eyed analysis of how AI is already reshaping specific sectors.

Keep ReadingShow less