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In olden days, a glimpse of stocking

Was looked on as something shocking

But now, God knows

Anything goes

Cole Porter

America is a tough room. You cant joke about anything anymore.

Or so were told. Were in this place where everyones like, You cant say this, you cant say that, Whitney Cummings told Matt Wilstein on The Last Laugh podcast. I think its particularly worrying at the moment because you can only create in an atmosphere of freedom, where youre not checking everything you say critically before you move on, legendary Monty Pythons Flying Circus member John Cleese told an interviewer.

Kliph Nesteroff has heard all this before. As he chronicles in his new book, Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars, the comedy historian and author of the essential book, The Comedians, maintains that America has not suddenly lost its sense of humor. The so-called culture wars have been waged for centuries.

In the colonial era, he writes, the Continental Congress passed a law decreeing the closure of all places of public entertainment. In the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s, dance shows were raided if too much leg was shown. Decades before Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, a female audience member attacked Welsh comedian Ossie Morris after he uttered two profanities. In the 1950s, when Desi Arnaz wanted to work his wife Lucille Balls pregnancy into I Love Lucy, sponsor Philip Morris told him, You cannot show a pregnant woman on television. (You couldnt even say the word; the episode itself was titled, Lucy Is Enceinte.)

The idea you that cant say anything anymore is hyperbolic, Nesteroff says in a phone interview. Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and Richard Pryor were each arrested for the language they used onstage. Mae West went to jail. Today, even if a comedian caused outrage, nobody would be arrested. Its disrespectful to those who came before and blazed this path when you really couldnt say certain things.

As a complement to his book, Nesteroff has recently been posting on X (formerly Twitter) contemporaneous letters to the editor from irate TV viewers who were shocked and offended by what they were seeing in prime time. Like viewer Bernie Splim, who protested the food fight on a 1986 Thanksgiving episode of Cheers: Couldnt they have had Sam [Malone] open the bar to feed the homeless? he complained.

Nesteroff believes that social media is fueling the misperception that we are overly sensitive these days. In the days before the Internet, peoples reactions to show business was very similar to the reaction we see on social media, he says. The difference was if 100 people wrote 100 letters to the editor, only one or two would be published. Today, letters to the editor exist without the editor. They are sent out as tweets or Instagram posts and all 100 are posted. I dont believe this conceit that people are more sensitive or easily offended today. Its just now there is no filter. In reality, people were probably much more sensitive in the past because we had far greater taboos when it came to sex, religion, politics, and language.

Today, at least five of George Carlins Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television, can be heard in prime time. There is more freedom of speech and freedom of expression today, Nesteroff maintains. But were being told the opposite.

For example, Nesteroff points to controversial films in cinema. While D.W. Griffiths Birth of a Nation advanced cinema as an art form, it also glorifies the Ku Klux Klan. Gone With the Wind may be one of the most honored and beloved films of all time, yet it presents a benign view of the antebellum South. But as Nesteroff writes, America did not just suddenly get more sensitive toward these controversial films (HBO Max temporarily pulled Wind in 2020). They were banned or protested at the time of release in 1915 and 1939, respectively.

Outrageous is not officially dedicated to comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who died last April, but some stories in the book were absolutely included with Gottfried in heart and mind, Nesteroff says. For instance, Nesteroff writes in Outrageous about game show fans being repulsed by Family Feud host Richard Dawsons penchant for kissing female contestants on the mouth. In response, the show instituted a policy by which male and female contestants had to undergo a mouth test for herpes and other diseases.

Part of including that is the spirit of Gilbert Gottfried and what would make him laugh or make his jaw drop on the floor, Nesteroff says. The Richard Dawson herpes test is one I never got to share with him. I guarantee that if he were alive, I would lead with that on my next podcast appearance. (Nesteroff was a popular guest on Gilbert Gottfrieds Amazing Colossal Podcast, which was devoted to old school show business with eager digressions into entertainers behaving badly.)

Gottfried himself had multiple controversies throughout his career, Nesteroff says, and I wanted to have at least one Gilbert story in the book. That story is Gottfrieds 1991, well, outrageous, appearance on the Emmy Awards, which coincided with Paul Reubens arrest in an adult movie theater (in comedy, timing is everything). Gilbert was supposed to read material off the teleprompter, but he went rogue and did a series of jokes about masturbation, Nesteroff says. He got huge laughs, but the shows writers said they were disgusted by his performance. Michael Medved singled out Gilbert as an example of what he called Hollywoods contempt for middle America.

That seems to be a recurring line of attack in the culture wars: us vs. them. Perhaps one of the key lines in Outrageous is Nesteroffs observation that While the showbiz of a hundred years ago may seem remote, it is remarkable how similar the issues of the past are to the concerns of today. For example, theres this quote: We must take our country backcleaning up what I think is the dismal swamp, draining that swamp. Donald Trump in 2016? No, presidential candidate Pat Buchanan in 2000.

The culture wars rage on. Nesteroff hopes people can chill out a bit. I do not care for these doomsday prophecies that the world is coming to an end, he says. People used to say this in reference to the tango, the jitterbug, rock and roll, and comic books. You hear the same thing today when people refer to drag queen story time, The 1619 Project, or a comedian making a joke you dont like. Every generation thinks that everything happening in their day is unprecedented. You feel the hysteria that is sent to us intentionally and unintentionally on the Internet. But controversies quickly dissipate as the years pass. Were still here.

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Outrageous: The History of Comedy, Culture Wars, and Kissing Contestants - The Saturday Evening Post

COMEDY BOOK: How Comedy Conquered Culture and the Magic That Makes It Work, by Jesse David Fox

OUTRAGEOUS: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars, by Kliph Nesteroff

Did you hear the one about cancel culture?

Of course you did, several times over, if youve paid any attention to modern comedy and its purveyors, many of whom have groused about how hard it is to be funny in todays climate. But two new books share an exasperation with the common sentiment that theres never been a worse time to express oneself than the present. Taking them, well, seriously can liberate us from repeating the past.

Kliph Nesteroffs fact-packed Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars finds American entertainers in a perpetual state of despair over the censorious climate of their day whatever day it happens to be. Steve Allen, the original host of The Tonight Show, complained about the very touchy times in 1955; in 2015, Jerry Seinfeld said hed been warned away from playing colleges because of students sensitivities.

Social media gives the impression that people are more irrational, humorless and overly sensitive than in the past, Nesteroff writes, but vintage letters to the editor contain remarkably similar sentiments.

To Jesse David Fox, the author of Comedy Book, the risk of backlash is part of the point. Fox, a senior editor at New York magazines Vulture and a podcaster who regularly interviews comedians, puts it this way: Does political correctness make comedy harder to do? Sure, in the sense that it would be easier to run for a touchdown if you didnt have to worry about holding the ball, but thats the game. Its what makes it more exciting than watching a bunch of men sprinting with helmets on.

This is just one example of Foxs keen insight in his energetic and wise book, which focuses on the 90s and beyond, when, the author reckons, comedy became an ever-present, important, valued societal force. (Fox points out that before Seinfeld premiered in 1989, no comedian had ever headlined a show at Madison Square Gardens arena, yet by the time he wrote his book, 18 had.) Within broadly named chapters (Truth, Context, Audience), he crams vivid examples; his Timing section, which explores 9/11 jokes and the notion of too soon, is particularly adept at illustrating the use of humor in the face of tragedy.

Like many of his subjects, Fox knows his way around a pointed one-liner. A roast might sound mean, but its another way of saying I see you is one. If you are saying supposedly offensive things and the audience is instantly all onboard, it is not a comedy show, its a rally is another. That such rigorous thinking should at one point lead him to defend an Adam Sandler poop joke is a great gag in itself.

Fox is allergic to the kind of snobbery directed at broad comedy, maintaining that if its funny to anyone, its funny. Still, hes interested in parameters how 8:46, Dave Chappelles Netflix monologue inspired by the murder of George Floyd, functions as a piece of work in conversation with the history of comedy, and why the same comedians jokes targeting queer people fall short.

Comedy, Fox writes, is fundamentally play, and in his deft hands, the analysis of comedy can be playful, too. Fox knows that grand pronouncements on what makes funny things funny is dicey territory: The sense of what is funny is so subjective so completely built into your person that it feels objective, he writes.

His own life experiences and tastes are integral to his reporting. The first and last chapters of the book recount the deaths of immediate family members, which, he says, comedy helped him process. Comedy Book is not the definitive history of the past three-plus decades. Its Foxs history, and better for it.

Outrageous, the product of herculean research, has a wider purview than just comedy. Nesteroff touches on rock n roll, talk radio, the initial blowback received by early critics of Hitler and more.

However, what does and doesnt, should and shouldnt, make us laugh does take up a lot of space (Nesteroffs 2015 The Comedians is a full-fledged history of the form). Sometimes the laughs are inadvertent, as in a 1959 complaint from a viewer of the TV series Lassie who compared its portrayal of a litter of puppies to a sex show.

In no-frills prose, Nesteroff races through some two centuries of expression and backlash from blackface minstrelsy (criticized early on by Frederick Douglass) to the (formerly Dixie) Chicks (the country music trio whose titanic profile shrank several sizes after its lead singer publicly criticized President George W. Bush) rarely pausing for analysis and sometimes breezing by useful context. The book tends to home in on the moment when each brouhaha reached a fever pitch, which can give a distorted picture of the controversies and their ensuing fallouts.

Outrageous is nonetheless a useful compendium. Placing so many outrages next to one another exposes a call-and-response pattern, in which both sides of the political divide have tried to dictate acceptable speech for all. We may be partial to the intentions of one side, but the mechanics often look identical.

Unsurprisingly, its those already in power who often succeed. If there is a main character in Nesteroffs sea of stories, its Paul Weyrich, a John Birch Society alum who helped build an elaborate Culture War infrastructure with corporate cash and evangelical muscle, eventually cofounding the Heritage Foundation and the Moral Majority.

In sometimes clandestine ways, those groups have had a major impact in seeding American culture with conservative ideology, raging against what Weyrich called the Cultural Marxism of an elite few to dictate words, language and opinions while, Nesteroff writes, doing precisely that.

Outrageous portrays a country divided; theres no shortage of strife in Foxs book, but he believes fundamentally in the unifying power of comedy, which smooths conflicts and unites disparate groups. His faith is contagious.

Comedy is not stifled, he argues, but has enmeshed itself in how millennials and now Gen Z communicate. Superstars like Chappelle and Amy Schumer are endowed with the kind of trusted status once reserved for those in the purported truth business, like journalists, public intellectuals and politicians.

Can comedy make everything all better? Fox asks in conclusion. Of course not. But it makes it easier.

COMEDY BOOK: How Comedy Conquered Culture and the Magic That Makes It Work | By Jesse David Fox | Farrar, Straus & Giroux | 353 pp. | $29

OUTRAGEOUS: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars | By Kliph Nesteroff | Abrams | 312 pp. | $30

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Two New Books Consider Comedy and the Culture Wars - The New York Times

REPORTS OF GRASSROOTS outrage have been greatly exaggerated. Bankrolled anger is a big business, often weaponized for money, power, or both, and cancel culture, as it is often described, has become an increasingly complicated political football in the digital age. However, there is one area where outrage culture has always been a potent forcepopular culture. Kliph Nesteroffs new book, Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars, details the evolution concept within, and levied against, film, television, radio, music, and comedy. Nesteroff shows us the importance of sharing the history of fear and intimidation surrounding popular culture so that we can be more informed when we see it today, as the issues facing the moral crusaders of yesteryear are not unlike what we find in 2023.

In the class that I teach on censorship, I regularly welcome our campus librarian to discuss book banning. Her relationship with popular culture outrage became terrifying when she was a small-town librarian and the pushback against certain books led to death threats targeting members of her occupation. Understandably, several resignations followed. Stories like hers show the real life, local impact of defending literacy (not to mention those pesky First Amendment rights) in some communities.

Last semester, she brought a stack of regularly banned childrens books from the local library for our students to analyze. In Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquiths The Great Big Book of Families (2010), for example, one of my students found the line Some children have two mummies or two daddies carefully taped over. These college-age digital natives, who rarely bat an eye at viral outrage, were appalled and surprised to see this poorly implemented real-world example. These local instances are products of national debates and controversies. In 2009, religious fanatics near University of WisconsinMilwaukees West Bend campus wanted Stephen Chboskys The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999) removed and replaced by books written by ex-gays. This same community just got rid of Orson Scott Cards 1985 novel Enders Game for eighth graders. Even more confusing is the case of the Texas teacher who was recently fired for instructing her students to read from an illustrated adaptation of Anne Franks diary.

Comedy (and the larger scope of popular culture) has always pushed boundaries and, therefore, has been designed to offend. Though Nesteroff is careful to avoid any showbiz controversy in the 21st century, he recognizes that so many national conversations are intentionally composed to incite and manipulate the reader. While this may feel like a new phenomenon to some, sadly it is not. Nesteroff quotes historian Richard Hofstadters 1964 The Paranoid Style in American Politics to establish continuities with the present: The paranoid spokesperson sees the fate of this conspiracy [to upend a specific way of life] in apocalyptic terms [] [H]e constantly lives at a turning point: it is now or never in organizing resistance. This paranoid style of outrage and fearmongering has been at work in our society for well over a century.

Outrageous starts by showing us that American show business essentially begins in the 1830s with the blackface minstrel show. Ever since that time, writes Nesteroff, audiences have complained. Though Outrageous makes very minimal connections to today, these minstrel controversies persist, most commonly relating to digital blackface and white peoples use of GIFs featuring African Americans. However, as Nesteroff chronicles, not all outrage has aged as well. Many people disapprove of blackface todaythough perhaps not as many as youd think. There was also a time when the Twist sent shock waves through the nations prudes, but today the dance raises very few eyebrows. Same goes for the Beatleswhat was once the Devils music is now classic rock playing at your local department store.

Attacks on mass popular culture first peaked with outrage over the nascent art of cinema. Fearing federal censorship, the film industry decided to self-censor. Outrageous includes some history of film controversy, featuring the technologically influential but socially reprehensible Birth of a Nation (1915). Its director, D. W. Griffith, was raised in the postbellum South, his childhood draped in the Lost Cause legends that plagued the region and circulated throughout the country via films like his. (Importantly, Birth of a Nation, controversial then as now, brought a fledgling NAACP to national attention.)

Nesteroff also highlights the Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle scandal, as it lit a fire for antipop culture crusaders looking to paint Hollywood as a sanctuary of vice and debauchery. When sound movies came in, Mae West had an all-too-brief peak of fame for her sexually suggestive comic roles; when censorship strictures were tightened in 1934, Wests career took a major hit. Even with the decline of the Motion Picture Production Code and the rise of the ratings system in the United States, fear and intimidation over movies have persisted.

During the rise of television, the continued backlash against Amos n Andy produced enough pressure to end the mediums use of blackface altogether. Predictably, comments flew regarding the death of comedy. Taboos have killed off most sources of American humor, complained one newspaper column at the time. Nesteroff shows how, as public taste changed, previous generations of comicsincluding West and the legendary Lucille Ballscoffed at televisions increasing inclusion of profanity. Organizations of moral crusaders came out of the woodwork. Conservative activist group Morality in Mediawhich, as Nesteroff shows, was funded by the Coors fortunefought to get Playboy magazine banned from stores and went after screenings of The Godfather (1972) and anything else that was going to push the United States into barbarism. The irony of a beer company funding the morality police may have been lost on this group.

One of the books greatest strengths is how it outlines the origins of outrage, tracking its evolution (and stasis) historically. What was once anger expressed by religious groups became lavishly funded outrage machines stemming from the Cold Warera John Birch Society, an organization which continues to impact the nation. Among the founders was candy and conspiracy solicitor Robert W. Welch Jr. One of the Societys bookstores was operated by Charles Koch (whose last name should ring a few bells). The Society propagated anti-integration views, held book burnings, and kept pressure on Hollywood and the media for liberalizing the country. Some members of Hollywood were recruited by the Society, such as screenwriter Morrie Ryskind, who authored some marvelous comedies of the 1930s, including Animal Crackers (1930) and My Man Godfrey (1936). Ryskinds son Allan, it is worth noting, published Hollywood Traitors: Blacklisted Screenwriters; Agents of Stalin, Allies of Hitler in 2015, a book carrying evaporated water and decrying Hollywoods communist-infiltrated Golden Age. The John Birch Society was lampooned by comedians in every medium. Original Tonight Show host Steve Allen received death threats for his jokes about the Birchers.

Later profiled is Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank funded by a multimillion-dollar donation by Joseph Coors. The name of the foundation may sound scholarly, but all it did on its founding in 1973 was provide a new veneer for Bircher beliefs. The organization sparked a growth of other similar groups, all Christian-affiliated, working toward the dismantling of popular culture. By the 1980s, such groups attracted televangelists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and stoked public fears around music and entertainment, resulting in the burning of hip-hop and heavy metal records.

Enter the Parents Music Resource Center, or PMRC, the heart and soul of moral crusading against music in the 1980s. Spearheaded by Tipper Gore and a string of other government-affiliated spouses, the PMRC sought to silence musicians whose music they didnt like. The PMRC, like previous outrage organizations, was endorsed by radical religious groups like Focus on the Family, which endorsed conversion therapy, and rejected the theory of evolution. Such outrage led to the Moral Majority, a collective of Christian conservative groups that regularly stuck their neck into the culture wars. Though not mentioned in the book, the only thing to come out of the PMRC is the often-ignored Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics label still found on some albums. Some stores, including Wal-Mart, refused to stock albums featuring the advisory.

Just about all fearmongering over popular culture is justified as a means of protecting the children. Nesteroff argues that this is a constant reminder that concern for children was [and is] a cover for bigotry. History shows how kids are used as an excuse to attack any popular culture phenomenon that has aided social and racial integration. The John Birch Society insisted they were just looking out for the kidsa very specific subset of kids, it was clearas they fought desegregation in schools.

And today, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), with which Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Senator Josh Hawley are connected, works to fight abortion, ban contraceptives, and criminalize homosexualityall to provide a hypocritical interpretation of family values about saving the children. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has cultivated an atmosphere of fear and judgment leading to nearly 1,500 book bans in the last year. Like nearly everything covered in Outrageous, book banning across the country is tied to groups like Moms for Liberty, yet another deceptively titled organization that hides behind an ostensible love of those most in need of protection.

Nesteroff covers an impressive amount of ground, but besides the opening chapter, in which he frames the history of outrage, his narrative stops short of our current moment. Nesteroff writes cogently on documentaries and on podcasts, and therefore about the presentevidently, he has the commentary chops to go there. Perhaps a reason for his hesitation is the fact that contemporary outrage passes so quickly that by the time he finished writing the discussion, his examples had moved on. The last thing any author wants is for their commentary to look stale, an adjective I dont think could ever describe Nesteroffs work.

Nesteroff doesnt explicitly tell us what to do with the knowledge hes shared, and maybe he doesnt have to. But I would argue that one thing we need to do is continue sharing the history of the culture wars. Its why I teach the aforementioned class and am considering my own book on the subject. We need to expand conversation outside of the social media black hole where algorithms privilege the most idiotic content, and books like Outrageous give us a tool to share with others. Information, especially good information, is an undervalued commodity in todays data-driven economy. If we are going to cut through the fearmongering around so-called dangerous popular culture, we first need to show that we can fight the outrage machine by exposing the hypocrisy of save the childrentype rhetoric.

This book should spark useful conversations, even debate, by offering a template for discussing the relevance and origins of historic outrage culture. Nesteroff argues that outrage against popular culture often comes from a place of religious bigotry, is a generously funded venture, and is usually launched purely out of the desire to exercise political power. The fact remains that outrage is often funded and organized from above, is rarely centered on the artifact in question rather than the feelings around it, and remains just as important now as it was 100 years ago.

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Endless Culture Wars: On Kliph Nesteroffs Outrageous - lareviewofbooks

Although it has only been a few decades deemed the worlds hyperpower, the history and cultural developments driving its current slide towards political and economic sclerosis are rarely discussed. Instead, Americas troubles are explained by particulars, like Donald Trumps tweets and Joe Bidens dementia. I am therefore grateful to have the opportunity to present a few high points from my book, Radical Betrayal: How Liberals & Neoconservatives Are Wrecking American Exceptionalism. It goes beyond the banalities of Trump haters, media bias, and academic prejudice, to explain todays crisis through the (cracking) lens of American Exceptionalism.

Because my analysis deals withU.S. nationalism, it is best to begin by recalling that national narratives have been a political force since Antiquity. However, most of these proto-nationalisms focused on the kings who maintained them, not the common people. Thus, they didnt develop into forces strong enough to sustain national identities through periods of conquest and weakness. As a result, states rose and fell at a breathtaking rate, and peoples like the Jews, Athenians, and Spartans continued to define themselves as members of small tribes rather than larger nations. There were some exceptions, of which the Romans are the best known. By extending citizenship, they created a sense of community and gave people in conquered areas a vested interest in the empires well-being.

During the Middle Ages, European rulers reverted to a king-oriented state ideology. In England, however, a proto-nationalist narrative emerged after King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215. This document created a number of English freedoms encouraging the development of a new type of society marked by, for example, personal rights for to all freemen of our kingdom, and power sharing between Parliament, the King, and courts. Later, this ethos merged with the Puritan view of North Americaa New Israel settled by God-fearing people who were destined to create a model nationforming the embryo of American Exceptionalism in the process.

In 1776, the colonists desire to protect their English freedoms triggered the American Revolution. Through the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, Christian beliefs, English realism, and Enlightenment idealism combined in the worlds first full-blownand so far, most successfulmodern nationalism. However, to grasp the full scale, scope, and influence of this original form of exceptionalism, two episodes of early U.S. history must be considered.

First, Alexander Hamiltons viewthat U.S. markets needed to be protected by tariffs outlived Thomas Jeffersons ideal of America being an Empire of Liberty. As the country grew large enough to escape the snags of protectionism, that outcome preserved a small government and free market regime that rapidly made America the richest country in the world. It also cemented the American inclinations towards personal freedom, local resolution of social issues, and more.

The second event was George Washingtons decision in 1789 not to support the French Revolution in an active role. This created a non-interventionist tradition that, with some exemptions, endured until World War II. In other words, America settled on being a model, rather than a creator, of freedom in other lands. As John Quincy Adams put it in 1821, We Americans do not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

Bolstered by exceptionalist sentiments, these episodes formed a unifying worldview strong enough to hold the Union together despite growing ethnic, social, and cultural differences. Moreover, principles like limited government, states rights, low taxes, and a non-interventionist foreign policy, formed a super-ideology embraced by nearly everybody. Nineteenth-century U.S. politics overall accordingly became an ideologically dull affair, punctuated only by serious clashes about particulars such as the need for a federal bank, the continuation of slavery (that even led to a Civil War), and the level of tariffs.

Around 1900, this unity began to crumble. One reason for this was that, as the U.S. became affluent, so also grew the strength of the missionary impulse implicit in viewing America as a model society of freedom. In other words, as people realized that the U.S. had the means, they felt obliged to start spreading freedom and their values more vigorously. So, with the Spanish-American War in 1898, the U.S. began expanding its international role, such as by acquiring outposts in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

Simultaneously, the Democrats started moving politically leftward. The reason for that change was because, since the Civil War, the party had faced a precarious electoral position due to its support for slavery and its association with the Ku Klux Klan. Subsequently, in an effort to rebrand itself, by nominating populist firebrand William Jennings Bryan for president in 1896, 1900, and 1908, it began to depart from its traditionally libertarian program, adopting more statist-market intervention stances instead.

In 1912, these developments coalesced when Woodrow Wilson became president. Elected with only 42%t of the vote (as the Republican vote split between President William H. Taft and ex-President Theodore Roosevelt) and as a figurehead of the Progressive Movement, he held several views that were alien by American standards. For example, he regarded the U.S. Constitution as outdated, believed in human perfectibility, and thought that the U.S. Government could be used as a force for good. Thus, the Democrats view of America and its role began to oppose the original belief in exceptionalism.

Nonetheless, by expressing himself vaguely and by redefining traditional terms, Wilson managed to push through his policies. At home, he signed bills creating the Federal Reserve and introducing a federal income tax. And in 1917, using exceptionalist-sounding rhetoric, he dragged the U.S. into World War I with the goal of creating a New World Order. The Treaty of Versaillesbased on Wilsons personal beliefs rather than exceptionalist valuesset the stage for World War II. By then, the transformation of America from a free republic into a full-blown welfare-warfare state had begun, yet radicals would continue to drape non-American policies in exceptionalist-sounding rhetoric.

For example, Franklin D. Roosevelt sold parts of the New Deal as temporary deviations aimed only at resolving the Great Depression and preserving the American way of life. And after John F. Kennedy mastered the art of boxing liberal policies in exceptionalist wrapping paper, Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through both a tax cut and his Great Society program, promising to fix everything: from addressing the lack of local libraries to the eradication of fear, want, poverty, and racism. And the budget deficit this created was only one effect; the federal apparatus turning into a true Leviathan, set at fixing everything from potholes to global warming, was another.

However, the Great Society made the difference between exceptionalist-sounding rhetoric and liberal policies too stark to resolve and, after 1970, many liberals began to sound more like European than American politicians. This dual rhetorical-policy departure from American tradition triggered the Cultural Wars, a series of conflicts between conservatives and progressives over issues of identity, values, and morality that has become so bitter that it today threatens the survival of the Union.

Certainly, the Right is partially to blame for Americas current problems. Even if the GOP has remained committed to low taxes, few regulations, and individual freedom, the party hasunder the influence of so-called neoconservativesdeviated from its earlier principles in other areas, the most important of which are foreign policy and budget discipline. In a word, neocons have bested the Democrats advocacy for an aggressive foreign policy and, by uncritically adopting supply-side economics, have contributed to todays chronic budget deficit and a national debt of $33+ trillion.

Much more could be said about these and other matters. However, these considerations alone show how badly flawed is the established narrative about modern America, its characteristics, and its policies. As just one example, for more than 50 years the cultural wars have falsely been blamed on the GOP taking a hard right turn under Ronald Reagan. More serious is that both parties have distanced themselves from the ethos of American Exceptionalism. This has created a gap between popular and elite discourses about what the U.S. is and what its goals should be, blurring peoples sense of community, and weakening exceptionalisms role as a glue that holds the country together.

Furthermore, even if both sides do share blame for these developments, the Democrats nevertheless bear the principal responsibility. By adopting European tax, welfare, and other policies, they have given roughly half the population a schizophrenic view of what it means to be an American. Over time, they have effectively offered provisions for purely anti-American views and sentiments stemming from within media and academia.

After Wilson, FDR, and LBJ, the main culprit in creating this state of affairs was Barack Obama. He concluded the Democratsmutation into a full-scale left-wing party focused on giving entitlements to strategic voter groups and keeping the countrys borders open, rather than helping struggling people improve their situations. Also, in his bid to create a new electoral majority of youth, women, unionized workers, immigrants, LGBT, and college-educated liberals, he exacerbated the culture wars and reversed decades of progress by deliberately stirring social, racial, cultural, and other forms of mistrust.

Moreover, Obamas failed policies led to a depressed new normal that Donald Trump turned out to be a master at challenging. His pledge to stand up against the globalist cabal in D.C. and to make the country great again went hand in glove with the concerns of disgruntled Americans. And by (e.g.) focusing tax cuts on working- and middle-class people (instead of important voter blocs and special interests) and renegotiating unfavorable trade deals, he succeeded. Almost, for at the last minute, Democrats and the media managed to use the COVID-19 hysteria, along with some creative voter collection methods, to derail his reelection.

Now, the Biden administration has reversed most of Trumps successful policies and implemented new ones that have added to the vilest part of the old order. It has increased federal spending to a new record level, which in turn has led to both a rise in inflation and the national debt; it has raised popular expectations of what the government can do in the realm of welfare by promising things like a student loan forgiveness program that would be extremely expensive and destructive to fostering a sense of personal responsibility; and it has promised infinite amounts of military and economic aid to Ukraine and Israel, which has tied up the country in two new endless wars in faraway countries (next to Syria and other current conflicts).

In summary, America must bridge its economic, cultural, and other divides by reinvigorating American Exceptionalism. Otherwise, the U.S. will fall, which would not only be historically poignant but also dangerous, since powers like Russia, China, and Iran would gain immensely from such a disaster. And, because the Democrats bear the principal responsibility for todays situation, they must back away from the brink and once again embrace more exceptionalist rhetoric and policies. If they do not, the political, social, and cultural tensions in America will continue to increase until the nation rips itself apart. The only alternatives to such an outcome would be to split the Union peacefully beforehand, or for the federal level to become more autocratic. Unfortunately, given events such as U.S. intelligence agencies mass surveillance of U.S. citizens, the White Houses efforts to censor free speech online, the hiring of 10,000 new and armed IRS agents, and the legal maneuvers designed to jail Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 election, the latter is where things seem to be going.

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Sclerotic America The European Conservative - The European Conservative

Ohio lawmakers have failed, at least for now, to pass a bill that would exert control over discussion of controversial beliefs about climate policies in college classrooms.

Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens, a Republican, said this week that the bill doesnt have enough support to pass the House, where it has sat for months following passage in the Senate.

Senate Bill 83 contains a wide-ranging set of rules for public colleges and universities, including bans on most diversity training and new requirements that alternative viewpoints on such topics as climate policies, immigration and abortion are discussed. Its main sponsor, Sen. Jerry Cirino, a Republican, said he was taking on the woke fiefdom of higher education.

The bill faced intense opposition from faculty, students, environmental groups and unions, leading to hours-long hearings over several months. Supporters of the bill made many changes to attempt to find a version that could pass, including the removal of language that banned strikes by higher education unions, but it wasnt enough.

A provision dealing with controversial beliefs or policies remained in the bill, which helped to inspire resistance from people who teach and study science; they warned that Ohios public colleges and universities would be impaired in their ability to teach climate science.

So many people have come out against this bill and have pushed back and have rallied, not only against this bill, but so much other harmful legislation, that I think its given me hope, said Keely Fisher, a Ph.D. student in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at Ohio State University.

She spoke to Inside Climate News in May about how the bill made her wonder if she belonged in Ohio. Now she feels pride in the way her faculty and classmates and those at other universities defended their ability to do research unfettered by this regulation, she said.

Ohio Rep. Casey Weinstein, a Democrat, said he is not surprised to see the bill has failed to pass based on his conversations with Republican colleagues who were uncomfortable with various parts of it. Republicans hold large majorities in both chambers of the Ohio General Assembly.

In Ohio, we love our universities, so the fact that theyre attacking and potentially striking blows against our beloved public universities that are so critical to our workforce and our economy, that was a tough hill to climb, he said.

Cirino, the lead sponsor, testified before a House committee in May and faced questions from Weinstein, who asked how the measure would affect the teaching of the Holocaust. While Cirino didnt endorse inaccurate views of how the Holocaust should be taught, Weinstein said he is troubled that the bill seems to open the door to treating Holocaust denial as just another point of view.

I dont think he did himself any favors by, unfortunately, being honest about his bill and saying that he was trying to both sides slavery, 9-11 and the Holocaust, Weinstein said.

Cirino did not respond to a request for an interview.

The bill says faculty and staff shall allow and encourage students to reach their own conclusions about all controversial beliefs or policies and shall not seek to inculcate any social, political, or religious point of view.

The bill then lists examples of controversial topics, including climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, or abortion.

A previous version of the bill referred to climate change instead of climate policies. Cirino changed it in response to concerns that the measure would regulate the teaching of climate science, but opponents said the bill would continue to impair teaching about climate change even with the new wording.

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Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, has been monitoring the Ohio legislation and is pleased to see that it doesnt appear likely to pass. His organization, based in California, opposes threats to the accuracy of science education in K-12 schools and higher education.

The Ohio bill is trying to sweep up higher education into the culture wars that Cirino and his supporters want to pursue, he said. Climate change is a fairly minor battlefield for them in the culture wars, but it is, indeed, part of what they want to fight about.

He said attacks on science education at public universities are much less common than what he sees happening in K-12 schools.

For example, his organization has been working to oppose efforts before the Texas State Board of Education to restrict the use of textbooks that accurately describe climate change and evolution.

Branch said the Ohio bill was so brazen and it offended so many interest groups, including labor unions, people of color and science educators, that it was not difficult to defeat. Other threats to science education are harder to fight.

But policy ideas can always come back in new forms, so there remains a possibility that Cirino or some other Ohio lawmaker could pursue aspects of this bill again. Senate President Matt Huffman, whose chamber passed the bill in the spring and still supports it, said this week that he will continue to push for the measure.

If that happens the coalition that opposed it will be ready to respond.

Fisher, the Ohio State student, said she welcomes not having to worry about the legislation for a while.

It is this weight off my shoulders that I didnt know I needed, she said.

Dan Gearino covers the midwestern United States, part of ICNs National Environment Reporting Network. His coverage deals with the business side of the clean-energy transition and he writes ICNs Inside Clean Energy newsletter. He came to ICN in 2018 after a nine-year tenure at The Columbus Dispatch, where he covered the business of energy. Before that, he covered politics and business in Iowa and in New Hampshire. He grew up in Warren County, Iowa, just south of Des Moines, and lives in Columbus, Ohio.

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