Maybe what we’ve been calling culture war has actually been class war.
In RISE, Richard posits the Creative Class as an entity that’s not yet self-conscious and is tied to the new creative (i.e., high tech, etc.) economy. I think the emergence of the creative economy and creative class have been met with resistance in the form of class warfare. We tend to think of class warfare in terms of rich vs. poor, but this is between the classes of the old economy vs. the creative class.
It’s played out in America’s politics as the old economy warriors took over parts of the Republican Party with anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-elite rhetoric and used them to resist change. Those in the old economy used the culturally conservative demonization of the 1960s to organize against the emergence of the creative class which is intellectual, scientifically oriented, and tends to be highly educated. People tied to the resource-based, Fordist economy, whether Rust Belt working-class “Reagan Democrats” or oil barons, have been fighting against the new social and economic realities. The Bush administration, with its giveaways to resource-based corporations and resistance to science has been a last bastion of resistance. The automakers attempt for a bailout is another symptom of this reaction.
The battle lines haven’t always been clear because the nature of the war hasn’t been well understood by either side. We have to be careful about making assumptions or ascribing value judgments. Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove were clearly part of the creative class, regardless of which side they’re on. Tom Delay and John Dingell were clearly not. Both Clintons, Al Gore, and Obama are clearly creative class. By G.W. Bush’s job description he should be, but not his nature, so he’s hard to define. Bush Sr. and Bob Dole were essentially non-combatant leftovers from an earlier era. It’s hard to say about Reagan or McCain, who fell into both camps.
Obama seems to have captured the Creative Class vote, and may create Judis & Teixeira’s “Emerging Democratic Majority” if his policies succeed in supporting the new economy. The Republicans are faced with going the way of the Whigs unless they can abandon the class warfare and open up to the new economy and the creative class.