Cultural: Relating to the ideas, customs, and social behavior of a society.

War(s): A state of competition, conflict, or hostility between different people or groups.

Claiming that the ideas, customs, and social behavior of American society are being competed for or fought over by different groups certainly sounds dramatic, but is there any other way to describe the current events? The articles linked to constitute but a minutia of the deluge of fiery political rhetoric being spewed over current political events; some, like the openly anarchist outlet, call for violent opposition and insurrection, while the more mainstream sources keep the exaggerated rhetoric and stop short of calling for revolution.

Although armed conflict hasn’t yet occurred, organized violence with political motivations has. These instances, for now, remain opportunistic and easily suppressed, but newspapers and online news sources with large audiences speak the same language as the anarchists, effectively creating an environment where their ideas if not their actions are reinforced. Their ideas are defined in absolute terms, creating an all-or-nothing dichotomy where the ideas must be implemented fully and anything short of it might as well be nothing. Equality is a good example of this, as until absolute social, economic, and political equality is achieved for every possible group of people that may differentiate itself from the majority, our society is the second incarnation of Apartheid-era South Africa. Fighting a war of ideas at this level requires an opposite but equal reaction in the form of Donald Trump.

The Cultural Wars have begun.