Obama's Inauguration Marks the End of America's Culture Wars

Guess who won the culture wars that have raged since the '60s? Just ask Garth Brooks.

January 19, 2009 |

LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?

Join our mailing list:

Sign up to stay up to date on the latest Election 2008 headlines via email.

It was a moment of victory in the political cultural war that has gripped the United States since the tumultuous days of the 1960s. It came in the middle of the inauguration celebration held at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday. And its bearer was Garth Brooks. The man who has epitomized country music, the official music of Red-State America, was hailing the election of a man who represents what many people with a Red-State mentality oppose: an America that embraces liberal attitudes of diversity and tolerance, that does not equate Ivy League-style education with effete elitism, and that does not hold on to traditions to block social change and progress. True, Brooks is no rock-ribbed redneck. His 1992 song, “We Shall Be Free.” essentially endorsed gay marriage. But when he performed the old Isley Brothers soul classic, “Shout,” before a massive crowd of Obama supporters, you could almost hear some Red-Staters wail, “They’ve turned our Garth into a black guy!” When he finished, Brooks doffed his cowboy hat toward President-elect Barack Obama, who sat with his family to the side of the stage.

The show at the Lincoln Memorial contained other moments signaling that the cultural civil war that began with the civil rights crusade, the movement against the Vietnam War, and the rise of hippie-dom was done—at least for now—and that the libs had won. Toward the end of the HBO-aired event, Bruce Springsteen, once a greaser-rocker, brought out folk music hero and activist Pete Seeger, once derided by conservatives as a commie, and Seeger led the crowd in “This Land Is Your Land.” This song is the liberal national anthem, written by Woody Guthrie in 1940 as a populist-minded response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” which was too rah-rah for Guthrie’s liking. (Beyoncé then hit the stage and belted out “God Bless America.”)

Earlier in the day, minutes before HBO threw the on-switch for its taping, gay Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson delivered an invocation that probably would be considered heretical by many fundamentalists. He began:

Bless us with tears--for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger--at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people….Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance--replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Take that, Rick Warren.

During the show that followed, the Washington Gay Men’s Chorus performed “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”--appearing on the same stage as military honor guards. Gays and the military--it was all part of this “We Are One” extravaganza. Had John McCain and Sarah Palin (and their America) won in November, there would have been no such coming together. And no U2 singing "Pride (In the Name of Love”), its anthem-tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., for the new president the day before Martin Luther King Jr. Day (a federal holiday that had been opposed by some Red-Staters, including McCain).

In the United States, culture is politics—and vice versa. Obama’s election helped define—or redefine—which currents and sensibilities are ascendant. And Obama made this victory possible with his skills as a political communicator. He has deftly blocked the right’s traditional assaults on his—and, by extension, his supporter’s—patriotism. In fact, he has masterfully embraced America’s mythology—such as when he praises the drafters of the Declaration of Independence—while recognizing the past and present flaws of the nation.

View as a single page