I don’t study politics, but I do study culture, and there have been some signs that a cultural shift leading to this election result has been brewing for years in America. Most of the professional political analysts just completely missed it.
Some of these may seem absurd, but hear me out.
1. The Popular Success of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’
After the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent protests and rioting in 2020, it seemed to many in the intelligentsia that “culturally relevant” films needed to directly address DEI or “systemic race issues” to find wide appeal. But by the time we could comfortably get back into theaters in 2022, the biggest box office success in America didn’t do any of that.
“Top Gun: Maverick” instead leaned heavily on classic modernist heroism themes, embodied by a white, male protagonist (Tom Cruise as Maverick) who…
