The Culture Wars Have Already Been Won

To All the Right-Wing Haters, the Bigots, the White Supremacist Christians and even you Centrist Dems who are afraid of rocking the boat: 

Guess what? You’ve already lost the culture wars. All your ranting and raving about the immorality of the Country and loss of ‘traditional’ values is futile. It’s just the last gasp of a dying order. And the funniest part is, you clearly don’t know that you’ve already lost this war.

The people who matter - the next generation of humans who will inhabit and control this Country and the planet - don’t care what you’re screaming about. The GenZers and Millennials despise your ‘values’ and ‘morals’. But it’s actually worse than that, because they’ve completely tuned you out. You’re irrelevant. They aren’t listening. You could be screaming into the winds of a hurricane for all the good it's going to do for your ‘cause’. They literally do not care.

If you aren’t the parent of a 20-something, or don’t have connections to a high-school or college campus, you probably aren’t even aware that you’ve lost. We all hear about social media bubbles and echo chambers but it actually works the other way too; while the GenZers remain open to the entire world of ideas, they have put all the haters into a containment bubble and blocked them out of their world so completely that they don’t even hear them anymore. The moment they got hold of computers - ones more powerful than those that put man on the moon - which fit in the palms of their hands, and access within milliseconds to the entire world, you lost them. Young people today don’t watch your television channels (most don’t even own a tv, they stream what they want on their computers), they don’t read your newspapers, they don’t listen to your boomer pod-casts, and they already blocked you on social media years ago. They get their news from TikTok. Their idols are gender fluid and proud to flaunt that fact. They laugh at your religions. They scoff at your values. They don’t need you. They’re living in a world they created for themselves and they couldn’t care less about what you think because they will never even hear you. 

And, yes, you still have your footsoldiers and bots that artificially amplify your hatred, and you might still be able to reach a few lost souls in the brainwashed GOP-controlled parts of the Country, but the ones you’ll never reach overpower your dying sect by the millions. GenZ and Millenials together comprise the largest demographic this Country has ever seen. These kids have grown up knowing at least one gay, lesbian or trans person; gender and sexual fluidity doesn’t faze them. They are more open and loving than you could imagine. They don’t care if you’re gay, or bi, or pan, or trans, or poly. They will and are sleeping with whomever they like. They have Tinder and Grindr and can find like-minded hookups in mere seconds. They can share ideas with similar minds anywhere in the world. They read and write their own LGBTQ-friendly literature. So, even in the reddest southern Republican state, you’ve already lost them. There are lesbian girls kissing in the halls of your conservative christian high-schools. Gay boys are dancing together at prom. You can’t eliminate all of them, because they are your children too. But even then, you are completely irrelevant to them. You are invisible because they don’t need you. They have their people, or can at least find their people, anywhere they go. You can’t control them or their ideas. They have more influence and freedom than any other generation that came before them.

The haters may be screaming right now. They may think they have power. But it’s all an illusion. Because they have no power at all over the coming generations. These kids won’t give the Right the one thing that matters the most to them - attention - because the close-minded haters are invisible and irrelevant to them. 

So keep ranting all you want; it’s meaningless. Every time you try to legislate away the rights of their peers, or make drag shows illegal, or subject them to another school shooter drill, or even try to kill them by shooting up a queer club, the less likely they are to care about your opinion. They’re already cutting off your air by making you and your ranting trivial. They won’t debate you. There will be no ‘revolution’. They aren’t going to do sit-ins or protests. They don’t have to. They’ve already won. Your hatred has been walled off and compartmentalized and they won’t give you a second thought. They’re just waiting for you to die off before they take control. And I can’t wait. 

These ‘kids’ are amazing. The world they bring will be better in so many ways. They may not have all the answers, but they know that you are a large part of the problem, and they have already started to find ways around you. 

Signed: The Queer parent of an amazing, highly-educated, non-compliant, GenZ pansexual.