GOP Mistook Voter Fatigue for a Culture-War Mandate

Jesse Walker says the Trump administration mistook voters’ weariness with culture wars for permission to wage them more fiercely. That error, he argues, left Republicans blindsided when voters rejected candidates and tactics built around the fight.

A shift away from the culture war

The phrase “vibe shift” entered American political discourse in the early months of 2022, when The Cut published an article about Sean Monahan, a professional trendspotter focused on culture, including sneakers and music, rather than politics. As the Great Awokening wound down and COVID lockdowns ended, the phrase gained political meaning. Walker, Reason’s books editor and author of Rebels on the Air and The United States of Paranoia, argues that later commentators wrongly recast it as a sign that Donald Trump’s return to power would usher in a wholesale turn from “super-woke to super-anti-woke.”

The exhaustion went beyond a demand to switch sides. A year after the New York piece appeared, sociologist Musa al-Gharbi compiled measures, from newsroom choices to campus censorship battles, that suggested the Great Awokening was ending. It had left residue in institutions, he wrote, but the cultural phenomenon had peaked. Al-Gharbi described young people “coming to find the culture wars both unsatisfying and rote.” They were exhausted by “relentless cynicism, fear, doomsaying, and impression management,” and wanted to “have fun, relax, and cut loose a bit.”

A narrow vote, claimed as a blank check

Walker says the shift helped Trump return to office in 2024, but right-wing culture warriors didn’t drive that victory: they were already voting Republican. Instead, he points to independents and voters without college degrees who had little patience for the Awokening but weren’t necessarily seeking a “Counterwokening.” Their support put Trump 1.5 percent over the line. A substantial portion of those voters weren’t white.

That margin, Walker argues, wasn’t a mandate for more culture war. The voters he describes weren’t fans of open borders, but they also weren’t voting for “clumsy deportation squads” enforcing Stephen Miller’s vision of a good society. The ballot box delivered a narrow victory; some administration members and professional defenders treated it as permission to intensify the very conflicts voters were tired of. Those at the bottom of that political calculation were left with the policies and campaigns chosen by people at the top.

Walker says supporters who thought they were voting to “have fun, relax, cut loose a bit, and not be so neurotic, guarded, and paranoid” soon saw that expectation collapse. Inflation, corruption and “a dumb war that exacerbated both” caused Republicans to be crushed on Tuesday, he says. The administration’s misreading of voters, though, was a chief reason many Republicans were blindsided by how little support they had.

The campaign tactics voters rejected

Ken Paxton may have been bound to lose his Senate bid regardless, Walker writes, but his chances worsened when campaigners thought gay-baiting and trans-baiting his Democratic opponent would win support. Voters, including Republican voters, are now less likely than before to find such tactics compelling, Walker says. They may not follow which terms for minority groups are in vogue, he adds, but that doesn’t mean they’re against those groups.

The campaign’s main message, Walker says, included calling the opponent “Freako,” a nickname he likened to one a would-be middle-school bully might invent without the nerve to carry it out. The account describes electoral rejection, not a grassroots organizing effort or mutual-aid network. Elections offer no guarantee that those in power will understand what voters rejected. Walker ends by warning that the duration of Republicans’ political fall may depend on how many Democrats also misread the shift.