It seems these days that everything — from light beers to Santa — has become politically charged. Movies can be deemed "too woke," and people are opting in or out of certain restaurants due to their moral compass.
One of the most politically volatile topics to bring up at the dinner table isn't the war in Iran, the price of gas or the immigration crackdown across the country. It's the culture war.
Americans devote a lot of mental bandwidth to culture wars, even if the true definition of "culture war" differs person to person. Almost half of Americans think society has gone too far in its acceptance of different cultures, gender identities, sexual orientation and background, according to recent polling from CNN.
The other half of America rejects
this idea.
Recently, two Valley restaurants, Gilbert bakery Sablé and Poolboy Taco, got pulled into political controversies and in November, the culture war is bound to play a role in how people vote at the polls.
This week on The Gaggle, a politics podcast by The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, hosts Ron Hansen and Stephanie Murray are joined by Isaac Butler, the left-leaning author of the new book "The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars."
As an expert on the origins of the culture war, he'll help us make sense of how we got here.
Listen to the episode
The best way to listen is to subscribe to The Gaggle in your favorite podcast app, but you can also stream the full episode below.
Note: The Gaggle is intended to be heard. But we also offer an AI transcript of the episode. There may be slight deviations from the podcast audio.
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Reach producer Amanda Luberto at amanda.luberto@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X @amandaluberto.
Catch up on previous Gaggle episodes here:
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Everything these days is political. Let's explore how we got here
