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When I've said before that only the right fights "culture wars", this is a good example of what I mean. There's a need to reinterpret everyone else's decisions as "culture war" moves, and confusion at why others don't see it in the same terms.
There's a common theme among right-wing "culture warrior" types in both the UK and US about "the left" exercising some sort of hidden nefarious power in this domain even when the right has total political power. See Rod Dreher here, for instance: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/happy-acb-day-but-amy-coney-barrett-social-conservatism/
Or Ross Douthat: https://twitter.com/DouthatNYT/status/1320721337573396486
Dreher and Douthat are actually slightly more honest about this dynamic than most on the right, so this isn't primarily about them, but many instead prefer to attribute this to some conspiratorial force, like "Cultural Marxism", "Liberal professors", "George Soros", etc.
The reality is a more complicated set of reasons. Both political systems tend to overweight older voters (b/c youth are more geographically concentrated), while "cultural" space tends to overweight younger customers (b/c they'll be customers for longer).
But the different ways left and right work exaggerate this. Left political spaces include a lot of focus on collective organisation and creating subcultural niches outside conventional politics. The right doesn't, because it doesn't need to, so focuses on conventional politics.
But it's also about the basic logic of conservatism vs the emotional satisfaction the culture warriors want. They want full-on reaction, some moment of total victory where the Old Regime is restored. But... realistic conservatism doesn't work like that.
The smart realistic conservatives know the Old Regime fell for a reason and can't be sustainably restored. They're more interested in preserving what they can, and in trying to weaken and chip away at their defeats without completely overturning them.
Dreher is one of the few who will honestly admit the basic reasons behind this - he acknowledges the reactionary positions he favours are essentially unpopular, that trying to ram them through would create a torrent of opposition against them.
Indeed, the way the right wins and holds political power is precisely by choosing its battles here, by trying to chip away at its defeats more quietly and with little fanfare.
But the culture warriors *want* the fanfare, because for them the symbolic moment of victory is the whole point. They want an explicit full overturn of Roe v Wade when a series of gradual guttings of it is much more likely (and more politically sustainable).
Look, if what you want in politics is big satisfying moments of victory for "your side", conservatism is the wrong ideology for this, sorry.
But to get back to Embery and the screenshot at the top of this thread - it's kind of unsatisfying to these folks for their opponent to be something as banal as social & political dynamics, so they prefer to believe it's people consciously waging "culture war" against them.
