Politics, my mentor Andrew Breitbart famously stated, is downstream of culture. By that, Andrew meant that culture shapes and embodies our values as a society; we then vote based on those values. From church to music, from movies to television, we are affected by the things we see and hear — and we then enshrine our culture in the instruments of government.
In truth, however, there is another side to the coin: Culture is upstream of politics, but politics shapes culture as well. The relationship between culture and politics is more cyclical than linear: Culture affects for whom we vote; those for whom we vote then shape our culture; culture then defines for whom we vote, and so on.
This is something that President Donald Trump and his team innately understand. And it is one of the biggest reasons that Democrats are in a state of panic.
For decades, Democrats understood the cycle. A culture of racial tolerance, for example, led to the election of Barack Obama; Obama then used his public approval to push forward controversial issues like gay marriage using the levers of government; culture accepted the governmental mandate. Obama was a cultural figure as much as a political one: There is a reason that Obama ended up with a Netflix deal after leaving office, rather than merely starting a nonprofit think tank.
Republicans, by contrast, have always seen culture and politics as separate. They correctly perceive that the nexus between culture and politics is dangerous: They believe that culture should be shaped primarily by the intermediate institutions of our society, the informal ties that bind us together, from churches to schools to businesses; that politics ought to reside in the realm of the pragmatic, with defined boundaries and specifically delegated powers.
But no matter how Republicans wish the world were, it isn’t that way.
This is a truly Trumpian realization.
Trump, like Obama, is a cultural figure. In fact, he is perhaps the most ubiquitous cultural figure of the last half-century in the United States. He utilized his fame and notoriety to propel himself into the presidency; now, he is using the power of imagery in order to shape American culture. Trump was once mocked for his use of television as a recruitment tool — but just as television shapes culture, so, too, do members of the government. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is increasing recruitment rates to the military because he is projecting a culture of warrior strength; from working out with the troops to declaring DEI dead in the military, the very image of the military has shifted. Vice President JD Vance has been traveling internationally with his family — in the process, normalizing children in public spaces. Elon Musk has been bursting through government barriers with the help of brilliant young technologists — in the process, making nerdiness and meritocracy cool again.
Yes, as it turns out, image matters. And governmental actors can help shape the images that define us. That’s why Trump was at the Super Bowl; it’s why he signed an executive order protecting women’s sports while flanked by young women and girls, all celebrating the new measure; it’s why Team Trump makes itself nearly omnipresent in the media. Taking up cultural space is an effective way of remaking culture. And Trump isn’t just remaking government. He’s showing that politics can be upstream of culture, too.