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Notes -
That sentence also goes the other way- "traditional values" are just indigenous cultures the right decided to care about. Confederate monuments/lost cause of the south are little different from indigenous languages- they're important to older stock in the areas they exist in, a lot of other people don't like having to deal with them, and the main difference is being on opposite sides of the culture war.
Sure, but I think those traditional values are actually the remnants of an older monoculture that was steamrolling everything, and the left was so successful in usurping it that they stumbled into the position of becoming the new monoculture.
It’s always been an awkward position for the left, they’re temperamentally suited to fighting the power structure and so things got weird when they suddenly became it.
Confederate monuments are a good example of traditional values that are not a surviving remnant of a monoculture and which conservatives defend. Barbecue and certain forms of country music can probably also go in this category.
For non-southern examples of the right defending traditional values which are not just remnants of an older monoculture, several states have laws guaranteeing pharmacists the right not to dispense birth control of any kind to protect the religious rights of Catholics, who have never been a majority in this country, and these laws are almost entirely advocated for by the right.
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