National Review editor Rich Lowry offers sharp insight into Donald Trump’s “countermarch through the institutions.” He argues, “Never before has control of the executive branch of the federal government had such potentially momentous cultural significance.”
Lowry notes that conservatives have long analyzed the left’s “long march through the institutions” — the strategic takeover of elite cultural and political spaces. Inspired by radical thinkers like Herbert Marcuse in the 1960s, the left systematically embedded its ideology into key institutions. In response, conservative activists have sought to reverse this influence by reclaiming cultural and political power.
The left has always used political means to achieve its cultural ends. It would be foolish for conservatives not to do the same.
Trump, however, has taken a different approach. Rather than gradually reshaping institutions, he has used executive authority to dismantle the left’s dominance. His administration has aggressively defunded and fired members of the woke managerial class, making bold moves from the top down rather than engaging in a slow institutional takeover.
Lowry, along with activists like Christopher Rufo, notes that this is not the long-term cultural shift many conservatives hoped for. Instead, Trump is leveraging direct government power to strip the left’s influence from its strongholds — reversing its victories through swift executive action.
Those on the right should applaud Trump’s efforts to dismantle the influence of leftist public administrators over American culture. Instead of slowly unraveling the left’s grip, he is cutting the Gordian knot in one decisive strike. Regaining a traditional culture and restoring family morality are worthy goals, but they can only be achieved once leftist elites are removed from the positions that allow them to impose their policies on an unwilling public. Only then can conservatives begin restoring what the left has subverted.
Allow me to share a little secret. Over the decades, I have known many cultural conservatives who have called for restoring traditional education or confronting leftist colleagues. Yet, their efforts have done practically nothing to slow the left’s momentum. Meanwhile, Trump is achieving far more with the stroke of his pen.
As a former humanities professor, I fully support teaching the works of great thinkers, bringing back gender-specific pronouns, and reviving interest in classical languages. But statements promoting traditional learning will not change the climate in which the woke left thrives. Conservatives remain vastly outnumbered in universities and the culture industry. As we continue fighting for our values, we can use all the help we can get — including from the president.
Only power can counter the tyranny the left has unleashed, and cultural conservatives should be grateful for leaders willing to fight — and win. For decades, I have heard that politics is downstream from culture, but I am no longer convinced. In today’s reality, separating cultural issues from political practice is nearly impossible. The public sector, including most educators, has wielded significant political influence to push American culture in a radical leftist direction.
The idea that the left seized power through a slow march through the institutions is also vastly overstated. The modern left gained control by capturing the government and mass media — the same method, incidentally, used by Nazis and communists.
As a former academic, I strongly opposed the radicalization of the institutions where I taught, but I never mistook my colleagues or college administrators as the root cause of these shifts. They responded to a chain of command that ultimately led to the government. If the power structure at the top had changed, it would have reshaped everything below.
The modern administrative state expanded dramatically across Western countries in the 1960s, as I explain in “After Liberalism.” Reforms similar to America’s Great Society emerged in England, France, Germany, and Canada, leading to a surge in public administrators overseeing newly created or expanded social programs. As these bureaucracies grew, the media increasingly aligned with the managerial, therapeutic state, while the welfare system became deeply entangled with social engineering.
While leftist academics’ war on “repressive bourgeois capitalist institutions” influenced progressive thought, their ideas would have had little impact without a political class and mass media willing to amplify them. If Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had remained a bartender or if Al Sharpton had pursued full-time ministry, their rhetoric would have had no influence on American society. Their political activism and access to government power enabled them to shape policy and culture.
Had the American government not vastly expanded its reach and authority since the 1950s, President Trump would not be waging a cultural war through executive action today. If the intellectual right and cultural traditionalists hope to gain ground, they must accept a fundamental truth: The left has always used political means to achieve its cultural ends. It would be foolish for conservatives not to do the same.
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