The Culture War is an Actual War
Program
#RaceClass
Episode
55
Episode Length
27:00
Media Type
Podcast
Release Date
1-31-2026
Publisher
WNHN
Language
en-US
Abstract
Jon and Arnie chat about Ta-Nehisi Coate’s observation that “Trump has clarified an inconvenient fact—the culture war is an actual war.” The actual war manifests physically in ICE, the $85 billion entity that gleefully profiles, terrorizes and executes people across the United States. The actual war is also the anti-Black racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and anti-LGBTQ bigotry that animates MAGA and the right side of America’s so-called “culture wars.” This hateful rhetoric and fear mongering, which Steven Miller, Charlie Kirk, JD Vance and others have sought to mainstream, serves a purpose in ICE’s war on our communities: to dehumanize and legitimize violence against those deemed unfit for the Homeland.
Recommended Citation
Jonathan Feingold & Arnie Arnesen,
The Culture War is an Actual War
(2026).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/raceclass/40
