Cultural stagnation paved the way for conservatism’s rebrand as cool

Evidence

Only inventive culture supplies long-term benefits to humanity. Kitsch never asks us to change; empty entertainment provides fleeting thrills. Propaganda discourages symbolic complexity to achieve immediate legibility. And without constant invention, all these other functions wither and die. Passive consumers may tolerate the blank space for a while, but eventually they, too, will grow restless. And we see how this cultural stagnation has political consequences. The rejection of liberal values that empowered the MAGA movement did not begin in government; it first took on contemporary relevance in the deep cynicism of downtown fashion scenes and nihilistic online forums. And this long-term project to rebrand conservatism as cool and transgressive succeeded precisely because we removed cultural invention as a potential countervailing force. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 35

Categorization

• XREF: Strong causal claim linking the aesthetic blank space to MAGA politics — a key mechanism to evaluate when arguing the counter-case.
• QUESTION: Is the causal direction defensible? The MAGA aesthetic itself (dark jeans, red hats) looks exactly like the ‘sellout’ aesthetic Marx describes — worth interrogating whether these are rivals or the same phenomenon.