Even at their moments of maximum electoral influence — the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, the first years of Donald Trump’s turbulent reign — conservatives often lament that they have won the political battle but lost the culture. They’re right. And Los Angeles during the early 1970s was the place and time it happened.
In the struggle for control of popular culture, Los Angeles in those years was the right’s Gettysburg or Battle of the Bulge: the moment when it definitively lost the war. The reverberations of that clash are still being felt today. CONTINUED
Ronald Brownstein, CNN
The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack