The American Cultural Revolution Is Underway
Trump’s second term has turned polarization, tariffs, and symbolic purges into a systemic crisis.
This is not left vs right. This is not about Democrats or Republicans. The United States in 2025 is living through its own Cultural Revolution, decentralized, algorithm-driven, and hostile to institutions. The signs are no longer theoretical. They are here, measurable, and unavoidable.
I. What It Looks Like
Elections, courts, and legislatures once anchored legitimacy. Now loyalty tests and moral trials do. The “American Cultural Revolution” is not centrally commanded, but its logic mirrors Mao’s upheaval:
Public shaming replaces debate.
Symbols take priority over outcomes.
Mass participation enforces punishment of dissent.
II. Four Signs You Can’t Ignore
1. Election legitimacy collapse
Since Trump’s return to office, distrust in elections hasn’t healed. In Gallup’s 2025 polling, only 20% of Americans say they have a “great deal” of trust in elections, the lowest in modern history.
January 6 remains an open wound. The narrative of “stolen elections” continues to define political loyalty tests.
Legitimacy has shifted from process to emotion. Institutions no longer arbitrate truth.
2. Cancel culture as public purge
Public life is policed not by courts but by mobs. Professors, journalists, and workers face campaigns that erase careers.
A 2024 Pew survey found 65% of Americans feel afraid to express political opinions. That fear hasn’t receded under Trump; it has intensified.
Platforms act like digital Red Guards, mobilizing outrage and enforcing punishment at scale.
3. Power imbalance and legal shortcuts
Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs declared a national emergency to impose sweeping new duties. Courts are now flooded with challenges, but the norm has shifted — presidents govern by decree first, legal cleanup second.
Average tariffs that once hovered at 2–3% now sit at 10–25% on major goods.
The separation of powers is becoming decoration; outcome correctness overrides process legitimacy.
4. Tariff-inflation squeeze on workers
Inflation reached 2.9% in August 2025, the highest since January. Core inflation (excluding food and energy) ran at 3.1%.
Yale’s Budget Lab finds core goods prices are 1.9% above pre-2025 trend, driven by tariffs.
Real wages remain flat. Workers pay twice: higher grocery bills, higher appliance costs, weaker benefits. Tariffs are a second tax on the poor.
III. Why It Resembles a Cultural Revolution
Mobilization without leaders: algorithms replace party directives, amplifying anger around the clock.
Targets are symbolic: statues, pronouns, and reputations matter more than policy detail.
Public humiliation as enforcement: losing your job or being de-platformed works like the old struggle session, shame as social death.
IV. Why It Is Not Literally a Cultural Revolution
The U.S. still has federalism, independent courts, and multiple press outlets. There are no mass punishments, no top-down purges. The analogy is not identical. But the logic: purges, loyalty tests, mob enforcement- is unmistakable, and the damage is structural.
V. The Class Dimension
Workers lose: stagnant wages and higher costs eat away daily survival. Cancel culture silences elites, but inflation robs the working class every week.
Elites gain: platforms monetize outrage into clicks, politicians convert moral theater into votes.
Institutions hollow out: when loyalty trumps law, the constitution becomes a stage prop.
VI. What Comes Next
More symbolic wars: expect new statues, words, and rituals turned into political weapons.
More loyalty tests: politicians will push binary choices, not to govern, but to expose enemies.
More class erosion: working Americans will shoulder rising costs while elites argue over symbols.
Closing
The American Cultural Revolution is not hypothetical. It is a daily reality.
The question is not whether Trump or Biden wins. The question is simpler:
Do institutions still restrain power?
Do policies still improve ordinary lives?
If the answer is no, then the slogans, purges, and rituals are only noise. And as history shows, cultural revolutions don’t end with winners. They end with survivors.