How Donald Trump and his MAGA inner circle plan to win the culture wars

The second Trump administration has gotten off to a blistering start.President Trump has signed the most impactful panoply of early-term presidential executive orders in a generation.

The maestro of Mar-a-Lago and his MAGA inner circle clearly studied up during their four years in the political wilderness.In the aftermath of the Biden Department of Justice’s attempted incarceration and his brush with death last July in Butler, Pa., Donald Trump seems to have applied Ronald Reagan’s old advice to his handling of culture war issues: “We win and they lose.”And thus far, so it’s been.But can Trump keep it up?Let’s consider the lay of the land when it comes to five of the most pressing concerns facing the United States in this second Trump term — and what the president might do to ensure his efforts truly last.President Trump dropped an atomic bomb on the “diversity, equity and inclusion” industry with his second-day executive order, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” The order went well beyond merely banning racial preferences within the federal government; it also compelled all agencies to “enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI . . .

programs.”Translation: The Great Awokening, which had been on the rise since George Floyd’s death, is done.Postmodern conceptions of “anti-racism” and racial “equity,” disseminated by academics such as Ibram X.Kendi, are over too; Boston University even closed its “Center for Antiracist Research,” which Kendi had founded.

In race-centric DEI’s stead is the old color-blind maxim of MLK Jr.: Judge not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character.Trump’s anti-DEI executive order is one of the boldest culture war salvos ever fired.At least two related follow-up moves are now needed to make these wins stick.First, the Trump DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel should issue a memorandum explaining that...