It began with statues. Democrats—after decades of resistance—finally yielded to grassroots pressure and removed Confederate generals from courthouse lawns and city squares. The justification was clear: why should we honor men who fought to keep human beings enslaved? Removing a bronze Robert E. Lee was not erasing history, it was rejecting the glorification of oppression.

Republicans looked at this, seethed, and took it to the extreme. If Democrats could remove statues that celebrated slavery, then Republicans would remove markers that revealed slavery. Historical plaques about lynching, markers commemorating massacres of Indigenous people, and curricula that teach systemic racism are now in their crosshairs. The principle flipped from not celebrating oppression to not acknowledging oppression at all.

Cancel Culture, Reversed and Weaponized

Progressives normalized “cancel culture,” the idea that those who trafficked in racist, sexist, or homophobic rhetoric should face consequences—sometimes losing jobs, sometimes platforms. At its best, it was a form of accountability. At its worst, it went too far, policing thought and stifling debate.

But Republicans didn’t reject cancel culture. They perfected it. When right-wing figures like Charlie Kirk are criticized for extremist rhetoric or white-supremacist associations, conservatives don’t call for more speech—they call for firings, expulsions, and blacklists. Entire state bills now seek to punish teachers, librarians, and public employees for the “crime” of criticizing white nationalism or acknowledging systemic privilege. Cancel culture, once a progressive tactic, has become a Republican state policy.

The War on DEI

Nowhere is this escalation clearer than in the assault on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Democrats embraced DEI as a modest corrective: creating programs to open doors long closed, training to reduce bias, hiring practices to widen the pool of talent. Critics on the left and right debated its merits, but it was never compulsory dogma.

Republicans, however, have moved to obliterate it. Florida outlawed DEI initiatives at state universities. Alabama passed laws banning so-called “divisive concepts.” Ohio prohibited DEI-based admissions. At the federal level, Donald Trump signed an executive order terminating DEI programs across government. Universities like Michigan shuttered DEI offices under pressure. Corporations from Costco to Disney faced threats of lawsuits or boycotts unless they abandoned inclusive policies.

What began as workshops and hiring policies has been rebranded as “radical indoctrination,” and the right is waging a scorched-earth campaign against it.

The Broader Pattern

This is the new American cycle. Democrats open a door—often timidly, cautiously—toward reckoning with history or expanding inclusion. Republicans charge through it, not to expand the conversation but to slam it shut. What begins as removal of Confederate monuments ends with erasure of lynching memorials. What begins as accountability for bigotry ends with punishments for criticizing extremists. What begins as DEI workshops ends with laws banning their existence.

The real danger is not that both sides play politics with culture. The danger is that one side—the Republican Party—has embraced suppression as strategy. In doing so, it seeks to cleanse not just statues from our squares, but truths from our history, voices from our classrooms, and inclusion from our institutions.

Because once you decide that acknowledging uncomfortable truths is “too negative,” you’ve stopped debating ideas and started legislating amnesia.