On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Inez Stepman, a senior policy analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum, joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to explain how the Republican sweep in Virginia proves the culture war is the big tent.

“I think you have folks both on the left and the right who make this argument that the cultural issues are somehow illegitimate or fake. Everything is downstream of economics. Economics is the only thing that matters in politics. And I just don’t, I don’t think that’s true,” Stepman said. “I think the culture war is actually what unifies a large majority of the American people. … The right’s positions on the culture war issues are more popular and less divisive than its positions on economics.”

The fight in Virginia largely centered around indoctrination in education but Stepman said the victory on Tuesday is just the tip of the iceberg.

“We are in a deep hole and I do worry that Republicans sometimes underestimate how deep this goes and how long it’s been going on in the education system,” she said. “This is not something that started in 2020. It’s not something that started with the riots in 2020 and BLM. It’s not something that started with The 1619 Project or right before that. It’s very pervasive and it is at every level of the education system.”

Read Stepman’s article “Virginia Shows Republicans’ Big Tent Is The Culture War” here.