How to win the culture war

In Americaculture has become politics by other means, and that has not been good for either realm. As Donald Trump and his imitators have made politics more outlandish and offensive, films, television and even comedy, dominated as they are by creative types of the left, have grown more didactic and censorious—thereby supplying more fuel to the right. This loop has sucked in even some entertainers wise enough to try to stand outside it, at least to judge by the comedian Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix special, “The Dreamer”, released on the last day of 2023. Mr Chappelle’s wit is still fanged, his storytelling still absorbing, the strike of his punchlines as surprising—as deserving of the name—as ever.