Editing Culture war (section)

====2001–2012: Post-9/11 era====
[[File:Bush War Budget 2003-crop.jpg|thumb|(from right to left) 43rd President [[George W. Bush]], [[Donald Rumsfeld]], and [[Paul Wolfowitz]] were prominent neoconservatives of the 2000s.]]
A political view called [[neoconservatism]] shifted the terms of the debate in the early 2000s. Neoconservatives differed from their opponents in that they interpreted problems facing the nation as [[moral issues]] rather than economic or political ones. For example, neoconservatives saw the decline of the traditional [[Family structure in the United States|family structure]] as well as the decline of religion in American society as [[Spiritual crisis|spiritual crises]] that required a spiritual response. Critics accused neoconservatives of [[Correlation does not imply causation|confusing cause and effect]].<ref>Zafirovski, Milan.  [https://books.google.com/books?id=UEl91MbLiO0C&pg=PA60 "Modern Free Society and Its Nemesis: Liberty Versus Conservatism in the New Millennium "] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231212171945/https://books.google.com/books?id=UEl91MbLiO0C&pg=PA60#v=onepage&q&f=false |date=December 12, 2023 }} ''Google Books''.  6 September 2018.</ref>

During the 2000s, voting for Republicans began to correlate heavily with [[Traditionalist conservatism|traditionalist]] or [[Orthodoxy|orthodox]] religious belief across diverse religious sects. Voting for Democrats became more correlated with [[Religious liberalism|liberal]] or [[Modernism in the Catholic Church|modernist]] religious belief, and with being [[nonreligious]].<ref name="Dionne2006">Dionne, E.J., Jr. 
 [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/01/why-the-culture-war-is-the-wrong-war/304502/ "Why the Culture War Is the Wrong War."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201213000333/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/01/why-the-culture-war-is-the-wrong-war/304502/ |date=December 13, 2020 }} ''The Atlantic''.  January/February 2006.  29 April 2019.</ref> [[Scientism|Belief in scientific]] conclusions, such as [[Climate change in the United States|climate change]], also became tightly coupled with political party affiliation in this era, causing climate scholar [[Andrew Hoffman]] to observe that [[Climate change in the United States|climate change]] had "become enmeshed in the so-called [[Global warming controversy|culture wars]]."<ref name="Hoffman2012"/>

[[File:Fresno - Prop 8 Rally.jpg|thumb|Rally for [[Proposition 8]], an item on the 2008 California ballot to ban same-sex marriage]]
Topics traditionally associated with culture war were not prominent in media coverage of the [[2008 United States elections|2008 election]] season, with the exception of coverage of vice-presidential candidate [[Sarah Palin]],<ref>{{cite web |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=November 20, 2008 |title=How the News Media Covered Religion in the 2008 General Election: Sarah Palin and the "Culture Wars" |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/legacy/Religion_gen_election_FINAL-11-20_0.pdf |publisher=Pew Research |pages=8, 11–12 |access-date=May 23, 2020 |archive-date=October 22, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201022094123/https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/legacy/Religion_gen_election_FINAL-11-20_0.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> who drew attention to her conservative religion and created a performative [[climate change denialism]] brand for herself.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hatzisavvidou |first1=Sophia |date=September 17, 2019 |title='The climate has always been changing': Sarah Palin, climate change denialism, and American conservatism |journal=Celebrity Studies |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=371–388 |doi=10.1080/19392397.2019.1667251 |s2cid=204377874 |url=https://purehost.bath.ac.uk/ws/files/198548337/The_Climate_Has_Always_Been_Changing_with_author_details.pdf |access-date=January 24, 2023 |archive-date=March 6, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230306084450/https://purehost.bath.ac.uk/ws/files/198548337/The_Climate_Has_Always_Been_Changing_with_author_details.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Palin's defeat in the election and subsequent resignation as governor of Alaska caused the [[Center for American Progress]] to predict "the coming end of the culture wars," which they attributed to demographic change, particularly high rates of acceptance of [[same-sex marriage]] among [[millennials]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2009/07/15/6454/the-coming-end-of-the-culture-wars/ |title=The Coming End of the Culture Wars |last=Teixeira |first=Ruy |date=July 15, 2009 |website=Center for American Progress |access-date=May 23, 2020 |archive-date=December 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201209141022/https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2009/07/15/6454/the-coming-end-of-the-culture-wars/ |url-status=live }}</ref>