Certainty Without Comprehension: Explaining the Culture War to My Daughter

When hypocrisy gives way to moral arrogance, and facts are replaced by feelings, the biggest threat isn’t what people believe—it’s how certain they are.

How Do You Explain a Culture War to a Child?

Not long ago, my young daughter came to me with a worried look in her eyes.

“Is President Trump going to start a war with Canada?”

She wasn’t joking. She was scared. Genuinely afraid.

I tried not to laugh—at first. “No, sweetheart,” I said gently. “It’s a trade war. Not a real war. Not soldiers. Not bombs. It’s about tariffs and taxes, not tanks.”

She nodded slowly, but I could see the confusion hadn’t left her. And how could I blame her?

The truth is, our children live in a sea of ambient fear. They absorb more through smart devices and secondhand adult conversations than we give them credit for. They’re saturated in narrative before they’ve even learned how to fact-check. And in that world, where cartoons blend into activism, where algorithms reward hysteria, and where the loudest voices rarely speak the clearest truth, Donald Trump starting a war with Canada doesn’t sound all that far-fetched.

But her question did something to me.

It made me realize that even children can sense something is off. They feel the tension. The hostility. The tribalism. They hear it. They see it. And they internalize it.

So I tried to explain the difference between Liberals and Conservatives—not in terms of party platforms or policy papers, but in values. In approach. In tone.

I told her that once upon a time, Conservatives and Liberals were like two neighbors who had different ideas about how to tend the garden. Maybe one wanted tulips and the other wanted tomatoes. But they still shared the same fence. They still respected the boundary.

Now?

One neighbor is convinced the other is a threat to the entire ecosystem—and wants to bulldoze their yard entirely. Because it’s not enough anymore to disagree. You must destroy.

That’s what’s changed.

And the more I tried to explain it to her, the more I realized: what we’re experiencing isn’t politics. It’s not even ideology.

It’s religion without forgiveness.
Morality without humility.

And at the core of it is something darker than just hypocrisy.

Because yes, the hypocrisy is breathtaking. It’s everywhere.

People who demand we “trust the science” say nothing when men are allowed to compete in women’s sports.

People who claim to fight for the environment set fire to Tesla dealerships in protest.

People who claim to speak for Indigenous children burn churches to the ground—when not a single confirmed body has been recovered from a residential school burial ground. Just allegations. Just headlines. Just enough for rage.