Harvey Weinstein's Retrial Has Become a Culture War Flashpoint

In the United States in 2025, it’s hard to be shocked to discover that something has become a salvo in the culture wars. In the last few years, everything from light beer to bodies of water have become the sites of heated debate, and sometimes more. The latest thing to become an unlikely flashpoint is a trial featuring someone whose behavior has become shorthand for a host of unsettling acts: Harvey Weinstein.

Yes, Harvey Weinstein — convicted sex offender and all — has some high-profile advocates pulling for him in his New York retrial. As Liz Dye writes in Air Mail, Weinstein’s champions include the likes of conservative pundit Candace Owens and podcaster Joe Rogan, whose advocacy for Weinstein has led to more people on the political right taking Weinstein’s side in the retrial.

There’s a bigger issue here: as Dye writes, many of those who have begun supporting Weinstein see his convictions as symbols of the MeToo movement, something that they seek to see lose its legitimacy. Dye warns that if Weinstein’s legal team prevails, “the ‘victory’ will be cast as a repudiation of the entire #MeToo movement.”

The idea of a backlash to the MeToo movement predates Weinstein’s retrial. In 2023, Vox’s Constance Grady observed that “[o]ne of the distinctive patterns of backlash is its strategy of making false concessions.” Readers can see this pattern in the case of Weinstein as well, with Dye reporting that Owens has acknowledged that Weinstein was “immoral.”

Prosecutors File New Charge Against Harvey Weinstein in Los Angeles

This is in addition to the charges filed earlier this year

In this case, the increasing number of conservative supporters of Weinstein may point to something even more unsettling. In an opinion piece published in The Guardian earlier this year, Carter Sherman wrote that “[t]he ferocity of the #MeToo backlash is perhaps the strongest evidence that the movement was getting somewhere.” Sherman also cited several examples of the backlash in action — including Andrew Tate’s recent return to the United States.

Weinstein’s case becoming a culture war issue isn’t necessarily surprising — but it’s also indicative of something much larger (and much more disquieting) happening in society.