Earlier this month, I wrote a piece at Precipice entitled "Much Of It Comes Down To Tone." The point was that it's very tricky in this age of societal brittleness to convey an important message without turning someone off.
Specifically, a question facing conservatives is how to sound the alarm bell about the quantum leaps the Left is taking in imposing its agenda on our society and culture without risking association with the fever-swamp yay-hoos with woefully underbaked visions of what a desirable society looks like:
What Trumpists didn’t understand was that, by their tacit endorsement of their idol’s sloppily arrived-at worldview and word-salad-and-insult means of expressing it, they’d given the Left a grand opportunity to portray the Right as a boneheaded and thoroughly unattractive approach to modern life. American society’s great middle, the swath of the populace that is at most only minimally engaged in monitoring public policy or even cultural developments, was ripe for this sales pitch.
It proved to be poor tactics and strategy. Trumpists, Neo-Trumpists and their enablers far outnumber actual conservatives among elected Republicans, but the majority that counts - a party in control of the elective branches of government - is Democratic.
The dismaying irony of it is that the Left is indeed fiercely determined to transform Western civilization into something grotesque, and has succeeded to an alarming degree. There is indeed a culture war raging. Societal sectors ranging from education to the corporate world to journalism to arts and entertainment are for all intents and purposes under the Left’s sway. Identity-politics militancy is unavoidable in every arena. The Left is also on the verge of realizing its redistributionist aims exponentially beyond its previous successes.
This was on my mind again this morning when I read this piece by Charlie Sykes at The Bulwark. His overall point is important, but there's one aspect of it that smacks of dismissiveness about the quite proper level of concern we ought to have.
The gist of what he's saying is that since former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has assumed the top leadership role at Young Americans for Freedom, he's done a poor job of separating wheat from chaff - that is, keeping yay-hoos from getting mixed in with responsible conservatives among the public faces representing YAF's message. He notes that a recent YAF video, kicked off with Walker himself stressing that the Left's agenda has been gathering momentum for decades, then features appearances by some of the Right's most over-pungent figures: Dinesh D'Souza, Allen West, Liz Wheeler, Greg Gutfeld, Ben Shapiro and Michael Knowles. Sykes then notes some recent additions to YAF's speakers bureau, and most of them are really fetid: Steve Crowder, Ted Nugent, James O'Keefe, Curt Schilling.
Sykes is spot on that this is not a productive direction for YAF to be taking.
But now, as to the aspect that smacks of dismissiveness: he seems not to be fully considering just what a jaw-dropping exercise in hard leftism the first two months of the Biden administration have been:
Walker’s video ominously warns unironically that “America is under siege,” with scenes of campus unrest, but does not mention the siege of the Capitol on January 6. It is as if it never happened.
But in Walker’s history, a lot gets dropped down the memory hole.
In its abbreviated history of the leftist takeover of America, the video draws a straight line from 1960s radicalism (Saul Alinsky) to Joe Biden, who, Walker says, is now “working to take over everything we hold dear.”
Everything.
There are no details. But it’s bad.
Charlie, it has indeed been bad. It makes Barack Obama look like Joe Manchin. A partial list of ways in which this is so includes nixing the Keystone XL pipeline, an executive order on sexual orientation and gender identity that the Human Rights Campaign characterizes as "wide-ranging," pausing student loan payments, proposing "free" community college, establishing a national goal of disassociating the nation's electricity supply from fossil fuels by 2035, support for the Equality Act that was recently passed by the House and is now being deliberated in the Senate, and instituting an immigration policy that has led to the worst southern border crisis in 20 years.
And Biden et al don't have the slightest reservation about it because they know they have the backing of most of institutional America: K-12 education, higher education, journalism, the arts and the entertainment world, most of corporate America, and even much of institutional Christianity.
Regarding corporate America, we know that Coca-Cola backtracked on its "training" of employees on how to be "less white," but it's far from the only corporation involved in such activity. Here is what is going on at Cigna:
Employees at one of the nation's largest health insurance providers are routinely subjected to far-left critical race theory lessons and asked not to consider white men in hiring decisions, according to leaked documents and chat logs obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Those who work at Cigna told the Washington Examiner that they are expected to undergo sensitivity training they consider racist and discriminatory. Lessons include reviews of concepts such as " white privilege," "gender privilege," and something called "religious privilege," which is described as "a set of advantages that benefits believers of a certain religion but not people who practice other religions or no religions at all."
Employees say they are pressured to comply with "inclusive language" outlines that suggest replacing terms like "Brown Bag Lunch" with "lunch-and-learn" or "grab n' go."
Other suggestions include avoiding the phrase "No can do" and replacing it with "unavailable." Employees are told to avoid gendered descriptions of romantic partners or family members and not to use "Hip Hip Hooray" at birthday parties, so others feel included.
Microaggressions listed include questions such as "Do you even know what Facebook is?" and "Are you a nurse?" Employees are also asked to go through a "Societal Norms checklist" and tick off boxes if they are "White," "Christian," or "Heterosexual."
"Our inclusive culture at Cigna means that we're working hard to ensure everyone feels respected, welcome, and like they belong," wrote Susan Stith, the Cigna Foundation's vice president for diversity, equity, inclusion, and corporate responsibility, in an internal memo. "This extends to the words we use, including understanding when certain terms might be perceived as negative or hurtful, and being intentional about choosing positive alternatives."
Cigna, valued in the tens of billions, boasts over 73,000 employees in offices worldwide. A 2020 Fortune 500 ranking placed the corporation as the No. 13 largest in the country as measured by revenue.
The company recommends employees learn more about racism by reading controversial books such as White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and How To Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi. The book list also includes two works by accused left-wing terrorist Angela Davis, Policing the Black Man and Are Prisons Obsolete? Davis was arrested in 1970 on kidnapping and murder charges following a deadly attack on the Marin County Civic Center.
Here's a recent example from California's public school bureaucracy:
California’s state Board of Education is set to make a decision this Wednesday on a new semester-long “ethnic studies” course that will be required for high-school graduation.
There have been four major rewrites, but critics say the final curriculum force-feeds students notions of how systemic racism, predatory capitalism, and “heteropatriarchy” (that’s a new one!) dominate their lives.
The curriculum calls for the “decolonization” of American society and focuses on cultures that have been “shortchanged.” The course description says these include “African American, Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x, Native American, and Asian American and Pacific Islander studies.”
A part of the model curriculum will have students taught chants to the ancient Aztec gods in order to make them better “warriors” for social justice. One of the gods mentioned in the chants is Huitzilopochtli, the god of human sacrifice.
“It’s a totalitarian worldview that is every bit as much a faith community as any religion,” says Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, director of AMCHA Initiative, an anti-Semitism watchdog group in Santa Cruz. “In a public school, it really is the imposition of a state religion.”
It is also a frontal assault against free inquiry and common sense, and it’s soon coming to a school near you.
Private schools are not immune:
The dissidents use pseudonyms and turn off their videos when they meet for clandestine Zoom calls. They are usually coordinating soccer practices and carpools, but now they come together to strategize. They say that they could face profound repercussions if anyone knew they were talking.
But the situation of late has become too egregious for emails or complaining on conference calls. So one recent weekend, on a leafy street in West Los Angeles, they gathered in person and invited me to join.
In a backyard behind a four-bedroom home, ten people sat in a circle of plastic Adirondack chairs, eating bags of Skinny Pop. These are the rebels: well-off Los Angeles parents who send their children to Harvard-Westlake, the most prestigious private school in the city.
By normal American standards, they are quite wealthy. By the standards of Harvard-Westlake, they are average. These are two-career couples who credit their own success not to family connections or inherited wealth but to their own education. So it strikes them as something more than ironic that a school that costs more than $40,000 a year—a school with Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s right hand, and Sarah Murdoch, wife of Lachlan and Rupert’s daughter-in-law, on its board—is teaching students that capitalism is evil.
For most parents, the demonization of capitalism is the least of it. They say that their children tell them they’re afraid to speak up in class. Most of all, they worry that the school’s new plan to become an “anti-racist institution”—unveiled this July, in a 20-page document—is making their kids fixate on race and attach importance to it in ways that strike them as grotesque.
“I grew up in L.A., and the Harvard School definitely struggled with diversity issues. The stories some have expressed since the summer seem totally legitimate,” says one of the fathers. He says he doesn’t have a problem with the school making greater efforts to redress past wrongs, including by bringing more minority voices into the curriculum. What he has a problem with is a movement that tells his children that America is a bad country and that they bear collective racial guilt.
“They are making my son feel like a racist because of the pigmentation of his skin,” one mother says. Another poses a question to the group: “How does focusing a spotlight on race fix how kids talk to one another? Why can’t they just all be Wolverines?” (Harvard-Westlake has declined to comment.)
This Harvard-Westlake parents’ group is one of many organizing quietly around the country to fight what it describes as an ideological movement that has taken over their schools. This story is based on interviews with more than two dozen of these dissenters—teachers, parents, and children—at elite prep schools in two of the bluest states in the country: New York and California.
The parents in the backyard say that for every one of them, there are many more, too afraid to speak up. “I’ve talked to at least five couples who say: I get it. I think the way you do. I just don’t want the controversy right now,” related one mother. They are all eager for their story to be told—but not a single one would let me use their name. They worry about losing their jobs or hurting their children if their opposition to this ideology were known.
“The school can ask you to leave for any reason,” said one mother at Brentwood, another Los Angeles prep school. “Then you’ll be blacklisted from all the private schools and you’ll be known as a racist, which is worse than being called a murderer.”
Not even sports journalism is untainted by identity-politics militancy now. Hemal Jhaveri at USA Today asserts that Oral Roberts University doesn't belong in the NCAA's March Madness race to the championship because it dares to adhere to sound Christian doctrine regarding human sexuality:
March Madness loves a Cinderella story, and this year it’s Oral Roberts University.
Oral Roberts, a mere 15 seed, destroyed brackets by toppling No. 2 Ohio State in the first round of the NCAA tournament and now enters the Sweet Sixteen after defeating No. 7 seed Florida 81-78 on Sunday.
Part of the joy of March Madness has always been watching smaller schools upset powerhouse programs, as kids from regional, unknown colleges and universities get their moment in the sun. Because everyone loves an underdog, Oral Roberts has become a fan favorite as people take their improbable run to heart and celebrate the tiny, evangelical university in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
And yet, as the spotlight grows on Oral Roberts and it reaps the good will, publicity and revenue of a national title run, the university’s deeply bigoted anti-LGBTQ+ polices can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.
Founded by televangelist Oral Roberts in 1963, the Christian school upholds the values and beliefs of its fundamentalist namesake, making it not just a relic of the past, but wholly incompatible with the NCAA’s own stated values of equality and inclusion.
While the school has been soundly mocked on social media for its archaic standards of behavior and code of conduct that bans profanity, “social dancing,” and shorts in classrooms, it is the school’s discriminatory and hateful anti-LGBTQ+ policy that fans should protest as the Golden Eagles advance in the tournament.
Twice in their student handbook, Oral Roberts specifically prohibits homosexuality. In their student conduct section, under the heading of Personal Behavior, the school expressly condemns homosexuality, mentioning it in the same breath as “occult practices.”
Students are expected to maintain the highest standards of integrity, honesty, modesty and morality…Certain behaviors are expressly prohibited in Scripture and therefore should be avoided by members of the University community. They include theft, lying, dishonesty, gossip, slander, backbiting, profanity, vulgarity (including crude language), sexual promiscuity (including adultery, any homosexual behavior, premarital sex), drunkenness, immodesty of dress and occult practices.
Also, as part of their honor code, the university requires students to abide by a pledge saying that they will not engage in “homosexual activity,” and that they will not be united in marriage other “than the marriage between one man and one woman.”
If you're looking for a sober, from-the-heart, deeply contemplated assessment of what's facing those who have been trying to preserve our civilization's foundations, may I suggest Rod Dreher's essay at The American Conservative entitled "You Aren't Crazy - - And You're Not Alone"?
I had breakfast this morning with some Christian friends — a married couple and their kids — traveling through from southern California. They reported to me that everybody they know in church circles is reading Live Not By Lies. That’s always gratifying to hear, but what intrigued me was what they said beyond that.
The mom said that she’s finding that her Christian mom friends are devouring the book. She said that they have all come through reading Jen Hatmaker, Glennon Doyle, and those other therapeutic Christian-ish women writers, and have all been left feeling empty and lost. What’s getting to them all right now is their fears for their young children coming at them from this culture (especially in California). “The mama bear instinct is kicking in,” she said, “and we are now looking for something solid and true that can help us get through what’s coming.”
She said several times: “Being neutral is not enough.” What she meant is that it has finally begun to dawn on Christians in her circle that you cannot stay out of the fray, that you are going to have to take a stand. If you are not consciously and tenaciously a dissenter from pop culture, then you will be assimilated.
The husband talked about how a number of their Christian friends have become totally woke over this past year. The year 2020 was a time of separation. He said that it is now clear to his Christian circles that the people you go to church with aren’t necessarily the people who you want to be standing with when the bad stuff starts. He explained that a lot of church folks he knows are finding each other in small groups, even though they go to different churches. Some of them report that their churches may not be fully woke, but the churches are so desperate to avoid taking a hard stand on anything that might get them accused of bigotry that they are trying to avoid trouble.
These churches are not going to make it through what’s coming. And they are not going to prepare their people for it either. My friend said yes, this reality is sinking in with some of the Christians he knows, and they’re starting to act on it.
It really is a Kolakovic moment for America — a time to prepare, build networks, and dig in, before it all comes down.
So the message with which Walker kicks off the YAF video is not wrong. In fact, it's bone-chillingly accurate.
But any chance for mounting a countervailing force to what is happening is going to have to be long on understanding of what conservatism really is, and on what history has to teach us about the human condition, and a sense of the transcendent, and devoid of snark, ridiculous proposals, and myopic focus on partial aspects of the situation.
The later in the day it gets, the less we can afford to squander our resources.
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