It’s clear to me, as it should be to anyone, that 2024 will be a tumultuous time. To say that we are a divided nation would be—as we used to say in the Army—a BFO, that is, “a blinding flash of the obvious.” But it bears saying—or writing—that turbulence, discord, and anger will dominate throughout this political season. If there’s an abundance of anything in this environment—aside from empty promises, braggadocios rhetoric, and inflated egos by the candidates—it’s the palpable hatred each side of the political aisle has for the other. The bile runneth over. So doth the bovine scatology. Here endeth the Old English. The new stuff will suffice.
Where does the anger come from? Primarily it’s a reflection of the Culture Wars, the term coined by conservative writer and upstart candidate for President in 1992, Patrick J. Buchanan. The “Culture Wars,” as he put it, was the conflict between the left and the right over family values. In that contest, the left sought to radicalize America and undermine the culture whereas and the right fought to preserve it. If it was a conservative value, the left saw it as oppressive in American culture. If it was a liberal value, the right saw it as undermining America’s cultural traditions.
At the 1992 Republican National Convention, Buchanan held forth and clearly asserted his views concerning the objectives of a future Bill Clinton Presidency.
“The agenda Clinton & Clinton would impose on America—abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat units—that’s change, all right. But it is not the kind of change America needs. It is not the kind of change America wants. And it is not the kind of change we can abide in a nation we still call God’s Country.”
Buchanan spoke for a lot of Americans. But not enough. Clinton would go on to win, and the views that Buchanon feared would become the norm were increasingly embraced by America. Yet the conflict didn’t abate, but instead grew through the 1990s and into the early 21st century. The Administration of President George W. Bush—preoccupied as it was with the war on terror—had little impact on advancing a conservative agenda. That was in stark contrast to President Barack Obama who didn’t miss an opportunity to embrace radical social views, even refuting his opposition to same-sex marriage when it was politically advantageous. If George Bush consistently pursued the war on terror, Mr. Obama consistently embraced the war on culture.
The culture wars were in full flower when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, who famously labeled Trump’s conservative supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” She was oddly right. They deplored her and adored Trump.
When he occupied the Oval Office, Mr. Trump also engaged in abrasive language, never missing a chance to insult those he found undesirable. In 2020 he fell to now President Joe Biden who has never missed a chance to denigrate those on the right as racists or worse. In recent years, the culture war has taken on a very destructive acrimony, not just expressing unhappiness with particular issues, but the intent to personalize every single aspect of life which one side finds objectionable about the other. As a conservative, I indeed find much to dislike about those who are attempting to advance policies that I think—forgive the terminology—are deplorable. Not the people, mind you, but the policies: excessive government control and lifestyles that liberals want to foist on the rest of us despite our disapprobation.
Yet in all of this, I find the personal attacks destructive. I yearn for the day when we debate again. When we put facts in the scales of reason to sort out who is right and who is wrong about particular issues. I’m confident—indeed exceedingly so—that exposed to the light of reason, conservative arguments will prevail. As was attributed to British statesman Benjamin Disraeli,
“A man who is not a liberal at 16 has no heart, a man who is not a conservative at 60 has no head.”
In other words, if you live long enough, you’ll see the value of conservative thought. Such comes to fruition with paying taxes, raising children, and watching how hedonism destroys everything around and within you.
The language of bitterness will not abate the culture wars. But when we keenly focus the debate on our rampant crime, drug abuse, the wanton killing of the unborn, profligate spending, ever-expanding government control, illegal immigration, and the deprivation of liberty, people will eventually gravitate to conservative values. We will speed things along by ending the fulminating rhetoric of personal bitterness and choosing to engage in compelling and reasoned arguments for conservatism. Maybe in 2024?
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