Like others, I have a routine in the morning. It involves paging through the news to see what is going on in the world. And what I see never fails to amaze me, either the events that occur or the absurdity they highlight.
Much of what we see in the domestic news these days is shaped by the culture wars, the conflict between those who support traditional family values and those who see them as harmful to a postmodern agenda. This divide is not new. It’s been playing out since the 1960’s, when there was much protest against the war in Vietnam and a generalized rejection of the values and worldview of the World War II cohort that gave birth to the Baby Boomer generation. “Boomers” were all about protest in those days. The “Hippy” movement came into being and hard rock music, sexual liberation, and drug use were in vogue, all things that the World War II “Greatest Generation” rejected.
The culture wars persisted into the 70s and 80s, typified by major fights over the advancement of originalist judgeships, something Republicans generally favored but Democrats bitterly opposed. What was at stake? Mostly abortion rights, the central issue that defined the women’s liberation movement of the 60s.
But the culture wars came to a head in 1992 when America elected its first “boomer” as president. After the conservative presidencies of Republicans Ronald Reagan (81-89) and George H.W. Bush (89-92)—when the traditional values lobby gained ground on the values rejection generation—Democrat William Jefferson Clinton was elected and was a dream come true for boomers. In their eyes he was very hip. But like all of us he was also very human and soon we could see just how very flawed his humanity was. The culture wars—then titled as such by conservative journalist Pat Buchanan in 1990—raged on.
Many people were repulsed by the Clinton years and in the 2000 election Republican George W, Bush won in a very close election that exposed raw the culture wars. Bush survived a contested recount in Florida and Democrats insisted the election was “stolen” by a Supreme Court decision that ruled in Bush’s favor and sent Democrat Al Gore packing. The political bitterness was palpable then. It remains so today.
When Americans elected Barack Obama in 2008 after growing weary of the war on terror and a lagging economy, many saw that election as an opportunity to put race behind us as a simmering social issue. It didn’t happen. Obama missed an opportunity to do that by participating in a form of racial partisanship that caused America’s riff to widen. In Congress, we witnessed a back and forth of political fortunes that handed power from one party to another in a seesaw-like manner that ensured a form a gridlock that contributed to an inability to govern effectively.
Campaigning became even more vicious, and with it more partisanship and utter gridlock. American turned to Donald J. Trump and the culture wars convulsed like never seen before; this time, however, it was focused on ending the Trump presidency at any cost.
It used to be that Democrats and Republicans would simply disagree on tax breaks for families, but nonetheless agree that families were composed of a married husband and wife and often children. They could disagree over the role of government in moral issues, but still find enough common ground to regard those born with XY chromosomes as men and those with XX as women. And of course, there was a time when both parties understood that while America was founded by imperfect people, it was nonetheless, wonderfully fashioned, warts and all. Those were the days when both sides respected the flag, honored the national anthem, proudly recited the Pledge of Allegiance, and saw the police as friends, not enemies. No more.
The culture wars of today are grounded in the lies of “wokeness” and historical revisionism that defames America and its founders. Truth is the first casualty in the pursuit of boundless power. No truth is so important that it cannot be sacrificed for a lie that earns a vote. And voting? Well, that means whatever you want it to and however you want it done as long as you win.
In America, we are witnessing what happens when we elect people who are power-hungry ideologues intent on imposing an agenda that will destroy the nation and refashion it into a despotic place none of us will like. And with it, they also bring a new religion.
You could call them “Woke-ist.” Their new religion asserts what isn’t, demands what shouldn’t be, and preaches that which never was. The high holy order of their faith, therefore, is the ordination of idiocy. As my preacher use to say, “Can I get an “Amen?”
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