Andrew Breitbart’s famous statement that “politics is downstream from culture” is absolutely correct, and we are seeing the malign effects of ceding the cultural battle to the Left. Their paradigm was based primarily on a rejection of traditional Western and American culture, which respected marriage, family, organized religion, the inherent differences between Man and Woman, and a host of social guidelines that had been crafted over two millennia.
They have replaced the greatest culture in human history with a melange of hedonistic practices that reject respect for the larger culture and focus on the desires and wants of the individual while at the same time making that individual fungible. In their view we are no longer the most important unit in society…we are merely cogs in their great post-modern engine.
But it gets worse! Side by side with the destruction of traditional Western culture was their perverse embracing of the cultures of the third world. Every culture was equal! Every culture is welcome in America, as long as it wasn’t based on the Judeo-Christian social structures that created the greatest society in human history. And they have an anodyne sounding word for it: “multiculturalism.”
But a great country has a shared culture which provides it with the structure with which to pursue a common goal. Independence from Great Britain, taming the wilderness, building an industrial juggernaut, saving the world from tyranny, and on and on. Could any of those things been accomplished with a culture built from a Chinese menu of two from column A, two from column B, one from column C…?
But that is what we are heading toward. Which cultural norms should we embrace? China: The murder of female infants? Iraq: Throwing gays from the tops of buildings? Afghanistan: Young boys as sexual playthings? Mexico: Government corruption as the norm? Holland: Euthanasia? Iran: Genocide of the Jews and the destruction of Israel?
And the biggest one…The casual acceptance of government as the arbiter of all and the provider for all?
Because that is what “multiculturalism” would seem to demand.
We cannot have a functioning society if there are no shared goals based on a unified culture. That does not mean that our citizens must reject their origins. Far from it…until a few generations ago it was entirely acceptable to consider oneself an American, but with strong emotional and cultural ties to the homeland, be it Germany or Ireland or Italy or Mexico or The Philippines or Norway, etc.
But the core was American, with enough common cultural norms and ethics that we could look around and say, “Yes, we are America!”
Now of course one is gay or Latinx or a “person of color” or Ghanaian or gender-nonconforming lesbian or Filipino first, and then a pause, and then perhaps “american” with a small “A.”
But many (hopefully most) Americans reject that, which is one reason why Donald Trump’s aggressive populism resonated with so much of the country. Contrary to the media’s protestations, his Americanism is fabulously inclusive, and the voting trends among minorities back that up.
And America seems to be rejecting the most overt attempts to force this sort of mushy-thinking nonsense on us (Disney…I’m looking at you), and there are ways to push back that are, at least in the short-term, bearing fruit. Progressive School boards across America have been rejected by parents who have had enough of pretty much everything the Left has shoved down our children’s throats for years. State legislatures are creeping away from the Left’s grasp, and there is a small but growing alternative to the captive media.
But is it enough?
