Is America Waking Up?
Is America Waking Up?
The answer is yes, and they don't like what they see.
It’s subtle but you can feel it if you pay attention.
For too long, conservative Americans have allowed the left to hijack their institutions, the public dialogue, the rule-making. It’s changing though and people are starting to sense it.
In large measure, it began a few years ago with the ascent of independent media. The press for years has been almost wholly an arm of the Democratic National Committee. Outlets like Substack, however, have recently garnered the lion’s share of newly independent writers, many of whom had left corporate media when they tired of being forced to preach narratives they no longer believed in. Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter upended the left when government suppression of conservative views, long denied by Democrats, was revealed to be more than a right-wing conspiracy theory. Matt Taibi’s revelations in the so-called Twitter Files proved that the federal government was circumventing the Constitution by coercing private companies like Facebook and Twitter to censor on its behalf views it disagreed with but couldn’t legally censor itself. Even left-of-center websites like The Free Press are becoming more open to conservative viewpoints, much to its credit.
Ever since George Floyd was elevated to martyrdom by the Minneapolis Police Department the Democrat administrations of our major cities have retreated from enforcing laws, allowing criminals to run rampant in the streets, degrading the quality of life for millions. Now, entire areas of major cities lack grocery stores as major retailers pack up and leave due to massive theft. Retailers say it has become dangerous to their employees and some go so far as to prohibit them from interfering with thefts taking place in plain sight. The result is “food deserts” in many cities where there are no grocery or other retail stores to serve the, usually lower-income, residents. The situation is so bad that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has proposed a municipal grocery run by the government. Socialism, anyone?
We’re told that young children can be butchered because a boy or girl is “gender confused” and fantasizes about being the opposite sex and parents should have no say. Boys are now allowed to participate in women’s sports, destroying young girls’ chances at achievement. Girls have been raped in their bathrooms by males pretending to be female and we’re just supposed to accept it without complaint. A Virginia father who complained at a school board meeting when his daughter was raped and the boy went unpunished was arrested and subsequently pardoned by Governor Youngkin. Public schools have become government indoctrination centers, dominated by left-wing teachers’ unions concerned only with what they can extract from Democrat administrations that they helped put into office. Kids are taught that there are 58 genders and if you disagree you’re a racist and a bigot.
This blew up in the schools’ faces when the Covid pandemic hit. Schools went to remote learning and suddenly parents were able to see what their kids were actually being taught and they didn’t like it. Critical race theory taught that white children were privileged oppressors. Black students were told they were victims of systemic racism, incapable of pulling themselves up without the help of liberal white people. Conservatives reacted by running for positions on school boards and suddenly the leftists no longer had free rein to treat the schools as their private fiefdoms.
The collapse of government-run schools led to an explosion in homeschooling, which began during the Covid lockdowns and continued after schools reopened when parents decided they didn’t want their children further exposed to concepts anathema to their beliefs. Already in 2023, ten states have enacted universal school choice, allowing parents who wish for their children to escape failing government schools to use their school tax money to attend a private or charter school. These schools are booming with long waiting lists, their expansion held back only by resistance from teachers’ unions and their compliant lackeys in the state legislatures.
Suddenly, we are inundated with men identifying as women, men dominating women’s sports. As one wag quipped, it turns out men make better women than women do. Every purple-haired freak with a bone in their nose and tattoos, every “trans” woman with a mustache is supposed to be accepted unquestioningly or you are called a racist and a bigot. Racist and bigot seem to be the only weapons leftists have and they’re so overused as to have been rendered meaningless. The pushback was ferocious, however. Ask Anheuser Busch, whose marketing agreement with Dylan Mulvaney backfired spectacularly; or Target, whose decision to make trans-themed clothing front and center in their stores provoked a similar backlash.
What the leftists are starting to realize is there’s a limit to how far you can push people before they shoot back. As red states retaliate against woke ideology, the left circles its wagons and doubles down on its oppressive policies. Conservative counties in blue states are beginning to seriously explore the possibility of seceding and joining their more conservative neighbors. The process is well underway in eastern Oregon and nascent movements are stirring in eastern Washington and northern California. Once one of these movements succeeds, expect more counties to follow suit. There’s no predicting where it might end. People opposed to peaceful county realignments might find themselves faced with outright secession or civil war.
As bad as all this is, perhaps the most discouraging is the almost total collapse of public trust in our institutions. Most people still like and trust their personal doctors, but disbelieve almost anything that comes out of the medical establishment. Americans have learned that scientific research dependent on government funding cannot be trusted. Results are fabricated less to advance The Science™ than to ensure continued access to the government teat.
This year, almost half of Americans from all walks of life have said they will not get the just-released COVID-19 vaccine for Fall 2023. They’ve learned the vaccine was approved on an expedited basis by skipping or limiting the standard human trials common to most medicine approvals, as was true of the original vaccines. Adding insult to injury, the left is attempting to once again enforce mask mandates despite clear evidence they do not work. If the government shuts down schools again, expect parents to rise up in full, open revolt.
Finally, the border crisis and out-of-control illegal immigration are making themselves felt in unexpected places, like New York, Chicago, and Denver. Texas Governor Fred Abbott’s brilliant policy of bussing thousands of immigrants to sanctuary cities has taught their citizens that virtue signaling comes with a price. It is easy to be sanctimonious when it doesn’t cost you anything, but when thousands of illegals show up on your doorstep and you have to provide medical care and housing from public funds it’s harder to maintain the benevolent facade.
Where all of this ultimately leads will probably be apparent first in the results of the 2024 presidential election. It’s possible that Donald Trump will blow Joe Biden out of the water, but there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical. First, one or more of the dozens of indictments and criminal charges against Trump may stick. Several states are attempting through dubious legal means to keep Trump off of the ballot. Any of these could trigger a furious and possibly violent reaction up to and including civil war.
Second, Joe Biden could win re-election and continue another four years of his disastrous policies (assuming he retains what is left of his faculties and lives to complete his term), further depressing the economy into recession with massive layoffs leading to unrest. This might be counterbalanced if the Republicans can secure a larger majority in the House and/or take control of the Senate and stymie the Democrat’s more extreme tendencies.
Two years of runaway inflation and financial pressure crushing middle and lower-class families have opened a lot of eyes. People may despise Trump, but many long for the good economy they enjoyed during the Trump years pre-Covid. If Biden wins in 2014 and, God forbid, another Democrat succeeds him for another four or eight years, the United States as we know it will probably be unrecognizable or cease to exist.
There is hope, however. The fact that people are finally alerted to the events around them raises the possibility that they may step in and take action. Many red state governors and legislatures are passing laws to limit the damage to their children and their economy. Republicans are promising to close the border if they win elections next year and Democrat-run cities can look forward to their immigrant burdens continuing. The myriad problems facing this country, from within and without will not be solved overnight, but they must be resolved if we are to continue as a nation.