Over the course of just a few weeks, a thoroughly “unholy” Grammys grossness was succeeded by a singularly unfunny comedic video mocking maternity and the utter upending of America’s two blowout secular celebrations – Super Bowl Sunday and Valentine’s Day.
Taken together, these happenings reinforced the absolute moral and intellectual decay of almost every element, segment and institution of our society and culture — from entertainment to sports to business to government.
From a macabre, Satanic primetime glorification of transgenderism to a distinct, discordant “national anthem” reintroducing “separate but equal,” to an all-female flight team reinforcing the military’s conversion from a fighting force into merely another platform for DEI (Division, Exclusion and Imprudence), to a pregnant pop star grabbing her crotch, to athletes coming on-camera to talk trash and spew bleeped-out profanities, to ads making light of the Fall of Man and relentlessly pitching the job-crushing, energy poverty-inducing electric vehicle fantasy.
All landed on the abruptly ubiquitous and odd, off-putting notion of “Galentines” – a meme celebrating the ultimate apotheosis of the self-dependent single female, fully empowered, socially and financially, to cast off men, marriage, romance and even sex. (A particularly sick slogan: “Besties before testes.”)
And, it goes without saying, motherhood, which folds into “comedienne” Chelsea Handler’s bizarre paean to the joys of childlessness, mixing in for good measure references to drug use, and – since the performer also admits to no interest in an enduring male-female relationship – self-pleasuring. The saddest part is that Ms. Handler may well have her finger squarely on the pulse of a growing cohort – perhaps signaling the final blow to the heart of American greatness, the nuclear family.
The choking, horror-provoking wokeness engulfing these events now leads this scribe to add an additional modifier – one rendered infamous in another context – to his conclusion on America’s lostness: seemingly “irredeemable.” Religious conservatives can look all they want to a savior, whether it be Donald Trump or Ronald DeSantis, a right-leaning Supreme Court, or any number of culture warriors, whether individuals or organizations.
But the reality is that the battle for the culture has been lost to a true “basket of deplorables.” And their daunting domination of the commanding heights of American institutions, all-out abandonment of notions of public morality or self-sacrifice for the good of humanity, unmitigated mastery of media microphones with shameless sophistry morphing up into down, good into bad and wrong into right and untrammeled ability to redirect power, resources, votes and even livelihoods from any who dare speak or advocate for truth all render beyond reach any hope of conservative resistance or renewal of American exceptionalism.
Seemingly leaving conservatives only one avenue at this sad juncture: surrender.
Or maybe not. News and images of a spontaneous, continuing (at this writing) prayer meeting at Christian college Asbury University have gone viral, drawn participants from around the country and the world and inspired similar events at other faith-based schools across the country.
Could this unexpected phenomenon be lighting the spark for a powerful cultural counterforce displacing society’s irredeemable wokeness: a new Great Awakening?
A day after Fox News’ Tucker Carlson drew yet more attention to the event, he announced that the University had asked him not to send a crew, apparently fearing that his network’s presence would be seen as politicization. (A producer ultimately made the trek anyway.)
Yet political influence might be unavoidable. As Andrew Breitbart observed, politics is downstream from culture – and per historians, the first three Great Awakenings set off seismic social change that laid the political and rhetorical foundations for the abolitionists, for reform movements of the late 19th and early 20th century – and before that, even for the American Revolution and republican government. One student attendee concurred, expressing the conviction that “our culture’s going to be changed by this.”
The truth is that when things are this far gone, when leaders in every arena are, in Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders well-spoken words, “doubling down on crazy” – and worse yet, on perversity and depravity – neither logic nor persuasion is going to turn things around. Nor, clearly, will winning at the ballot box.
It is going to take changed and, dare one write, “revived” hearts across the land. Which is what Awakenings are all about.
An Asbury professor related that, as part of a “surprising work” of God, revival participants were in fact “praying earnestly for themselves and their neighbors and our world – expressing repentance and contrition for sin and interceding for healing, wholeness, peace, and justice.”
To paraphrase one who only thought he could keep oceans from rising and make planets heal – these people of faith clearly believe that when it comes to actually healing America and dispelling the darkness that descended ever more densely upon her over nine “Unholy” days, “Yes, HE can.”
And perhaps, beginning at this tiny institution of some 1600 students that has captured the attention and hearts of millions around the globe – He will.
Bob Maistros is president of RPM Executive Communications, Inc., which provides high-level message development, communications strategy and crisis support to firms ranging from the Fortune 500 to tech startups, and he is of counsel at the Alexandria, Va.-based Strategic Action Public Affairs. He was chief writer for the 1984 Reagan re-election campaign and also wrote for Sens. Charles Grassley and Orrin Hatch.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.