Why are we experiencing the worst civil disturbances in decades? It is because the proponents of radical change won’t have it any other way.
Early 20th Century Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci theorized that the path to a communist future came through gradually undermining the pillars of western civilization. We are now seeing the results of decades of such erosion, in education, in faith, in politics and in the media. The old standards of freedom, individual responsibility, equality and civic order are being assaulted by proponents of socialism, radical deconstruction and mob rule.
Those who charge that institutional racism is rampant in America are the same as those who run the country’s major institutions – city governments, academe, the media, Hollywood, major sports leagues and the Washington, D.C. deep state bureaucracy. Accountability? None. The irony is rich.
At the same time, the only legal and institutional structures that mandate racially based outcomes do so in favor of other-than-majority groups. Anyone who questions this arrangement winds up cancelled.
The public debate is hardwired for disunity, making the former language of inclusion the new dog whistle of racism. The exclusionary slogan “black lives matter” is sanctified while the more unifying “all lives matter” is called divisive. People who say they want a colorblind society are called bigots even as progressives push for segregated events and housing on college campuses and “CHOP” protesters demand Black-only hospitals. Martin Luther King’s dream that people will “live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” is judged by today’s progressives as a call for white supremacy.
The media goes out of its way to coddle violent protesters, calling them peaceful even as they verbally abuse and then throw bottles at police, saying they are not “generally speaking, unruly” standing in front of a burning building. Political leaders who benefit from disunity keep fanning the flames. For example House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reckless charge that the Senate police reform bill is “trying to get away with the murder of George Floyd” is irresponsibly divisive, especially since it was drafted by African American Senator Tim Scott (R-SC).
Public monuments have borne the brunt of the violence in recent weeks. As President Trump predicted, the vandalism has moved well beyond statues of Confederates. Practically any statue is fair game. Washington, Jefferson, even Ulysses S. Grant, the man who defeated Lee’s army, all have been toppled by the mobs. And liberal city governments are taking down statues at least as fast as the rioters. But it would be a mistake to think that the statues themselves are at issue, or even what they symbolize. Rather it is the need for the radicals not just to cleanse American history but to make people feel ashamed of every aspect of it. In this way they clear a path for a radical future, buttressed by an unwavering sense of moral superiority that entitles them to smack down any dissent, usually gagging people in the name of “free speech.”
We were told for years that anything the Trump administration did that was remotely controversial was an attempt to divide the country. Democrats frequently blamed insidious foreign influence, using expressions like “right out of Putin’s playbook” to keep the Russian collusion canard alive. But they are the ones who are weakening and dividing the country, to the evident glee of our Russian and Chinese adversaries. They have completely adopted longstanding Russian and Chinese propaganda lines about the United States being a country of endemic racism, poverty and oppression, when in fact America is an opportunity society and one of the most racially diverse and tolerant countries in the world. The protesters, their political allies and media backers are working hard to create the very sort of divisions they claim to oppose, because a weak, divided and ashamed America is their pathway to power.
Chris Farrell is director of investigations and research for Judicial Watch, a nonprofit government watchdog organization. He is a former military intelligence officer.
