Progressivism was born in the “Enlightenment” period of the 18th century that holds that reason alone is the pathway to all truth, and that experience, tradition, history, values, religion, emotional alliances, are impediments to progress. That notion spawned a revolution in thought that has slowly scythed its way through Western civilization. Consequently, there has been a steady deterioration of religion as a participant in the public square, a diminishing emphasis on derivative values such as honor, and virtue, and a jaundiced eye turned toward patriotism.
Progressives destroy the past because they place no value on it. In a world in which reason is the sole reference point, history, tradition or received wisdom, act only as impediments to progress. We all saw this with the toppling of statues this past Summer and the attempt at the renaming of schools in San Fran Freako, in removing names like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. But it’s more than that. Progressives want to erase the past so they can reshape a new society with no sense of emotional connection or alliance to a past.
Joseph R. Biden is the last of the traditionalist Democrats: nominally Catholic, generally supportive of law and order, unwilling to jump completely into the grievance pool. But he is now the head of a party that is completely rationalist: hostile to religion, tradition and antiquated values; understanding that the past — good and bad — must be swept away before the new order can begin. He has only a limited comprehension of the origin or meaning of the pressures he will face. And he will be taken advantage of.
At the same time, President Trump is the first explicitly and aggressively traditionalist president. He ran and has mostly governed as someone concerned about the integrity of the traditional nation, its values and the people who hold those values. He, too, has trouble comprehending (and therefore combatting) those who would destroy the past. I call it the the war of the rationalists vs the traditionalists.
It is simply undeniable that capitalism, founded on protection of property rights— the ideology of the Founding Fathers —has been uniquely successful in spreading peace and prosperity both domestically and around the globe. Since the dawn of the our founding, the enshrinement of individual rights, and the advent of protection for private property, the roots of capitalism, global GDP has increased exponentially, in shocking fashion and that is a problem for the globalist movement bent on total control of the world’s wealth and resources, animal, vegetable and mineral.
By convincing Americans that any unexplained disparity in equity is the result of the American system such as philosophy, culture, institutions and history, progressives have a succinct and irrefutable argument in favor of tearing down the system. This is an emotionally resonant pitch. Traditional Americanism suggests that while our system has never been perfect, it has grown increasingly so, and this means that it should be easier to succeed today, without the obstacles of bigotry that have plagued our history, than ever before. But that means nothing to those who toil and labor for absolute power and control.
As the power-mad progressives see it, that worldview places an awful responsibility on individuals: If you fail to succeed, you can certainly blame personal disadvantages, but it becomes difficult to blame a miasmatic, existential, systemic, flag-draped boogeyman haunting your dreams. Additional freedom means additional responsibility. If, however, all disparity can be chalked up to the system, then personal responsibility becomes a secondary concern. Failures are no longer individual, but systemic. In fact, every failure becomes an additional brick in the wall of evidence against America.
It is the notion that a coalition of the supposedly oppressed must rise up and rewrite the entire nature of the American bargain and that America is fundamentally a country that has been defined by foundational systemic endemic racism since the very founding of this country. You see where this is going? All the factors that once would unify us are now portrayed as divisive. Every piece of connective tissue in American life is being stripped away by Progressives. The “cancel culture” is one example of their seemingly inexhaustible supply of absurdity.
This is effective. It’s effective because it’s exhausting. It is meant to be. It is meant to convince Americans to throw up their hands in surrender and simply comply with the dictates of the Leftist progressive movement, or to force Americans to divide up every element of our daily lives politically and thus fatigue Americans from unrelenting psychological and emotional pressure. It is as insidious as it is brilliant. Question is... Can we withstand it?