How Liberals Win

Kurt Schlichter’s article on the death of Colin Powell (Colin Powell and the Crisis of the Boomer Elite) begins with a striking paragraph:

You need to understand that in a society where religion has gone out of fashion, the elite has to canonize secular saints as examples for the people it proposes to rule. The elite needs a quasi-religious justification to feel superior, and if it is not divine right that grants them that dispensation, it must be their own inherent superiority. This is why is so vital for them to feel smart – and why you see nonsense like signs reading “We believe in science” on the lawns of suburban wine women who contend that Kaden has become Katy through the power of wanting to be a girl.

He’s right, in general, but it helps to drill down a bit. Yes, America has devolved into a largely secular society—in the sense that the traditional Christian culture is now openly disfavored and even persecuted. Few care. They’re too busy with their own lives and and the generality of the populace is pretty thoroughly secularized, even when they may go through the outward motions that used to signify faith. They are largely indifferent to larger matters of worldview.

But—and this is a key point—it would be a mistake to suppose that the ruling elite or what Schlichter refers to as the “Boomer Elite” is indifferent. Our rulers, in fact, are passionately religious. It’s just that their religion is not one of churches. It’s form of worship is more likely to involve reading the NYT and kindred platforms and repeating whatever the current mantras (“follow the science”, etc.) may be that they discover there. That their religiosity is passionate is clear from the blind adherence to dogmas without a shred of credibility—from Global Warming (and its transmutations) to Trump - Russia, to girls will be boys and boys will be girls, to the latest and (perhaps) greatest: The Covid Cult. The lengths to which this elite will go to impose their beliefs also testifies to that passion: take this injection or be fired in the US, lemme check your coffee cup (AU), to grocery stores excluding the unvaxxed (Germany). These are people in the grip of ideology—the worship of ideas—with little fellow feeling for other human beings.

This overt and aggressive religiosity of the ruling elite, the power elite (C. Wright Mills), is a relatively recent development. The blunt instrument that we now see replaces the traditional liberal thin end of the wedge tactic. A Fox News story on school board politics in Colorado illustrates how we got where we are:

In Denver suburbs, parents grapple with equity platform, school board politics

The article features a video that portrays parents engaging with regard to what they’ve learned is going on in the government schools they consigned their children to. The parents seem normal enough, sympathetic figures, but there’s a common theme.

One parent, a mother, says:

"I think with the pandemic, we were stuck at home with our kids, we had to get more involved in our education, listening to Zoom calls, classes, things like that," said Christa Gilstrap, one of the parents. "Parents started realizing, ‘Wait, what is happening?'"

"It doesn't really matter who the president is, so much for my day-to-day life, but it really matters who my school board, who my governor is," she continued.

It takes a pandemic?

You were so out of touch that you didn’t realize what was happening? These developments aren’t a recent thing?

It doesn’t really matter who the president is? Who do you think is ultimately in charge of the Department of Education, and who has a huge say in how supposedly “local” schools are run? Do you really think it’s your local school officials?

A father says:

"We just anticipated that our children were going to school just like we did, we're going to learn reading, writing and arithmetic," Douglas County parent Matt Cassady told Fox News. "Everything is going to be fine, they're not teaching indoctrination, nobody's talking about their skin color, nobody's talking about their sexual orientation."

"But come to find out, while we weren't paying attention, it appears that they are," he continued.

Not paying attention? You turned your kids over to government bureaucrats and assumed everything would be fine? I’m flabbergasted.

You didn’t think they were talking about weird sex stuff? It’s not as if sex-ed is a new thing. But you thought everything would be fine if you let the government teach your kids about the single most important thing in their personal make-up—their sexual identity. And you weren’t paying attention, weren’t curious?

How about Critical Race Theory? Fox says:

The equity policy will not change the curriculum to include critical race theory, the Douglas County School District states.

But check out this non-responsive answer:

"The policy has raised concerns from some members of our community who have asked if this will change DCSD curriculum to incorporate Critical Race Theory," the website states. "DCSD is not changing its curriculum. All instruction in DCSD is, and will continue to be, aligned with Colorado Academic Standards."

That’s not exactly a No. What if CRT is already incorporated in the Colorado Academic Standards? Nothing will change, right? And if you follow the links and arrive at the web page for those standards you’ll find a page without a search function, and no obvious way to find out if something like CRT—or, perhaps, CRT by another name—is being taught. You’ll have to plow through the whole thing and ponder the meaning of the bland terminology.

One parent was excited by the prospect:

"As a social worker and parent, I specifically want to express my gratitude for the board's equity policy," a parent said during the public comment period.

"I'm excited about the potential in this equity policy and its ability to address gaps in our district," she continued. "This policy can create rich opportunities for staff development and opportunities for all of our students to flourish."

She’s readily identifiable as a liberal, because she wants to flash her credentials (in her mind), but she’s not saying anything that means anything.

One parent responds to the business about the equity policy:

“On paper the equity policy looks OK. Obviously there are some buzz words that have other connotations, so you kinda get into the weeds there, but on paper I think we can all agree that every student in the district should have an equal and equitable [makes face] educational opportunity. I completely support that.”

That’s the whole problem. Once you allow the terms of debate to be defined by liberal “buzz words” you’ve lost. First they change the language. And that’s what these parents need to do. The liberals running the schools will have the parents running in circles, chasing the tails of the buzz words. But the buzz words are the language that these parents grew up thinking in. They don’t really have any alternative way of expressing themselves, because they lost any religion or overarching worldview to make sense of their own lives. They’ve been shaken out of their indifference, but they’re ill equipped for any serious struggle at this point.

The sad thing is that these parents repeatedly state that these are “their” schools. Where did they get such a goofy idea? These schools belong to the government.

But these are the people who readily fall prey to liberal campaign rhetoric, too. Those who vote, vote for what “sounds OK” in the language that they’ve grown up thinking in. It’s not just a question of waking these people up. They have to be taught how to think, and that’s not so easy. It requires a deep makeover of outlook.