The winner of the Presidential Election this coming November will determine which party holds the Presidency during the 250th Anniversary of America’s independence from Britain. Back in the 1970s was a time of high inflation and when social mores were collapsing with perversity and decay (both real and imagined) with a perceived radicalization of the political parties combined with weakness being felt in international affairs—conditions that many would say America faces now. Yet in 1976, during a contentious Presidential race run in the shadow of malfeasance from the White House and military defeat abroad where crime was skyrocketing and inflation ran rampant, America was able to come together to celebrate the Bicentennial and the “Spirit of ‘76”.
In two years time, when we celebrate another milestone birthday for America, could we ever hope to have such widespread unity and outpouring of patriotism and unity—or are we doomed to an America divided in twain with each side being treated as “the other” by the opposite side, with each side claiming itself to be the real America defending itself from “the other”.
There has long been forces and ideologies, of foreign import, trying to fundamentally transform America. Though they vary, these belief systems are at the very least intellectual “kissin’ cousins”. Those who push to supplant if not outright replace that American essence that has made America so exceptional in world history are indeed a minority, but that does not mean that those who oppose that minority are only targeting that minority.
In many ways, that transformational minority had far less opposition, if any, fifty if not much more than they do today. It may seem that things are worse off only because the ablative armor of our social mores and societal standards hadn’t bee worn away yet. Instead of seeing an establishment of a coherent opposition and the slowing down, if not outright reversal, of the broader strokes of the minority radical Left and the fundamentals of society, they see what that thin remnant of ablative social armor was up against and lash out against what to them is a sudden threat to their sense of superficial normalcy.
Much of American society has changed in the past fifty or even hundred years, just as it has before and will do so in the future. It has changed because of that transformational influence both negatively as well as positively and people responded to this fundamental transformation and fought to conserve those core values of America.
American have always had their differences of opinion and belief, even within a unifying Patriotism and love of America. This day and age is no different. But increasingly on the Right, there is less of a feeling towards emphasizing how the radical Left is wrong and then try to win over many moderate median voters or even those left-of-center who are not radical hard-Left ideologs, and more of an easier and lucrative path of emphasizing a superficial normalcy as the “true” or “real” America by exacerbating sub-cultural differences with other Americans to manichean levels of madness.. The consequence o this is to define the enemy not as the radical Left ideologue minority, but anyone who is outside an increasingly narrower definition of “normal”.
This over-simplified view can often bee result in valid criticisms from anyone considered more of an outsider as an attack from one of them against one an us, with a blind and almost histrionic defense of what is being criticized. The examples for this are manifest.
Continue reading →
