Excellent commentary. The Left has infiltrated much of American culture and the institutions. Basically it has done so through the Frankfurt School and Antonio Gramsci methods and views of the world. Even our history has been penetrated. At Thomas Jefferson historical sites, the recurrent central theme is Jefferson the slave owner, not Jefferson the advocate of liberty. That pivot must be challenged.
Rufo has identified an important element of restoring America: If the new right focuses exclusively on politics they will be acting in futility. Equally important is to focus on changing culture.
The long march through the institutions that Gramsci promoted has been thorough. Have you tried watching tv or movies and been appalled at all the embedded propaganda? Had any trouble finding fiction books that aren’t just disgusting? Finding the news media difficult to watch? The opposition has even taken over the mainstream Protestant denominations. These institutions need to be reclaimed to reclaim the country…politics alone will not be adequate.
The subtle and not so subtle indoctrination even in fiction is notable. There are authors I will not read anymore because they succumbed to the left-wing editors.
"The Left has infiltrated much of American culture and the institutions. ... through the Frankfurt School and Antonio Gramsci methods and views of the world. Even our history has been penetrated."
I'd say it's a short step to see that the Marxist path, with its endless normative sophistry fed to naive young minds, has always been divide-and-conquer con: the brilliant invention of eternal, universal civil wars.
Rufo: "[C]onservatism, at its best, is a tradition that is not opposed to change but seeks to maintain continuity and hand down hard-won wisdom."
Thus "conservatism" can (now, certainly) include the rational cores of both Rightist *and* (pre-Marx) Leftist positions. Despite a wandering history over two and a half centuries, (what are today's rank-and-file) Rightists have prioritized freedom and the individual, and (what are today's rank-and-file) Leftists have prioritized fairness and society as a whole, as a remedy to unconstrained Rightism. Despite the confounding factor of rigid and/or hereditary hierarchies (accumulations of unfair power), BOTH "sides" are necessary and complementary parts of healthy societies, not a case of Good vs Evil or Smart vs Stupid. The latter two holy wars are divide-and-conquer purified.
How would we know this? Despite the fact that the French Revolution descended into instability and madness, they clearly had gotten something fundamental right at the beginning -- liberté [freedom], égalité [equality, maybe better expressed as fairness], fraternité [brotherhood, maybe better expressed as culture] -- so much so that it survives to this day as the national motto.
Marxism has no interest in any societal health. It is totalitarian, IMO the equivalent of a revealed religion, in direct opposition the manifest (rank-and-file) Leftist desire for (pure) democracy. So Marxism and its descendants prioritizes only itself, i.e. in practice, its power-hogging vanguards; and so implements its plan, from top (the "experts", and with AI now, an *actual* Orwellian 'Big Brother') on down. But modern Rightists (mainly, its leadership?), unfortunately, often combine two "Leftist" opposites: Absurdly, they conflate the Democratic Party's *leadership* totalitarianism with the *rank-and-file* belief in democracy and fairness.
I appreciate your distinction between the Marxist totalitarian and pure "democracy and fairness" factions of the Democrats. However, I agree with Plato that "pure democracy and fairness" is just another road to tyranny. In practice the two Democrat factions converge. The antidote is the conservative tradition prescribed by Mr. Rufo.
And I appreciate your providing this comment. But I'm not advocating for a Leftist position -- I'm advocating for a blend of Left and Right. That provides a eternal, but diplomatically navigated, tension that serves the societal needs I identified.
Arguably, this was the de facto condition of America through much of its history, and earlier on while the totalitarians, very slowly, but nakedly in the last two decades, took over all institutions in their 'slow march'.
Totalitarianism is bigger than Marxism, though. It results from psychopathy and psychopathic communities (e.g. neocons), which poison the iron law of oligarchy (which in healthy societies produces noblesse oblige), none of which are specifically Marxist products. So I see Marxism as, basically, a specific and more efficient vehicle in which to concentrate power, by hoodwinking a collection of naive subjects. That's why it starts with students and communities of unorganized poor, and consciously avoids making broad and open appeals until critical mass is achieved. That's how woke bubbled up out of "nowhere". It's lies from start to finish. Lies are poison to any society, yet they are, incredibly, being normalized.
I think we agree on everything except terminology. What you call a "diplomatically navigated, tension that serves the societal needs" is what I (and Rufo) call "conservatism." "Rightism" and the neocons are definitely not conservative. They are part of the Left-Right deep state blob that seeks to destroy American civil institutions by whatever totalitarian means at their disposal (from Marxism on the left to the total war state of the neocons). Conservatives seek to conserve our traditions that maintained political and social equipoise for generations.
Thanks. That all does seem to fit my position. You prompted me to get familiar with Republic and re-read Aristotle Politics.
I'll look into Rufo more. I'm here in the first place because he has masterfully exposed plenty of the so-called "Left's" modern illogic.
With "conservatives", I'm mainly leery of some people who are not, IMO, sufficiently open-minded to contribute to a workable system for all. I believe all people should certainly be able to live and vote as they choose, but when any reject any portions of the population as fundamentally "unacceptable" and act on denying all measures of their liberty, I part ways.
Thank you for this Chris. While I am still a registered Democrat, your journey seems similar to the one I am going through now. The Democratic Party has certainly been losing its way for years. Certainly in the policy areas you mentioned. As someone who played team sports as a young girl/woman and benefited from Title XI, I passionately care about the sex based rights of women and girls. I am horrified by the gender zealotry that has now become policy in the Democratic Party, without any debate. If you aren’t familiar with her writing, I urge you to read the independent journalist, Jennifer Bilek. She has been documenting The Gender Industrial Complex for years. She has written books on the subject and brilliantly exposes the people who are financing this “movement” which is influencing how the Democratic Party speaks and acts on this issue for over a decade. Here’s a link to a piece she did in Tablet:
Do not lose hope, Robin. Harmeet Dhillon is now Assistant Atty General for Civil rights. She is on this. Republican Women Federated in Carlsbad, Ca have been supporting her work for years.
Thank you for linking the article by Jennifer Bilek, it was very informative regarding SSI ( which I will now use as the descriptor of choice), and the Pritzker connection. The use of money to influence medical barbarism is disgusting. We can only hope and pray that conservative influence will continue to grow.
You’re welcome! Yes, there is a lot of good independent sources that discuss the political, socio-cultural and medical aspects of the bizarre and dangerous components that make up “Gender” Policy. But Ms. Bilek is the first person to delve into the genesis of “The Gender Industrial Complex” and the dark money responsible for influencing most Democratic lawmakers. I don’t know if The Party is being willfully ignorant or is just purposely turning a blind eye to the obvious harms being done, primarily to women and girls, but it is horrifying. Every time someone even mentions J.B. Pritzger as a possible 2028 contender, I shudder.
I am unsure if there can be any meaningful reinstating of conservative culture in our institutions and amongst the citizenry if we cannot maintain a conservative monetary and fiscal policy.
MAGA 2.0 was our last chance to cut spending and grow out of debt, but "The Big Beautiful Bill" seals our fate with $3T annual deficits (up to nearly $30T in deficits over the next ten years that will double the national debt, add in $1.8T debt interest per year, not to mention recessions, etc).
On top of that Trump wants the Fed to lower interest rates... This is not the way to restoring our Republic and its Constitutional values.
We'll see how this all shakes out, but if we keep feeding the beast then the empire will strike back and continue to gobble up our liberties. If we want a red-flavored empire as opposed to a blue-flavored tyranny then sure, but the Republic remains to be rescued.
The game ahead is an inflationary horse-race (or "kick the can") to try and outpace the inevitable burst. Trump has ironically committed to writing the last (and what will be a catastrophic final) chapter of our long Keynesian delusion that began with FDR's fiat-fed Deep State.
Elon's remark is hilarious: "I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don't know if it can be both."
Jason, do not despair over a single bill. Or the specific words of a hero. It is more about correcting the culture and it will take a long time. There is no quick-pill. The reinstatement of conservatism, in many respects, comes first. The real battle in our education systems. We must reclaim them; from the most prestige (like Harvard), to the smallest kindergartens. That effort It will take generations. I am optimistic because nobody ever dared attack them before. At the same time, we must shrink government. But we have made an amazing start. We are so early in this battle. Keep your head high. Listen to Trump. Not to his every word. But the direction he is leading the nation. And his great soldiers. Do not succumb to the need for immediate gratification. This will take time.
The money has long been spent. It was spent when promises were made via Social Security. It was spent fighting the Cold War, the two Iraq wars, and the occupation of Afghanistan.
I was the volunteer organizer for a k-12 for 5 yrs (then I became the assistant VP, then the VP for 2 yrs. Everyone knew I was NOT liberal...) liberal private school. We held a volunteer thank you at the end of the yr, I was able to get a room w/ kitchen (we provided our own food) donated. The kitchen staff helped just a little, but they had to stay after for another function. An EXTREME liberal, who had no knowledge of what was involved in obtaining this location, found out the kitchen staff were majority black. She thought it was an awful choice, thought the place should be put out of business --- not only did she give no thought to the expense involved if we were to relocate, she gave zero thought for those women's choice to work there, their finances, the social lives of working together, etc., etc. SHE JUST WANTED TO SHOW WHAT A LIBERAL A$ she could be. That was many yrs ago, & that school has gone sooooooooo much further left, if my kids were still in school, I would never consider it.
Thank you for your work in this area. I agree that we must get back to basics—the constitutional principles on which we were founded. It’s the only way for us to survive and thrive as a nation.
What a joy to have you in the realm of intellictual and spiritual common sense. May God be with you in this very difficult journey. Your impact, along with those you name, and others, will hopefully bring America back to a reasonable place after many years in the "wilderness".
This is equally true here in the UK. Except in our two party (first past the post) electoral system, our Conservative Party has been infiltrated by liberals, meaning both our usual options have lead to the same place.
This has left people looking for an alternative. We now have a new option in ReformUK, which understands conservative principles such as retaining hard won knowledge.
Sadly, history is littered with hard lessons being forgotten about and relearned the hard way.
Chris, could you bullet point the 4-5 key conservative principles you're talking about. I ask because I struggle to define and defend philosophical first principles in the absence of some kind of divine or transcendental source, and I don't see any such shared source in the West today. So what first principles do you see forming the basis of this new shared center for America?
Yes, good callout. We need concrete ideas around promoting Western civilization to rally around, and need them to be explained as to WHY they are worth rallying around. The far left has done that well with “inclusivity” and “equity”, two rallying points with specific reasons and ideas as to why. Not that the reasons hold up, it’s just that at least they established rally points for political and institutional skirmishes.
Racialist wokeness serves a real purpose: defining right and wrong. The fact that it's definitions are totally warped doesn't make them any less powerful. And right now, the Right is struggling to define a strong-God (in the RR REno or Heidegger sense) answer.
Fiscal and Social Conservatism must be the Number One Rule of MAGA. DOGEing should be perpetual, every session, every year, Federal to State to Local. Here in SC our Super Majority Republican controlled government just this past week, has failed at Fiscal Conservatism. Conservatism should be the First Order of Business. From the Federal Level it has to include Defense Spending, Intel Industrial Complex Spending. No sacred cows. Checking the spending of government minimizes the evil that government does when left unchecked. Trump and Team along with DC Republicans are not getting it: That MAGA is impossible with an upward trendline of Debt beyond what is reasonable and assured fiscal sanity. Japan now has an inescapable vortex of Debt to GDP over 250%. The World was freaking out with Greece around 120%. Based on the current trendline put forth by the Big Beautiful Bill, by the end of Trump's term America will be close to 180%.
There is old wisdom which holds that you never know how long a snake is until you kill it! While higher education is populated by left-leaning administrations and professorates, we need to recognize that the left's apparatchik, consisting of both administrators and teachers, already are infecting our impressionable children and grandchildren, who regularly are denied a basic, traditional foundation that springs from a pedagogy rooted in Western Civilization. So, Conservatism also must regard as integral the need to ally with parents, sympathetic teachers, and administrators to reclaim our primary and secondary schools, even as the battle rages to reform higher and professional education.
That is a powerful observation — that the young today “regularly are denied a basic, traditional foundation that springs from a pedagogy rooted in Western Civilization”.
There are very many books and efforts over the last decades pronouncing that the schools have become “failure factories” and centers for indoctrination.
Equally, there are also many books and efforts over the last decades that report on the abysmal failure of education reforms or attempts at correcting the political slant in so much of the monopolistic education system. There are few exits or alternative choices! Efforts at reform are futile, frustrating and crazy-making.
While Western civilization withers away, it would take some very rare and exceptional person or people who would tackle this issue with any effect.
No one has slowed the lefts takeover of our institutions I believe since Reagan (I'm not a Presidential historian by any stretch) Trump and more importantly the large tent MAGA movement is moving this in the 'right' direction. You are an important part of the movement
Chris, I’m glad you made that pivot years ago and decided to not give up despite the harassment. However, something that is lacking in the government’s actions is a clear and concise reason for what the western values are and why they should be promoted, rather than Marxian skirmishes and identity politics. I agree with Trump’s advancement on DEI, exposing the fool’s gold of “equity” and trans ideology. However, without a constant and detailed written breakdown of what the western values are (free speech, meritocracy, family and parental rights, etc..) it just leaves the field open to intrusion by those who have endless rebuttals that are not challenged. I’m concerned the Trump administration may win the battle but lose the war over the next few years, simply because they fail to communicate the deeper missions and meaning behind western values, which leaves the values of the long march through the institutions still embedded in the minds of those who occupy influential roles in our society. They are still empowered as long as the ideas go unchallenged and the people can claim the opposition is racist, sexist, white-centered, and misogynistic. In other words we need to work harder at dismantling their bad ideas, and not simply putting the lid on them with new rules.
Anyways, I feel like I’m preaching to the choir here in this forum.. I know you are probably one step ahead, thanks for all your hard work in this field.
“… because they fail to communicate the deeper missions and meaning behind western values…”
I find it maddening that there is no coherent messaging & conversation going on. If conservatives want any future wins, this has to be addressed and corrected at the highest levels.
Dear Chris,
I thank you for all the work you do to bring Western Civilization back to universities!
thanks,
randy
Excellent commentary. The Left has infiltrated much of American culture and the institutions. Basically it has done so through the Frankfurt School and Antonio Gramsci methods and views of the world. Even our history has been penetrated. At Thomas Jefferson historical sites, the recurrent central theme is Jefferson the slave owner, not Jefferson the advocate of liberty. That pivot must be challenged.
Rufo has identified an important element of restoring America: If the new right focuses exclusively on politics they will be acting in futility. Equally important is to focus on changing culture.
The long march through the institutions that Gramsci promoted has been thorough. Have you tried watching tv or movies and been appalled at all the embedded propaganda? Had any trouble finding fiction books that aren’t just disgusting? Finding the news media difficult to watch? The opposition has even taken over the mainstream Protestant denominations. These institutions need to be reclaimed to reclaim the country…politics alone will not be adequate.
The subtle and not so subtle indoctrination even in fiction is notable. There are authors I will not read anymore because they succumbed to the left-wing editors.
"The Left has infiltrated much of American culture and the institutions. ... through the Frankfurt School and Antonio Gramsci methods and views of the world. Even our history has been penetrated."
I'd say it's a short step to see that the Marxist path, with its endless normative sophistry fed to naive young minds, has always been divide-and-conquer con: the brilliant invention of eternal, universal civil wars.
Rufo: "[C]onservatism, at its best, is a tradition that is not opposed to change but seeks to maintain continuity and hand down hard-won wisdom."
Thus "conservatism" can (now, certainly) include the rational cores of both Rightist *and* (pre-Marx) Leftist positions. Despite a wandering history over two and a half centuries, (what are today's rank-and-file) Rightists have prioritized freedom and the individual, and (what are today's rank-and-file) Leftists have prioritized fairness and society as a whole, as a remedy to unconstrained Rightism. Despite the confounding factor of rigid and/or hereditary hierarchies (accumulations of unfair power), BOTH "sides" are necessary and complementary parts of healthy societies, not a case of Good vs Evil or Smart vs Stupid. The latter two holy wars are divide-and-conquer purified.
How would we know this? Despite the fact that the French Revolution descended into instability and madness, they clearly had gotten something fundamental right at the beginning -- liberté [freedom], égalité [equality, maybe better expressed as fairness], fraternité [brotherhood, maybe better expressed as culture] -- so much so that it survives to this day as the national motto.
Marxism has no interest in any societal health. It is totalitarian, IMO the equivalent of a revealed religion, in direct opposition the manifest (rank-and-file) Leftist desire for (pure) democracy. So Marxism and its descendants prioritizes only itself, i.e. in practice, its power-hogging vanguards; and so implements its plan, from top (the "experts", and with AI now, an *actual* Orwellian 'Big Brother') on down. But modern Rightists (mainly, its leadership?), unfortunately, often combine two "Leftist" opposites: Absurdly, they conflate the Democratic Party's *leadership* totalitarianism with the *rank-and-file* belief in democracy and fairness.
I appreciate your distinction between the Marxist totalitarian and pure "democracy and fairness" factions of the Democrats. However, I agree with Plato that "pure democracy and fairness" is just another road to tyranny. In practice the two Democrat factions converge. The antidote is the conservative tradition prescribed by Mr. Rufo.
And I appreciate your providing this comment. But I'm not advocating for a Leftist position -- I'm advocating for a blend of Left and Right. That provides a eternal, but diplomatically navigated, tension that serves the societal needs I identified.
Arguably, this was the de facto condition of America through much of its history, and earlier on while the totalitarians, very slowly, but nakedly in the last two decades, took over all institutions in their 'slow march'.
Totalitarianism is bigger than Marxism, though. It results from psychopathy and psychopathic communities (e.g. neocons), which poison the iron law of oligarchy (which in healthy societies produces noblesse oblige), none of which are specifically Marxist products. So I see Marxism as, basically, a specific and more efficient vehicle in which to concentrate power, by hoodwinking a collection of naive subjects. That's why it starts with students and communities of unorganized poor, and consciously avoids making broad and open appeals until critical mass is achieved. That's how woke bubbled up out of "nowhere". It's lies from start to finish. Lies are poison to any society, yet they are, incredibly, being normalized.
I think we agree on everything except terminology. What you call a "diplomatically navigated, tension that serves the societal needs" is what I (and Rufo) call "conservatism." "Rightism" and the neocons are definitely not conservative. They are part of the Left-Right deep state blob that seeks to destroy American civil institutions by whatever totalitarian means at their disposal (from Marxism on the left to the total war state of the neocons). Conservatives seek to conserve our traditions that maintained political and social equipoise for generations.
Thanks. That all does seem to fit my position. You prompted me to get familiar with Republic and re-read Aristotle Politics.
I'll look into Rufo more. I'm here in the first place because he has masterfully exposed plenty of the so-called "Left's" modern illogic.
With "conservatives", I'm mainly leery of some people who are not, IMO, sufficiently open-minded to contribute to a workable system for all. I believe all people should certainly be able to live and vote as they choose, but when any reject any portions of the population as fundamentally "unacceptable" and act on denying all measures of their liberty, I part ways.
Thank you for this Chris. While I am still a registered Democrat, your journey seems similar to the one I am going through now. The Democratic Party has certainly been losing its way for years. Certainly in the policy areas you mentioned. As someone who played team sports as a young girl/woman and benefited from Title XI, I passionately care about the sex based rights of women and girls. I am horrified by the gender zealotry that has now become policy in the Democratic Party, without any debate. If you aren’t familiar with her writing, I urge you to read the independent journalist, Jennifer Bilek. She has been documenting The Gender Industrial Complex for years. She has written books on the subject and brilliantly exposes the people who are financing this “movement” which is influencing how the Democratic Party speaks and acts on this issue for over a decade. Here’s a link to a piece she did in Tablet:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/billionaire-family-pushing-synthetic-sex-identities-ssi-pritzkers .
Do not lose hope, Robin. Harmeet Dhillon is now Assistant Atty General for Civil rights. She is on this. Republican Women Federated in Carlsbad, Ca have been supporting her work for years.
I HEARD THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT HARMEET last night. :)
Thank you for linking the article by Jennifer Bilek, it was very informative regarding SSI ( which I will now use as the descriptor of choice), and the Pritzker connection. The use of money to influence medical barbarism is disgusting. We can only hope and pray that conservative influence will continue to grow.
You’re welcome! Yes, there is a lot of good independent sources that discuss the political, socio-cultural and medical aspects of the bizarre and dangerous components that make up “Gender” Policy. But Ms. Bilek is the first person to delve into the genesis of “The Gender Industrial Complex” and the dark money responsible for influencing most Democratic lawmakers. I don’t know if The Party is being willfully ignorant or is just purposely turning a blind eye to the obvious harms being done, primarily to women and girls, but it is horrifying. Every time someone even mentions J.B. Pritzger as a possible 2028 contender, I shudder.
He is so repulsive looking he could never win.
Lol! You’re probably right! 👍
I am unsure if there can be any meaningful reinstating of conservative culture in our institutions and amongst the citizenry if we cannot maintain a conservative monetary and fiscal policy.
MAGA 2.0 was our last chance to cut spending and grow out of debt, but "The Big Beautiful Bill" seals our fate with $3T annual deficits (up to nearly $30T in deficits over the next ten years that will double the national debt, add in $1.8T debt interest per year, not to mention recessions, etc).
On top of that Trump wants the Fed to lower interest rates... This is not the way to restoring our Republic and its Constitutional values.
We'll see how this all shakes out, but if we keep feeding the beast then the empire will strike back and continue to gobble up our liberties. If we want a red-flavored empire as opposed to a blue-flavored tyranny then sure, but the Republic remains to be rescued.
The game ahead is an inflationary horse-race (or "kick the can") to try and outpace the inevitable burst. Trump has ironically committed to writing the last (and what will be a catastrophic final) chapter of our long Keynesian delusion that began with FDR's fiat-fed Deep State.
Elon's remark is hilarious: "I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don't know if it can be both."
Jason, do not despair over a single bill. Or the specific words of a hero. It is more about correcting the culture and it will take a long time. There is no quick-pill. The reinstatement of conservatism, in many respects, comes first. The real battle in our education systems. We must reclaim them; from the most prestige (like Harvard), to the smallest kindergartens. That effort It will take generations. I am optimistic because nobody ever dared attack them before. At the same time, we must shrink government. But we have made an amazing start. We are so early in this battle. Keep your head high. Listen to Trump. Not to his every word. But the direction he is leading the nation. And his great soldiers. Do not succumb to the need for immediate gratification. This will take time.
The money has long been spent. It was spent when promises were made via Social Security. It was spent fighting the Cold War, the two Iraq wars, and the occupation of Afghanistan.
The path out is, alas, requires quite a bit of revenue enhancement. Trump's tariffs are a start. We need further adjustments so the government isn't taxing itself. https://rulesforreactionaries.substack.com/p/santa-claus-vs-the-cost-disease
By your asking the cafeteria workers THEIR point of view, you elevated yourself to a REAL journalist. TY for all you do.
I was the volunteer organizer for a k-12 for 5 yrs (then I became the assistant VP, then the VP for 2 yrs. Everyone knew I was NOT liberal...) liberal private school. We held a volunteer thank you at the end of the yr, I was able to get a room w/ kitchen (we provided our own food) donated. The kitchen staff helped just a little, but they had to stay after for another function. An EXTREME liberal, who had no knowledge of what was involved in obtaining this location, found out the kitchen staff were majority black. She thought it was an awful choice, thought the place should be put out of business --- not only did she give no thought to the expense involved if we were to relocate, she gave zero thought for those women's choice to work there, their finances, the social lives of working together, etc., etc. SHE JUST WANTED TO SHOW WHAT A LIBERAL A$ she could be. That was many yrs ago, & that school has gone sooooooooo much further left, if my kids were still in school, I would never consider it.
@dj- Dang...That's rough.
Thank you for your work in this area. I agree that we must get back to basics—the constitutional principles on which we were founded. It’s the only way for us to survive and thrive as a nation.
What a joy to have you in the realm of intellictual and spiritual common sense. May God be with you in this very difficult journey. Your impact, along with those you name, and others, will hopefully bring America back to a reasonable place after many years in the "wilderness".
Absolutely, Christopher Rufo's participation is a game changer.. for me anyway. He is young, patient, BRILLIANT and thoughtful.
This is equally true here in the UK. Except in our two party (first past the post) electoral system, our Conservative Party has been infiltrated by liberals, meaning both our usual options have lead to the same place.
This has left people looking for an alternative. We now have a new option in ReformUK, which understands conservative principles such as retaining hard won knowledge.
Sadly, history is littered with hard lessons being forgotten about and relearned the hard way.
Chris, could you bullet point the 4-5 key conservative principles you're talking about. I ask because I struggle to define and defend philosophical first principles in the absence of some kind of divine or transcendental source, and I don't see any such shared source in the West today. So what first principles do you see forming the basis of this new shared center for America?
Yes, good callout. We need concrete ideas around promoting Western civilization to rally around, and need them to be explained as to WHY they are worth rallying around. The far left has done that well with “inclusivity” and “equity”, two rallying points with specific reasons and ideas as to why. Not that the reasons hold up, it’s just that at least they established rally points for political and institutional skirmishes.
Racialist wokeness serves a real purpose: defining right and wrong. The fact that it's definitions are totally warped doesn't make them any less powerful. And right now, the Right is struggling to define a strong-God (in the RR REno or Heidegger sense) answer.
You are such an inspiration to everyone. Your calm demeanor and strong but respectful words are helping your cause so much! Thank you’
Congratulations!
Nothing short of our civilization is at stake.
Chris, thank you for all your hard work you’ve done. You are a good man, and one that is desperately needed, during these times.
Fiscal and Social Conservatism must be the Number One Rule of MAGA. DOGEing should be perpetual, every session, every year, Federal to State to Local. Here in SC our Super Majority Republican controlled government just this past week, has failed at Fiscal Conservatism. Conservatism should be the First Order of Business. From the Federal Level it has to include Defense Spending, Intel Industrial Complex Spending. No sacred cows. Checking the spending of government minimizes the evil that government does when left unchecked. Trump and Team along with DC Republicans are not getting it: That MAGA is impossible with an upward trendline of Debt beyond what is reasonable and assured fiscal sanity. Japan now has an inescapable vortex of Debt to GDP over 250%. The World was freaking out with Greece around 120%. Based on the current trendline put forth by the Big Beautiful Bill, by the end of Trump's term America will be close to 180%.
our representatives are not doing their job. Spineless. Only want to be reelected.
There is old wisdom which holds that you never know how long a snake is until you kill it! While higher education is populated by left-leaning administrations and professorates, we need to recognize that the left's apparatchik, consisting of both administrators and teachers, already are infecting our impressionable children and grandchildren, who regularly are denied a basic, traditional foundation that springs from a pedagogy rooted in Western Civilization. So, Conservatism also must regard as integral the need to ally with parents, sympathetic teachers, and administrators to reclaim our primary and secondary schools, even as the battle rages to reform higher and professional education.
That is a powerful observation — that the young today “regularly are denied a basic, traditional foundation that springs from a pedagogy rooted in Western Civilization”.
There are very many books and efforts over the last decades pronouncing that the schools have become “failure factories” and centers for indoctrination.
Equally, there are also many books and efforts over the last decades that report on the abysmal failure of education reforms or attempts at correcting the political slant in so much of the monopolistic education system. There are few exits or alternative choices! Efforts at reform are futile, frustrating and crazy-making.
While Western civilization withers away, it would take some very rare and exceptional person or people who would tackle this issue with any effect.
No one has slowed the lefts takeover of our institutions I believe since Reagan (I'm not a Presidential historian by any stretch) Trump and more importantly the large tent MAGA movement is moving this in the 'right' direction. You are an important part of the movement
Chris, I’m glad you made that pivot years ago and decided to not give up despite the harassment. However, something that is lacking in the government’s actions is a clear and concise reason for what the western values are and why they should be promoted, rather than Marxian skirmishes and identity politics. I agree with Trump’s advancement on DEI, exposing the fool’s gold of “equity” and trans ideology. However, without a constant and detailed written breakdown of what the western values are (free speech, meritocracy, family and parental rights, etc..) it just leaves the field open to intrusion by those who have endless rebuttals that are not challenged. I’m concerned the Trump administration may win the battle but lose the war over the next few years, simply because they fail to communicate the deeper missions and meaning behind western values, which leaves the values of the long march through the institutions still embedded in the minds of those who occupy influential roles in our society. They are still empowered as long as the ideas go unchallenged and the people can claim the opposition is racist, sexist, white-centered, and misogynistic. In other words we need to work harder at dismantling their bad ideas, and not simply putting the lid on them with new rules.
Anyways, I feel like I’m preaching to the choir here in this forum.. I know you are probably one step ahead, thanks for all your hard work in this field.
That is exactly the problem:
“… because they fail to communicate the deeper missions and meaning behind western values…”
I find it maddening that there is no coherent messaging & conversation going on. If conservatives want any future wins, this has to be addressed and corrected at the highest levels.