AMERICA: DUMB AND DUMBER By William J. Dodwell November 26, 2018 Despite victories
giving Republicans the presidency and complete control of Congress in 2016, as
well as retention of the Senate in 2018, the country is dangerously close to a newly
radical Democratic Party permanently taking over. The checks and balances inherent in
government provide some solace. But the declining
reliability of an electorate that has largely succumbed to systemic political
sabotage and cultural erosion is call for alarm. Closet socialist Hillary Clinton won the
popular vote in the last presidential race, while open socialist Bernie Sanders
garnered huge support in the Democratic primary. In 2018, Arizona radical leftist Kyrsten
Sinema won a senate seat, and Florida gubernatorial candidate and avowed
socialist, Andrew Gillum, lost by a whisker. Socialist “Beto” O’Rourke came
close to winning a senate seat in formerly pure-red Texas. In addition, once solidly conservative Orange
County, California has gone completely Democratic. What is going on with the American voters to
produce this outcome?
To be sure, significant demographic changes have contributed to the leftward electoral drift. Witness the growing Latino influences in Arizona, Texas and Florida, all rich in electoral college representation. One wonders how much of this derives from illegal aliens in the voting booths. But liberals from the northeast also are moving in droves to those states, perhaps by some political design. It would seem that ethnic and ideological changes could create certain structural transformation that might interfere with the historical swing of the political pendulum.
Another problem concerns the longstanding collaboration of the media and the educational establishment to suppress serious thinking. This campaign aims to defuse challenges to liberal orthodoxy, in particular the call for the ever-growing size and power of government at the expense of individual freedom and thought. The mass media shroud truth while promoting identity politics to balkanize the country and thus blunt its potential resistance. The schools and colleges have cravenly promoted the liberal agenda, infecting young minds with propaganda and diluting academic standards to quash critical thinking. In particular, the academy has largely ended the study of civics and American history to suppress that which made America great and to extinguish the notion of sovereignty and patriotism. The result is a largely ignorant America that elects far too many radical Democrats.
The left diverts public attention from serious issues by celebrating sports and entertainment to render the populace uninformed and thus predisposed to liberal propaganda. As a consequence, we have a citizenry that wallows in frivolity, shuns reading, and mocks scholarship. Indeed, the culture rejects serious introspection and embraces the interests of the least common denominator in society, all with a new technological impetus. This is not a prescription for preserving American exceptionalism. But that destruction is exactly what the left wants – a borderless, globalist amalgam of insoluble cultures beholden to a few government elites presiding over the spoils that could be a massive underclass.
The country’s obsession with sports is symptomatic of a cultural malaise that undermines a seriousness essential to combating the nefarious incursions of the left. Wherever parents are heard talking about their kids’ school activities it seems conversation always centers on the teams they belong to, including those of the girls, and never their academics anymore. We must revert to the values of yore and forge radical cultural change. Imagine a country engaged in a cultural sea change in which empty sports stadiums and arenas dot the landscape, and sports bars convert to brain bars that feature televisions locked into Fox News, C-Span and InfoWars while Sinatra music streams over the sound system. On a massive scale, that is a recipe for a thoughtful cultivated electorate that will save the nation against the onslaught of the radical left. Election Day would be much different. (I can dream can’t I?)
Make America think again! ©2018 William J. Dodwell
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