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Stepping Back
On Fighting The Left
I can’t say that there was a decisive turning point on the order of, say, my decision several years ago to point my heart and my faith toward the Roman Catholic Church. Rather, it’s been a slowly evolving process that has brought me to the realization that my intense eagerness to engage and weigh in on the current battles and outrages of the day has all but disappeared, hence, my absence from Ricochet for the last few months.
Oh, I still get news updates throughout the day. I still monitor events and distill things in my mind,…but the idea of sitting down at the keyboard to analyze, deconstruct the gibberish, home in on the planted axioms of the left and expose for all to see the grubby ideological perversity animating the Biden administration and its acolytes leaves me preemptively dispirited. But why should that be the case?
Is the rhetoric of the left so convincing and spell-binding as to leave one bereft of rejoinders and data to refute the pied pipers of collectivism? Quite the contrary, all of human history stands as a permanent rebuke to those who fancy themselves organically suited to lord over the affairs and sovereignty of the individual. It’s a case I’ve been making for nearly 40 years now and history has yet to disprove the point that excessive power wielded by the state tends to become the enemy of human freedom.
No, I’m quite accustomed to the left’s rhetorical devices; their habit of wrapping up spectacularly bad ideas in packages of euphemism and obfuscation; their endless compulsion to reject individual thought and autonomy in favor of grouping people according to race, class, color, an ever-growing bouquet of genders, and assigning virtue or villainy on that basis. And let’s not forget their abiding confidence — minus any historical validation — in the mastermind’s ability to substitute his stunted understanding of human nature for the infinite number of decisions that individuals make in a healthy and free economy, etc.
So what changed? After all, generations of class warriors and progressives have been chasing the collectivist’s dream ever since their ideological ancestors’ first dewy-eyed infatuation with Lenin, Stalin, and Mussolini. The left’s rhetoric, like their governance, remains essentially unchanged to this day, underscoring Solzhenitsyn’s point that, “Communism is as crude an attempt to explain society and the individual as if a surgeon were to perform his delicate operations with a meat ax.”
What Changed?
No, the progressive project’s goals and means haven’t changed. Rather, the change has been on the part of those whose charter at one time was to “stand athwart” the collectivist march to reconstruct history and reduce a nation of free people to mere pawns on a chessboard, to be moved about, their lives ordered according to the dictates and pet theories of social scientists in search of an ever-elusive utopia that is always just one more tax hike, or one more slice off the Bill of Rights away.
The work of those who stood watch and advanced the case for a government limited by law to securing the inalienable rights of its citizens continued across multiple generations, albeit with uneven success. For my part, I began writing on current events in 1982 and continued for nearly 40 years, in my own small way, to encourage an appreciation for the Enlightenment ideas and philosophies that inspired the Framers of the Constitution.
My own passion for America’s historically unique system of government was further solidified when I spent 20 years in uniform. Three tours of duty in the middle east, a year in Korea, and other deployments to various parts of the globe reinforced in my mind not only the exceptionalism of this country, it enhanced my appreciation for America’s position as the brightest beacon of liberty in a world where human freedom truly is the exception rather than the rule.
Two Precepts
I took to heart two working principles from two very powerful minds. I understood President Reagan’s warning that:
Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
And from William F. Buckley, Jr., there came a tenet that continues to inform my own votes and advocacy in Republican primaries and general elections. The year was 1964, and the Republican presidential nomination had come down to a choice between New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. What was National Review’s position?
Neal Freeman, a former editor and columnist at National Review, described Rockefeller as a, “…sophisticated candidate, a man of nuance and moderation who could expect positive treatment from the eastern press.” By contrast, Goldwater was something of a firebrand who famously said, “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Freeman described Goldwater as someone who, “…would make our brand-new case for conservatism with verve and impact.”
It was up to Bill Buckley to consider the arguments for each candidate and then formulate the new magazine’s strategy going forward. In June of 1964, Buckley sat down with the magazine’s editors and explained that, “National Review will support the rightward most viable candidate.” He did not use the word “electable.” As Neal Freeman, who was at the meeting, would later explain:
What he meant by the word “viable” was that Goldwater, while quite possibly the proximate loser in 1964, would likely be a long-term winner for our cause. He was the man who would help us conservatize both party and country.
As I say, the “Buckley Rule,” has informed my votes and my advocacy in primaries and general elections over the years. As a result, in Republican presidential primaries, I’ve rather consistently voted for candidates who did not go on to win the party’s nomination (the sole exception being my vote for Ronald Reagan, whom I supported in both the primaries and the general election). Which is to say that I supported the candidate who, in my opinion, was the “rightward most viable candidate” during the primaries. And when my preferred candidate failed to get the nomination, I then supported the Republican nominee during the general election because the Democratic nominee was invariably neither rightward nor viable.
This was, as memory serves, the general approach encouraged by conservative pundits and politicians over the decades. I had it on good authority, every four years, that if I didn’t support Bob Dole, or Bushes 1 and 2, or Romney, or McCain, ad nauseam, I would consign the country, my children and my grandchildren to misery at home and danger from abroad. Indeed, this approach was proven correct by default, as the disastrous Jimmy Carter who gave us double-digit inflation, sky-high unemployment, and interest rates, Americans held hostage by the weird beards in Iran and the Red Army on the move in Afghanistan illustrated. For his part, Bill Clinton couldn’t stop chasing the office help around the Oval Office long enough to deal with Osama bin Laden when Sudan offered to hand him to us — which in turn paved the way to the 9/11 attacks. And let’s not forget Barack Obama, who did everything he could to foment racial unrest at home while exercising powers he admitted were unconstitutional, all while sending planeloads of cash to Iran — which fueled more attacks on American troops, etc. All of which underscored the oft-repeated point that Democrat administrations tend to be characterized by governments that overreached at home while reinvigorating America’s enemies abroad.
On Intellectual Incoherence
Then, in 2016, a significant portion of conservative pundits and politicians appeared to lose their bloody minds. They went from freedom never being more than a generation away from extinction to deciding that, well, after all, the fate of the country doesn’t hinge on one election. Besides, they explained, a presidential election is not a binary choice (which glides serenely around the reality of binary election results). Prominent thinkers and writers looked at the plausibility of a Hillary Clinton administration — which would have been tantamount to handing the keys to the country over to the Gambino crime family — and concluded that the person who presided over the savage killing of Americans in Benghazi would be an acceptable alternative to Donald Trump.
Which raises a series of questions: If it’s impossible for the fate of the country to hang on a single election, is there in fact such thing as a tipping point beyond which there is no return? Can a single event be the culmination of multiple occurrences which transform that event into a tipping point? If, so, is it always recognizable as a tipping point in real-time? If not, is it just as likely as not that those who insisted that a single election could not be a tipping point were full of themselves and little else?
On the other hand, If a single event such as an election cannot bring about freedom’s extinction, then why do elections matter? Why was it existentially important to vote for Romney’s “severe” conservatism or George H.W.’s “compassionate” conservatism even though they were less palatable to many of us on the right than other Republican contenders? If there is no such thing as a “last exit” on the highway to servitude, why not assume that freedom must necessarily continue unabated no matter what we do, in which case why not say the hell with it and write-in Shirley Temple on the ballot? (I know she’s dead, but so are a great many people who nevertheless continue to vote.)
At any rate, following the 2016 election, the same people who told us that one election wasn’t dispositive of the nation’s fate became positively unhinged after a single election yielded Donald Trump as the Chief Executive. The fact that he governed considerably further to the right than many of us had feared mattered not a bit to those who found Trump’s boorish and bombastic rhetoric more dangerous than, say, a nuclear-armed Iran, chronic joblessness, spiraling inflation, Supreme Court packing, energy dependence, Chinese and Russian adventurism, etc.
Here, I may as well stipulate that I was a reluctant Trump voter in 2016. I found his remarks regarding Senator John McCain’s military service repugnant as well as his insinuations that Ted Cruz’s father had something to do with JFK’s assassination. The video wherein he bragged about prior womanizing was unsettling to say the least, as was Bill Clinton’s habit of using the Oval Office like a casting couch and groping various women while in office. For that matter, JFK was a notorious philanderer, while both FDR and General Eisenhower were known to have mistresses. The point here is not that “everyone has fallen short,” as the Bible reminds us (though it is of course true), but to remind us that not everyone who is thought of as being great in office was necessarily always good.
It’s a Vote, not a Love Letter
Which leads me to the philosophy I’ve taken with respect to my vote: My vote is not a love letter, nor is it an endorsement for sainthood, nor a token of my undying devotion to candidate X. It is a calculated move — a chess move, if you will — intended to nudge public policy in directions that will expand the sphere of individual sovereignty and dignity while shrinking the sphere and power of government to encroach on individual freedom. In other words, I line up behind, “the rightward most viable candidate.”
I have no doubt, for example, that Jimmy Carter has been a devoted husband and father, and a solid Christian who would certainly get my vote for Sunday school teacher or pastor. History, however, shows that he lacked the skill set necessary for ensuring the country’s safety from foreign aggression and economic calamity. But let’s face it, most political contests lack perfect options, and sometimes you have to pick what a friend of mine calls, “the best bad option available.”
Please recall that even FDR made common cause with the Soviet Union in WWII, despite Stalin’s absolutely repugnant and murderous attacks on his own people. President Kennedy was on record that, “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend [emphasis mine], oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Even Winston Churchill allowed as to how, “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favorable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons.”
Clowns to the Left of me, Tire Irons to the Right
The salient fact is that the left has declared all-out war on American culture and they are making inroads at a pace few of us would have predicted just a short time ago. We’ve devolved to a point where sentient and rational people are instructed to disbelieve that which they can see, hear, and feel. We are actually supposed to accept that the effect of 39 states changing their laws and rules just prior to the 2020 election was benign and that it had no effect on election results. Decades of election mischief dating back at least as far as 1960, when Lyndon Johnson’s Texas was described as a place where “…the dead vote Democrat, and often,” somehow evaporated in 2020, don’t you understand. Children are being taught that a person’s skin color is determinative of their character and their status as a victim or oppressor, and concerned parents who voice their displeasure are not only labeled “domestic terrorists” by their own government, they are even lectured by people supposedly on the right! We had deadly riots in which police officers were assassinated, shop owners were attacked, the White House became a target and a church adjacent to the White House was set afire; all described as “mostly peaceful,” while voices on the right had the dumbfounding audacity to admonished private citizens who stepped up to protect property and lives when local authorities retreated in the face of the onslaught. Civil society is unraveling into utter chaos before our very eyes, while from the relative comfort of what Bill Buckley called the “well fed right,” Monday morning quarterbacks second guess and reprimand ordinary law-abiding citizens who are trying to salvage what they can of their lives, while they can, as best they can.
If your sights are set on limited government, maximum freedom, national sovereignty, and a homeland safe from foreign aggression, the available choices and the binary nature of our election results point inevitably to — you guessed it — the “rightward most viable candidate.” But you will wade through successive waves of condemnation and excoriations from people you thought were on your side as you make your way to the voting booth.
One writer, for whom I’ve had great esteem over the years, even posited a possible third party on the right (if not outright support for Democrat candidates), as if we can continue down this highway to national suicide indefinitely, so as to punish recalcitrant conservative voters even as our enemies grow stronger and bolder. We’ve gone from the 20th Century’s most prominent conservative declaring his preference for being governed, “by the first 200 names in the Boston phone directory than by the entire faculty of Harvard,” to his progeny’s studied condescension, which benefits the leftward most disastrous candidates and policies.
Not only has the place gone nuts, but about half of our team is now helping out the other side. But here, let author and Commentary magazine’s Norm Podhoretz’s explain with characteristic eloquence. The left, he maintained in a recent interview, is in a war “to the death.” They want to win. “I’m not sure anymore what our side wants. The right, as I used to understand it, no longer exists. So you’ve got one very clear side, and one very muddled side.”
This ‘woke’ business — critical race theory, Black Lives Matter, all of it — is just pure anti-American hatred. … Which is why I keep saying it’s a war. If you don’t understand that, you don’t know what the hell is going on.
Stepping Back
But let it go. Whether or not they understand the magnitude of the disaster they’ve midwifed is irrelevant to those who will pay the price; our children and grandchildren. I’m used to taking fire from the left, but I’m not well disposed to dealing with incoming from the right as well. My writing has been a labor of love, which is good because it doesn’t pay a dime. But now, it’s just labor.
Perhaps it’s the realization, as Whittaker Chambers once observed, that I’m on the losing side. Perhaps it’s also the depression that comes with working and living every day in the grinding mindlessness of the homicidal hellhole of Memphis where right reason is a foreign tongue. Perhaps it’s the sheer fatigue of trying to live the life, simultaneously, of retail management, pundit, podcaster, and radio station owner. Perhaps it’s the lingering effects of a stroke, 10 years ago, that make the act of composing more laborious than it once was, but I can no longer say that I look forward to it.
The point remains that without consciously deciding to do so, I’ve already stepped back from the compulsion or desire to wade into the fray. After 20 years of defending the country in uniform, and nearly twice that amount of time fighting ideological battles, I find the most enjoyable moments in working to provide the listening public with the radio station I always wanted to hear. Meanwhile, I haven’t turned off the Muse, and I’ll still be writing from time to time, though about what I’m not sure. I can’t change the trajectory of the country, which appears to be set, but I can provide some smiles and invigorate the spirit with music and commentary that reflects the Joie de vivre (Joy of Life) of my home stomping ground, and the independent spirit with which I was raised. Surely that counts for something.
Published in General
If you write it, I’ll read it.
Beautifully expressed Dave. As a firm follower of Ecclesiastes, I track completely with your sentiments. But always bear in mind that your work reaches far more than you know. I should know, I’m one of them. Hold fast brother!
Dave, as I’ve told you before, it was your writing that caused me to join Ricochet almost 10 years ago. Please, don’t quit fighting the battle. We need you!
Welcome back, and great post!
We’ve only lost when we’ve given up. I know you’ll be fighting, one way or another, until your arrival at the Pearly Gates. Let go of those who cower in the face of a fight. They aren’t with us if they ever were. America is a cause too important, a project too essential, to the purpose of man’s liberty – like the air we breathe to sustain us – to give up. Your voice has been essential to my learning and to this cause generally. In the meantime, I’ll keep listening to your radio station while I wait for your next clear-eyed insight – one that I appreciate almost as much as our friendship.
So well put. So much of the NT objection seemed to come down to “poor character” that will lead in some indeterminate way to a “bad call.” Never mind Trump’s four-year record of governance.
Of course, they never judged Biden by the same standard.
I wanted to say “To the extent that the NT objection was coherent,” but I realized that it never has been coherent. Standards applied to Trump were simply never applied to Biden, at least in a sincere and honest attempt to sort out the relative merits of the candidates. And here we are.
It’s very difficult to absorb the failure of freedom in these United States. I almost wish I could be one of those, “it can’t happen here” types. But, as one of your Catholic sisters, I’m doomed to the gritty (Biblical) realism that all things are passing away, and it appears we have the privilege (not intending sarcasm) of living through the end of the republic.
Have you read @austinruse‘s book, Under Siege: No Finer Time to be a Faithful Catholic, Dave? The first two-thirds review where we are, but the last third is the part I have bookmarked. Very hopeful.
Folks, thank you so much for your comments. You honor me with your kindness and solicitations. This article, which you’ve read today, took well over a month to write due to myriad obligations that drain the mind and spirit. I’m writing the little note here in the comments during my 30 minute break, in an 11-hour day working retail. I’d rather write, but there are bills to pay.
Another factor is a relatively recent development wherein I post something on social media designed to provoke a response from the progressive camp. Invariably these days, they never challenge me. No, my only challenges come from the ostensible right. Perhaps progressives have reasoned that they’ve no need to challenge because someone on the right will do it for them. I’m just….over it.
Please pardon my haste, as I have to get back to the sales floor. As I say, I’ll still be around, but not as often as previously. Must get back to the salt mine now…
At first, it may seem like this contradicts Dave’s post. But, not really:
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2021/all-or-nothing
Excellent read, and I think you’re quite right, WC. To use an overused metaphor, in civil society we used to worry about having “the camel’s nose in the tent.” We’ve now invited the entire camel into the living room, and a great many of our fellow citizens are bowing down to it.
Yes, Dave. I took your post to not say you were “quitting” but rather your inner motivation for doing so had noticeably waned. The same is true for me and I couldn’t tell you exactly why that is.
Dave, we’ve been missing you. Please don’t stay away any more than necessary.
People from “The Right” object to what you say? I don’t really see the traditional nomenclature, “left” and “right” is adequate anymore. I would propose calling things by names that more accurately define who they are. I suggest that what has been called “Left” should now be addressed as Socialist. It’s no longer a secret, nor are they making any effort to hide who they really are.
The right, the true right, should properly be called Conservative. While it isn’t as easy to define what it is to be conservative, this is in fact a characteristic of conservativism – the willingness to debate and consider the views of others, rather than be mindless slaves of a doctrine, a filter that determines what each of us is to think.
But there is a group between those two, fairly honest categories. Some would say that they are in the middle, between the two “extremes.” This would be the place for those who classify themselves as moderate, those who see themselves as mainstream Republicans, Never Trumpers, the Lincoln Project buffoons, etc. The most fitting name for this group, I propose, is “The Confused.”
They view themselves as the heart of the Republican Party, of The Right. One of the things that have become clear as a result of Trump is that “main stream” Republicans are nothing of the sort. They have the megaphones through which to bleat, louder than we, the actual majority, because the MSM deprive us of that same platform.
Those who object to your writing are among this third group. They are worthy of being ignored. They won’t go quietly, but go they must.
All quite right, and I appreciate both your analysis and descriptions. The problem, as I see it at least, lies with The Confused element actually enabling and (in some cases) applauding the Socialists. I can handle confusion, but I can’t abide literally helping those who are bring about civil society’s collapse. While I have taken to ignoring their little snipes and pot-shots, the soul-draining reality of their end-result remains. I sense the turning point has been passed, and the grief is real.
I doubt that I can, or will, stay away completely. I certainly don’t want to do so. But I find the cumulative result of what’s happening nationally, along with what I charitably referred to as the grinding mindlessness I see everyday in my personal endeavors, utterly dispiriting. The joy of radio becomes, for me, a refuge in such circumstances. But your wisdom and advice is well-taken. Thank you!
Yes, that’s exactly correct. Well put!
It takes energy and time to rail against adversity, time stolen from life’s other endeavors and responsibilities. When you were a single road warrior, roaring down the highway and mowing down insects by the ton, you had lots of time to mull over the politics of the day. Things have changed. Time has passed. Your mind is taken up with the exigencies of a new, more present life. So there is that. Of course, there is also (I hate to admit this) a bit of despair, given the current decline in conservative influence. That this decline is in part caused by those previously on our own side is the most frustrating. It is an indication that the rot of power and ambition, or the inclination of its loss, has corrupted not just our opponents, but our presumed allies. Changes are needed. We need men of courage in leadership, not politicians. Their subtlety is lost on us. I say this, if it is too subtle to rationally explain to supporters, then it is not a compromise but a cave-in; cave-ins bury everyone.
But changes won’t begin until 2023. 2022 will likely produce nothing of consequence out of the legislature, but that will leave the Brandon administration free to continue its inflictions. Ouch.
Good news? Texas is building its own wall. The courts will continue to actively thwart many of Brandon’s mandates. Moms will rail against CRT in schools and masks. Inflation will do what it does and pressure Brandon’s spendorama policies. This too shall pass.
So if it helps, steer clear of politics. We all hate it anyway. Write about something lovely. We just want to hear from you from time to time.
A great number – may be greater number – of our fellow citizens have noticed the smell.
Thanks for updating us. I’ve enjoyed your podcasts – Alphonse made me laugh to the point of tears. Hang in there and keep checking in with us and sharing your pearls of humor and wisdom when you can.
Thank you Doug. Very good advice and I’ll have to take you up on it. There are much more pleasant things to write about, and even when I was on the road I had occasion to write about the panorama of America breezing by my windshield. The panorama I experience these days is very different and I’m afraid it lends to despair. Which is perhaps one reason why I enjoy creating content on radio, i.e., it summons, via audio, a different world that hearkens back to happier times and places. But whose to say I can’t do that in writing as well?
I would love to see you return to the idea of a book made of those collected musings from your time on the road. We talked about it a while back and you’d made a great start. I’m still waiting to read the whole thing.
I second this!!
Not a bad idea! Not bad at all…