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Counter Narrative: Are We Winning?
Over on NRO, The Three Martini Lunch’s Jim Geraghty argues that maybe — just maybe — conservatives are doing better on the kulturkampf than we’ve credited.
Allow me to throw out a theory, that I’m not entirely sure I believe myself. It came up in a conversation with Liz Sheld last night; think of this assertion as playing Devil’s Advocate: In 2016, the Right is winning the culture wars. […] 1. Notice what Target stores just did [regarding bathrooms]. […] 2. Caitlyn Jenner’s reality show ‘I Am Cait’ just got canceled. […] 3. One can argue whether the all-female ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot needed or deserved to be a cultural flashpoint. […] 4. In the past year, hard-line Leftist activists appeared to win every fight on college campuses, demanding “safe spaces,” shouting down contrary voices, intimidating professors and administrators and generally turning universities into temples of Political Correctness, a twisted rejection of free expression and free exchange of ideas. But the New York Times reports that the students forgot one key group that keep the wheels of colleges turning: alumni. […] 5. The University of Missouri, where the high-profile, racially-charged student protests gave the school a reputation that is deterring interest in potential students. [… and] 6. Gawker is shutting down.
Thoughts, Ricochet?
Published in Culture
I think the people who are actually pushing back against the things Jim’s talking about are people who he doesn’t really like: the alt-right.
The defining feature of the alt-right is that they take the left’s tactics and turn them against their perceived enemies. The tactics are effective, as we’ve seen from the last 50 years of increased acceptance of the cultural decay that’s always been with us, but it tends to attract people with extreme views and many unsavory views at that.
I think a lot of what we’re seeing there is that the Left is overplaying their hand. It’s not so much that conservatives have pushed the nation to the Right, but that the Left is trying to steal home and the general public isn’t having it.
“Same sex marriage should be legal!”
“Yeah!”
“And transgender issues are important!”
“Sure!
“And your six year old should be required to affirmatively declare their gender identity and sexual preference on the first day of school!”
“I…hang on, what?”
I agree that there is a backlash to the highly poltically correct culture that has manifested itself. I think that due to the left’s overreach especially in regards to this transgender thing, most people are not down with it. Attacks against freedom of speech and of religion and the insanity of what is happening on college campus’, and BLM is taking it’s toll on a weary population who really just want to live their lives. I see this on youtube where there are a lot of young people that make anti-feminst, anti- BLM, pro-free speech videos and talk about the dangers of a collapsing Western culture and Islam . Most of these people are Atheist, which is fine but I do wish they wouldn’t be so snarky about Christianity which is the basis of the western culture in which they would like to preserve.
the backlash is happening but slowly, the left has built this massive message wall, of education, media, and now social media that is hard to break through. The population has been brainwashed to an extent but I think they sense they are losing something but don’t know the cause.
Also now that the left are “the man” there will be an anti-establishment backlash as young people usually do want to rebel against the establishment to an extent. Maybe in 10 years or so being a conservative will be cool. Who knows
I’m going to put some ice cubes in a lake and see if the temperature of the water changes.
Not that I don’t appreciate the attempt at optimism. :)
The left always overplays its hand, then pockets the progress, makes a tactical retreat which is still on new territory, and awaits the next assault. That is why they win power. They only lose when they get enough power to destroy the host. This bunch are fascists so know how to keep some rich cronies generating income. They may never go away. I think we better wake up to that possibility.
This is a long game, it has taken a long time of leftist infiltration to get us to the point we are now. It will take a long, long time to perhaps get the country off the leftist bandwagon (if we don’t collapse completely before then) but step by step I do think there are glimmers of realization by people we’ll see how that pans out for the next generation or two.
Target took a billion dollar hit to sales because of concerted efforts by social conservatives using social media to boycott them.
Also, I’ve noticed this. There is WAY, WAY too much power in social media. Twitter is really a cesspit of humanity, and the reason for it is anonymity. The worst troll on twitter would probably never, ever say those things to someone’s face. I also think social media’s power is starting to wane (a bit) the outrage mob is getting to the point of parody, and they are showing their hand too much that it is rights for yee but not for thee. That gets tiresome after a while
Has anybody watched Red Letter Media’s “Scientist Man Analyzes Ghostbusters” on YouTube? It’s funny and it effectively ridicules progressives who supported the movie as a social justice cause. It also points out the shady way in which the movie was marketed by Sony.
Apparently, “Scientist Man” upset the mods on Reddit so much that they repeatedly banned threads that discussed the video.
Couldn’t’ve put it better myself.
No we aren’t winning. We are just starting to skirmish against the enemy’s onslaught. 40 years ago, we looked around and said “something is wrong”. 30 years ago, we said “Progressives are wrong and we need to conserve our traditional value”. 20 years ago, we said, Progressives are wrong and we need to say something”. 10 years ago, we said Progressives are wrong and the time for saying things is past. We need to DO something”. Now we are trying to figure out what it is that we need to actually do. There is a lot of conflict among us but we at least agree that it is time to fight and people are fighting. We just aren’t a cohesive, well organized lot, like our adversaries. We need a leader or leaders to bring us together, organize us and motivate us. Maybe in another ten years.
So long as hippie CEOs are comfortable expressing their views, both in words and in corporate activity, while conservative CEOs can’t imagine balancing profits with other values, the Left will dominate culture in the marketplace.
The Left dominates entertainment, journalism, education, corporations, technology, research, and religious communities. Is there any aspect of public society they do not lead and govern?
As Gary McVey always says, that’s on us. It’s our responsibility to infiltrate those fields, produce quality works, and advocate our views publicly.
But there are costs to defiance. Conservatives must be willing to risk defamation, exclusion, bad grades, being fired, lawsuits, and other penalties for expressing right values in a hostile society. Justice and comfort are incompatible under such circumstances.
Having a leader gives the opposition someone to target. Once the general goes down, the movement flounders. Expect the media to pull out all the stops to destroy you if you try to stand up against these things. It is also crucial to be supportive of people on your side even if you don’t like how they fight.
Love to ‘believe’ this, and in the tooth fairy, but the layers of liberal catechism is now foundational.
The education department, the energy department, the EPA, the courts, none of these is ‘changing’ and they are taking billions form the American people to keep doing the same subversion of liberty and rights as they have been.
Cities like Baltimore and Detroit are systemic and have been for 30 and 40 years and the liberals themselves keep denying they’ve had anything to do with the downfall of these once proud and prosperous cities. California has been throwing their version into overdrive.
Their solution? More of the same but really MORE!
So the ground has been given.
The old joke goes- ‘hold the clean end of the sh*t.’ So which is the clean end?
Very well put.
Also very well put. (Uh … libertarians, too, BTW. In general, liberty lovers.)
“Time to fight”!!Yes! Nothing is forever, and we have suffered the “progressive” yoke too long. CoC anyone who does not see this and believes any tactics are now off-limits to reverse this anti-Liberty trend!!
Don’t tread on me, you bozos!!
Oh yeah, I know–people will make fun of this comment. And I don’t care. If they don’t realize we’re on a fight for the soul, the very generating spirit, of our nation–the more fools they.
RIP Andrew Breitbart.
Winner winner chicken dinner.