We find ourselves in a cold civil war, but we have no real generals. Leading Republicans who should be our generals fight battles, sometimes with spirit, but they do not seem to see the war in its entirety.
This war is between those who are convinced that America is good and those who are convinced that America is bad. The latter wish to destroy the American way of life. They go about it by trying to force everyone to say that America is "systemically racist." If they can convince us of this falsehood, they will be well on their way to overturning the American way of life.
You cannot win against an enemy that has no name. My entry for a name is "Woke Communism" ("Woke Comm" for short). This name evokes totalitarianism, which is what the enemy seeks to impose.
In a traditional totalitarian regime, the government uses arbitrary violence to control every aspect of public and private life. In America, the government does not control everything, but it influences a lot. And where the government leaves off, the cultural/business complex takes over. Education, corporate media, entertainment, Big Business and especially Big Tech, are, to varying degrees, aligned with the Democratic Party, which is now controlled by the Woke Comms. These institutions—together with the government—function as a totalitarian regime. Instead of violence, there is "canceling."
Woke Comms believe that justice is group "outcome equality."
So, for example, the Woke Communists believe that blacks, who account for about 13 percent of the population, should therefore have 13 percent of the nation's: chief executive officers, prisoners, heart attacks, wealth, top test scores, homes, corporate board seats, school suspensions and everything else you can think of. Equal everything is what Woke Comms call "social justice." Any disparities in outcomes, say the Woke Comms, are necessarily due to racism—and nothing else.
Eliminating group outcome differences, as the Woke Comms aim to do, can only be achieved by destroying the rule of law and the Constitution.
If the black prison population is more than 13 percent, the Woke Communists prescribe, among other things: early release of prisoners, decriminalizing various offenses and, of course, defunding the police. Too many Asians at elite schools? Change the admission standards. Too few blacks in Advanced Placement high school courses? Eliminate such courses—and, at the same time, minimize the value of excellence and hard work.
And religion, civic life and family must go. In totalitarian regimes, there can be no private institutions of moral authority that compete with the state. Of course, the institution that the Woke Comms must completely control is education.
Successful implementation of the Woke Comm agenda requires convincing Americans of a series of lies. The first and foremost lie is, as I have said: America is systemically racist. We hear it from every direction, from morning to night. But endless repetition does not make it true. It isn't.
The corollary to this big lie is another lie: "America is about to be overrun by white supremacists." This is pure nonsense, as is the lie that police wantonly target blacks.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) cares about black lives and righting past injustices—more lies. But we should pay attention to BLM because, as we learned during the riots, BLM represents the leading edge of the Democratic Party.
In all totalitarian regimes, it is necessary to silence those who challenge the lies. We see this with increasing regularity: American citizens getting canceled, fired and denied access to social media. More terrifying still, censorship is becoming a fact of life. Republicans cannot let this stand.
But there is much more than censorship. Rioting is sanctioned. Immigration laws and other laws go unenforced. This is mob rule.
For distribution of COVID-19 relief funds, minority-owned businesses are expressly given preference. Pitting races against each other will not end well.
The United States military says it is looking not for warriors, but for women with two moms. Other than the Woke Communists themselves, how many of our young men and women will be prepared to die for a country that puts diversity over human life?
The election of 2020 indeed was, speaking broadly, stolen—not necessarily by election fraud, but by four years of unrelenting, deliberately dishonest attacks on President Donald Trump.
If we are to save America, we must stop teaching our citizens, current and future, that their country is no good and expect to have a country for very long. Americans know perfectly well that their country has sinned; even so, they believe, quite rightly, that America is as good as a country can get. We should be very proud of America.
But if we are to save this great republic, Republicans must understand we are in a war. And then they must act accordingly. We need political generals who will fight as if the choice were between liberty and death.
I am not without hope. Parents are pushing back against America-is-racist curricula. Such citizens are part of the huge army that Trump has mobilized. This army is raring to go. But it needs direction. If Republican leaders start speaking the truth—loudly and passionately—the army will follow.
Thomas D. Klingenstein is a businessman, playwright and philanthropist. He is chairman of the Claremont Institute a managing member of the investment firm Cohen Klingenstein, LLC.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
