On the surface this seems odd but it’s a calculated risk. The Left knows how to fight. They have simply surmised that it is easier to defeat their opponents if they are not unified. Creating fraction between the religions and within different sects of each religion minimizes the opposition to their goals. If they can create a rift between Christians and Jews, or Christians and Muslims, each religion will be weakened, they hope, and they will be less likely to coalesce over their shared disdain for the Left.
This position is even more beneficial from a political perspective. If Republicans are being tough on immigration and focusing on Islamic terror, Democrats see a tactical advantage in convincing people they are intolerant. What better way than to lobby for refugees from majority Muslim countries? The numbers are so small that it doesn’t matter that their culture is in complete conflict with their leftist goals.
This is how those on the left could scream and organize protests because there were no women nominated for best director at the Oscars but remain silent about abused women not being allowed to divorce in Australia,173 women not being able to drive a car in Saudi Arabia,174 honor killings in Pakistan,175 or other cases of women’s rights being suppressed throughout the world.
This is a great example of the hypocrisy of the Left. The group that often speaks of protecting and respecting the culture of others doesn’t demand the same for American culture. Many will say they are not attacking the culture, but their actions prove them wrong.
There is a unique dynamic at play that explains why the Jews are not attacked by the Left. Like black conservatives, Jewish conservatives are a small percentage of the Jewish community. Therefore, nothing would be gained by attacking them. As for secular Jews, most have the same goal as the SJWs; a secular America.
Why attack Jews if the majority of those with political power (Bernie Sanders, Rahm Emmanuel, and Chuck Schumer), money and influence (Jeff Zucker, Paul Krugman, and George Soros), and entertainment cache (Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, and Natalie Portman) are lending their money and influence to the cause? Think Leon Trotsky. While the majority of Jews still maintain traditional American values, many in line with those of Christian conservatives, what they say aligns with the Left’s ideology, so they get a pass.
What is clear is that the argument against traditional Christian values has nothing to do with equality. Furthermore, everyone needs to understand that if the secular progressives defeat mainstream Christianity, the Jews and Muslims will go next, along with the soul of the nation.
• 7 •
Trump: Fascists, Fake News, and the Future of America
The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.
—Malcolm X
In previous chapters, I made the argument that those demanding equality are actually promoting actions that cause inequality. Further, the destruction of traditional norms and the cultural shift to the left have exacerbated the problems they are trying to fight. As a society, our focus has shifted from inputs to outcomes. Many of the problems we blame on racism, sexism, and class warfare are simply the result of individual actions; whether it be poor choices or bad decisions.
Up to this point, we’ve avoided the elephant in the room; Donald Trump. This was by design. My primary focus is always the cultural shift that is hurting the country and why all of the effort to create equality seems to be in vain. This was here before the current president, and will be here long after; however, the efforts have vastly increased since Trump’s election. It is impossible to discuss the extremes to which the cultural and political climates have gone without addressing President Trump.
There was a period when people started to realize that the tactics of the Left were not working. Some still believed what they said, regardless of the many examples to the contrary. Others realized their plans didn’t work, but were okay with them either because they believed the plans were well-intentioned or because they were members of a group that benefited from the plans. However, there was a growing number of people who realized that these demands were empty or would lead to unfavorable results.
Just when logic started to have an impact, the Left found ways to counter it. First, there was the election of President Obama. His election created such a euphoria that people expected everything to improve. When it didn’t, conservatives got excited. Now, they thought, people will understand liberal policies don’t work. They underestimated the adoration of Obama. He told people we just needed to do more, or give it time, or better, it’s because of Republican opposition that progress wasn’t being made. People ate it up.
What he said didn’t comport with reality, but the media was reluctant to call him out on it, some because they supported his policies others because they didn’t want to be called racist. Republicans, for their part, grappled with how to address him. In the past, they would attack the Democrats without reservation. This changed with Obama because like the media, they didn’t want to be labeled as racists.
This created a strange dichotomy. Obama was loved but his policies weren’t. While he was seemingly untouchable, other Democrats didn’t share this luxury. When Obama was elected, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. In the 2010 midterm elections, they lost control of the house; in 2014 they would also lose the senate.176 177Republicans would go on to control 32 of the 50 governorships and state legislatures.
As Obama’s presidency wound down, both parties needed a reset. Looking at recent election history, they both had reason for concern. For Republicans, they had only won the popular vote once in the last six national elections, and that was 12 years earlier. For Democrats, they were hemorrhaging power on the state level. They only controlled 26% of the nation’s state legislatures. How could these things take place at the same time? One would think they were mutually exclusive. The truth lies in how people view the government.
People aren’t constitutional scholars and most only pay attention to issues that affect them directly and what they see in the news. Because of this, they don’t view national politics as being connected to local politics. For national elections, most tend to vote for the person they like the most. For local and state elections, they want to know how things will affect them. This is how people can vote for Obama who, for instance, supports higher taxes, then vote for the congressional candidate who wants to lower taxes.
They view the president as setting a tone. They want someone who inspires, gives hope, consoles, and shows empathy. For their state representative and councilman, they want someone who will deliver results. Nowhere does this have a bigger impact than in the independent vote. Most partisans will vote for the party candidate even if they dislike him, but independents are not loyal to a party. Add to this the fact that in 2016, more people identified as independent than did those who identified as Democrat or Republican, and the parties had reason for concern.
Republicans had a large group of qualified candidates, but none of them had a simple, concise message the average voter could relate to, and the Democrats did not know how they would fare without a charismatic, black candidate at the top of the ticket. No one was prepared for what we were about to get: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Though the road for each was completely different—she, the heir apparent; he, a dark horse—neither party was happy with their primary winner. Clinton came with years of baggage, and Trump was too unconventional. He turned people off, made rookie mistakes, and was always in attack mode. That would be his strength in the end. What many Republican voters saw, that the elites in the party still don’t see, was that Trump was willing to fight. Though it often came in ways they didn’t condone, they were tired of Republicans who retreated whenever they were attacked.
This was not enough for Trump to win however, he needed Clinton to help, and she offered it in spades. She ran her campaign like she had already won. She neglec
ted key battleground states, attacked Trump’s supporters rather than the candidate, and never developed a cohesive message. In that respect, she suffered the same fate as Trump’s primary opponents. Think what you will about his message, but it was clear: fix immigration, reduce regulations, cut taxes, and repeal Obamacare. Clinton’s message: “I will be the first female president and my opponent’s a racist.”
Trump’s win shocked the nation. It’s too soon to see what the long-term effects will be, but initially, his win was a boon for both parties. The Republicans, at least temporarily, won the ability to stop the expansion of leftist federal policies. When Obama lost Congress, he started to govern by executive fiat, signing executive orders to implement changes he’d never get Congress to pass legislatively. This gave Republicans an instant mandate to at least undo some of his executive orders and to possibly reign in the federal government. They also should have found hope in the election results.
Much was made of the fact that, yet again, the Republicans lost the popular vote. However, Trump alienated many Republicans. Some popular pundits, like George Will and Joe Scarborough, left the party.178 Many others declared themselves never-Trumpers and either asked their followers to vote for Hillary or a third-party candidate. With horrendous media coverage and fellow Republicans actively campaigning against him, Trump lost the popular vote by three million votes. This difference is less than the Libertarian candidate received, who, it’s safe to assume, was the candidate of choice for never-Trumpers.179 This means there were more people open to conservative principles than Republicans thought.
Democrats were helped because they had no direction without Barack Obama. Their push to legislate perceived inequalities through preference was losing at the ballot box, and screaming “Racist!” at every turn was losing its luster. Trump’s election changed all of that. The hyper-emotional, angry political climate that developed during the campaign increased after the election. Every day someone on the left says that we all must resist because our freedoms are being stripped away. I defy anyone to list one freedom that has been lost since Trump’s inauguration.
Journalists write stories that support these claims. They suggest, without evidence, that gay rights, voting rights, and women’s reproductive rights are under attack. They highlight stories that help the Left’s narrative and suppress stories that present the other side. But this is not indicative of the realities on the ground. There are no freedoms Americans had on 1/19/2017 that have disappeared 18 months later. Gays can still marry, blacks can still vote, and women can still get abortions. Illegals still flood into the country, only now they have attorneys.180
Just like the false loss of freedom narrative, there has been constant cries of fascism aimed at Trump and his administration. Those who call Trump a fascist just show that they don’t know what fascism is. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines fascism as a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
It’s silly that this is even a serious topic of conversation. Obviously, people are focusing solely on the nationalism part and saying that ‘Make America Great Again’ is extreme nationalism. They also extrapolate that into exalting race. This is a stretch, but I’m willing to give them this overreaching argument because they are still far from proving fascism. Nationalism alone does not a fascist make. In fact, if you look closely at the definition, there is a political philosophy alive in America today that resembles fascism; and it’s not on the right.
EXALTS THE NATION AND OFTEN RACE ABOVE THE INDIVIDUAL
Ask yourself, to whom does this attribute fit? The media and entertainment industries will have you believe it’s the Right. This is a fallacy. It’s the Left for whom race is paramount. They count the number of minorities in high-profile jobs, create campaigns to demand more blacks are nominated for awards, and go on TV and openly announce, “I always root for the black people.”
They swoon over multiculturalism, intersectionality, and black-brown coalitions. They elevate everything black or Hispanic while reminding everyone of the dangers of whites, particularly straight white males. They complain of cultural appropriation by whites and make lists of things white people should not do.
Whites liberals are the biggest purveyors of the race-focused movement from the Left. They write articles hoping for white men to be killed and are eager to tell blacks that they understand the struggle they go through. They teach courses on white privilege and promote the false narrative that blacks cannot be racist. These moves have given blacks a sort of super social status. They can do or say nearly anything without repercussions.
This has emboldened them to traffic in open racism. They talk about the immoral traits innate to whites and joke about killing white people. From Louis Farrakhan to CNN’s Michaela Angela Davis, racist, vile, and demeaning things are constantly said about whites and no one says a word.
While virtually everything about the Left revolves around race, what is the charge of Trump? Making comments about Mexicans and immigrants. Any fair-minded person will admit he was talking about illegals. You can still disagree with him, but it’s not racist if it doesn’t include members of the race that are here legally. This is also different from exalting a race. He has made no comments about elevating any race above another, Aryan or otherwise.
CENTRALIZED AUTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT
Donald Trump is no autocrat; an autocrat has supreme power. If he was an autocrat, he would not have such a hard time getting his agenda advanced. There would be a wall along the US-Mexican border, Obamacare would have long been repealed, the tax reform bill would have been bigger, and the Republicans would have won all of the special elections held since he took office.
SEVERE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REGIMENTATION
Severe economic controls could be a campaign slogan for the Left. They want the government to run the economy, and they want to run the government. Most on the left can be categorized into two groups: those who claim to be capitalists but want heavy regulations on every facet of business and high taxes, and those who want to put an end to capitalism. In other words, those who want to be de facto owners of production and those who want to own production.
Social control on its face seems like a right-wing trait. They are the ones who tend to speak of morality and lament, like me, the declination of the culture. The difference is we don’t want to legislate it. Outside of abortion, of which remaining passive while babies are murdered is a bridge too far for many, conservatives are not trying to make any social acts they find immoral a crime. They just take offense to the Left openly promoting those acts.
The Left, on the other hand, creates marketing campaigns for salacious behavior. They claim we’re a democracy. If so, with their celebrity cohorts and entertainment acting as propaganda, they should sell their ideas to the American people. That’s the way our system works. The problem is, when they don’t get the votes necessary, they protest, call their opponents racists, and petition the courts.
FORCIBLE SUPPRESSION OF OPPOSITION
While the fascist definition calls for suppression by force, that force doesn’t have to be physical. One can weaken his opponent through threats and intimidation. Where is the evidence of this with President Trump? Some will say his attacks on the media are evidence of suppression. While I think his attacks should be more precise, it’s hardly suppression. Not only are they free to attack him, they do it at an unprecedented rate. It is the media’s job to hold him accountable, but not actively facilitate his demise. However, this is exactly what they are trying to do.
The day after his inauguration, hundreds of thousands of women marched in every major city in the country. Celebrities in attendance made some vile, threatening comments; nothing happened. People have mock assassinated Trump and attacked, ridiculed, su
ed, and threatened him, his family, and his cabinet; yet no one’s been arrested.
In contrast, look at the Left. First there is the media, of which they have nearly full control. Trump is wrong, or at least imprecise (a trait that is unfortunately common for him), when he says the media is fake news. Perhaps that would be better as it would be easier to debunk. What they are is dishonest, misleading, agenda-driven, and spiteful.181
Many of their negative stories fall into one of five categories: (1) factual, but taken out of context; (2) undermining their point; (3) lies; (4) hypothetical crimes; and (5) crazy. With the heightened hysteria surrounding Trump for the last two years, there are thousands of examples. I will briefly list a few, in order, to highlight each type of story.
Trump dishonors Japan by dumping an entire box of fish food.
Running an article stating Trump said something then linking a video showing he didn’t.
Time magazine cover of little girl ‘taken’ from her mother.
Making up hypothetical things that may be in Trump’s taxes, then analyzing the legal problems this ‘made-up’ tax info would cause him.
Example that Trump is like Hitler – Hitler claimed the Jews declared war on Germany; Trump said Barack Obama wasn’t born in the US.
The bottom line is that the media use its platform as effectively as Trump. They make up stories, bury successes, and underhandedly pass opinion off as news. MSNBC and Fox News having people who are openly partisan is not the problem. It’s ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and every mainstream newspaper pretending their anchors and their front page stories are less opinion than Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow.
We Want Equality Page 15