The War against Woke Communism Thomas D. Klingenstein
https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-war-against-woke-communism/
Now is the time to stand boldly for American justice.
This excerpt is from Claremont board chairman Thomas D. Klingenstein’s speech, “Winning the Cold Civil War.” Responses will follow in the days to come.
In a traditional totalitarian regime, the government uses arbitrary violence to control every aspect of public and private life, all the way down to little league. In America, the government does not control everything. But today, through the power of the purse and the courts, the government influences a lot. And where the government leaves off, the cultural business complex takes over.
Education, corporate media, entertainment, big business, especially big tech, are to varying degrees aligned with the Democratic Party, which is now controlled by Woke Communists. These institutions together with the government function as a totalitarian regime, crafting narratives that advance their agenda and suppressing those that do not. Instead of violence, there is canceling. This may not look like a totalitarian regime, but it acts like one. Last summer’s riots are a case in point. Woke Comm agitators sparked the flame that lit the riots. Their intellectual leaders justified the riots; their corporate donors gave billions to the Black Lives Matter network; their media looked the other way; and their politicians, from Joe Biden on down, fanned the flames.
What is Woke Communism?
Like any regime, Woke Communism is built on a particular understanding of justice. For the woke comms justice is outcome equality. That is, all identity groups proportionately represented in all aspects of American life. So for example, the woke communists believe that blacks, who count for about 13% of the population, should have 13% 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, say the Woke Comms, are due to racism and nothing else. If, as the Woke Communists contend, racism has insinuated itself in every nook and cranny of the American way of life, then quite obviously, it is necessary to throw out that way of life. This is why there simply can be no peace between Woke Communism and America. In a free society like America there will always be group outcome differences, particularly between men and women. Eliminating such group outcome differences, as the woke comms aim to do, can only be achieved at the expense of freedom.
For example, if the black prison population is more than 13%, the Woke Communist prescribe, among other things: early release of prisoners, decriminalizing certain offenses, and of course, defunding the police. If there are too many Asians at elite schools: change the admission standards. Too few blacks in advanced placement courses: Eliminate such courses; at the same time, minimize the value of excellence. If there are wealth and income gaps: socialism, reparations, and minimize the value of hard work. Too few women law partners, or executives, or scientists: universal childcare, and denigrate motherhood en route to destroying the traditional mother-father family altogether.
Religion and civic life must also go, or be radically altered, because these institutions, like family, teach the values that support the American way of life. In totalitarian regimes, there can be no institutions of moral authority that compete with the state.
Of course, the institution that the Woke Comms must completely control is education. The Woke Comms must no longer teach our children about an America striving, however imperfectly, toward its noble ideals. Instead, they must teach about an America conceived in oppression and dedicated to racism.
In short, woke communism will replace American justice with social justice, and destroy law and order, the rule of law, and both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
How should Republicans respond?
What should we do about all this? The essential thing is for Republicans to understand we are in a war and then act accordingly. War is not a time for too much civility, compromise, or for imputing good motives to the enemy. Our generals must fight as if the choice were between liberty and death. This is no time for sunshine patriots.
And the Republican Party must minimize the influence of libertarianism. Most libertarian-influenced republicans are not fit to fight this war. They tell the Woke Communists, “You can live your way, just allow us to live our way.” But the Woke Communists respond, “You must live our way or we will punish you.” “Live and let live” will lose to “do it our way or else” every time.
Whoever the candidate, he or she and other Republicans should tell the truth. They must rebut the lies, starting with the big lie that America is racist. In failing to rebut this lie, as virtually every Republican has, Republicans are conceding the basic premise of Woke Communism. When we fail to rebut lies, we perpetuate them. Republicans must say America is not racist, period. Republicans must assert this not once but a thousand times. War is a time for assertions.
They must defeat critical race theory in schools, the military, businesses, and everywhere else. We simply cannot teach our citizens, current and future, that their country is no good and expect to have a country for very long. No country can survive on a diet of endless self-loathing. We need to teach our citizens to love and cherish their country.
And we need to stop wallowing in our sins of racism. We are talking ourselves into ruin. As far as I can tell, all this talk about racism has brought us nothing but hardship for blacks. Let’s instead talk about what we Americans have in common, and let’s start judging Americans by the content of their character.
Americans know perfectly well that their country has sinned. Even so they believe, and quite rightly, that America is as good as it gets. They know that America has, by her example, brought freedom to many millions around the world. And they know that progress in civil rights over the last 60 years has been nothing short of miraculous. We should be very proud of America. It is this pride that makes us strive, as we have always strived, to do better.
Never Surrender
I am not without hope. There are many pockets of resistance bubbling up around the country. Parents are pushing back against “America is racist” curricula. The manly “don’t tread on me” remains part of the American spirit. Many Americans still salute our flag, honor our military dead, and ask God to bless America.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country deserted by all the world…and I standing up boldly and alone…hurling defiance at [our] victorious oppressors. Here, without contemplating consequences,…I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause…of the land of my life, my Liberty, and my love…. But if after all, we shall fail, be it so. We still shall have the proud consolation of saying to our consciences,…we never faltered.”
We are, I think, in a perilous moment such as the one Lincoln imagines. It is time for our leaders, without contemplating consequences, to swear eternal fidelity to the just cause of the land of our liberty, and our love, the land which remains the last best hope of Earth. If after all, we shall fail, be it so. We shall have the proud consolation of saying that in defending America, we never faltered.
Thomas D. Klingenstein is a principal in the investment firm of Cohen, Klingenstein, LLC and the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Claremont Institute.
Comments are closed.
