Could we be winning the culture war?
I'd rate that a definite "maybe." Granted, the culture on the right of the nation's political center has, since I first started paying attention in the late '70s, changed quite a little bit. Young conservatives today, by and large, carry a large libertarian streak. But the big cultural shift has been on the left. Remember that Barack Obama, when campaigning and when in his first term, piously opined that marriage was "between one man and one woman," a notion that most of Western civilization takes for granted. But now, today's left would demand that you not only tolerate, not only approve, but celebrate someone who said they wanted to marry the Saturnian moon Mimas. That's "Woke" sensibility - or, more correctly, the lack of sense.
The woke have always been a marginal group. But they seem to have taken over the Democratic Party, which is resulting in the Democrats losing elections while promoting things like letting dudes play on women's sports teams - and sharing their locker rooms and showers. But just because they're fading doesn't mean that the rest of us shouldn't give them a little push over the edge of history's dustbin.
If President Trump succeeds in turning the economy around, and even after six weeks, there are indications of this, that may well do the "woke" more damage than a century of debate. The late, great Andrew Breitbart correctly observed that politics is downstream from culture, but we should also note that culture is downstream from economics. If the younger generations, of which I am father to four members, can find good-paying jobs and afford homes and decent cars, then the petulance and anger that "woke" thrives on will have trouble finding a branch on which to perch.
But if we do have to deal with the "woke" directly, there are some things to keep in mind.
To summarize them:
- Don’t panic. The "woke" are great at forming mobs, at screaming and shouting. They will try to intimidate you, but honestly, the idea of a pencil-armed ninny with purple hair trying to intimidate anyone with a normal endocrine balance is giggle-inducing.
- Stick together. The "woke" and the left, in general, are pretty good at cohesiveness. That's not surprising; collectivism is in their nature. But if we cohere, we should form a social version of the Greek phalanx. Leave no openings.
- Make it hard for people to go along with “woke” horse squeeze. Hit them with facts - like the reality that men, regardless of how they identify, are larger, faster, have more stamina, stronger skeletons, and more fast-twitch muscle fibers than women. Or demand they explain who was running all the coal-fired power plants during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
I’d add another rule, one that is more important than these three - never apologize. Apologizing to these people is a tacit admission of guilt. Never do it.
Case in point: In 1999, David Howard, an aide to the mayor of Washington, D.C., was forced to apologize for using the word “niggardly” in a meeting, as someone with apparently poor knowledge of English took it as a racial slur. Hint: It isn’t. “Niggardly” is a perfectly good word, deriving from the Middle English “nigard,” meaning one who is stingy or miserly. That word, in turn, probably derives from the Old Norse word "hnǫggr." It is in no way related to the infamous “N-word,” which derives from the Spanish word for black. This was a misunderstanding and should have been resolved with an explanation - but instead, David Howard apologized and faced losing his job. He made a tacit admission of guilt, you see, when the proper response to the complainer would have been simply that he was wrong and that he needed to look up the word.
No one should apologize for someone else’s ignorance. No one should apologize for someone else’s intolerance. No one should apologize for voicing their own opinion. Never apologize to the “woke” for voicing an honest opinion honestly arrived at. Never. Apologize.
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This is a culture war. If we’re going to win it, there are going to be times to set our polite impulses aside. There are times when there is nothing to do but to be sharp, to be insistent, to be forceful. But there's also a place for humor, and the right has some masters, not the least of whom is the esteemed Senator John Kennedy (R-LA), who delights us daily with his folksy wit. Humor works as well, probably because the "woke" in particular and the left in general are so utterly humorless.
It's looking like we're turning this societal ship around. It won't happen overnight, and it won't happen without some trips and fumbles. But it's happening - and it's happening because of all of us. Keep up the pressure. Keep up with the facts, and use them. Most of all, keep your sense of humor. And never apologize. We're not just the right, after all - we are right.
