Liberals Leading America to Ruin

Liberals Leading America to Ruin

© David Burton 2021

The Liberal Left
 

     When fascism comes to America, it will not be at the point of a gun. It won’t be installed by CPAC’s favorite 2024 candidate, ridiculous QAnon conspirators, or the destitute MAGA supporters who trashed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. When authoritarianism comes, it will not accompany white supremacists, conspiracy theorists with horned and furry hats, or a frustrated working-class that has seen its dreams evaporate with its jobs.
     New authoritarianism will come not through armed insurrection, but as a cure, in a bottle of candy-flavored medicine. It is the noble motive that drugs us, puts us to sleep, while government power over our lives grows. It sneaks in behind a great social purpose. It will be prescribed by the left as they promise to protect us from every evil, real and imagined.
     The left warned us that Donald Trump and his supporters would destroy the norms that safeguard us. They need the chaos he left behind to peddle their steamrolling statism. But it was not Trump who destroyed the culture and social contracts that kept our nation whole.
     The norm that jobs are indispensable is out of business. The norm that businesses are necessary has closed its doors. The left has harnessed the tailwind of the Covid-19 pandemic to accelerate the destruction of the American work ethic and its associated values of discipline, diligence, and self-denial. It has been replaced by the free lunch and the “what will the government do for me” syndrome.
     They are replacing the culture of earned success with a mindset of victimhood, identity politics, and privileged entitlement. Deferred gratification, hard work, and sacrifice are out of fashion, eclipsed by envy, resentment, and redistribution. They are willing to sacrifice a more vibrant, dynamic, aspirational future in exchange for the stagnation that comes with protection from competition.
     The norm that a nation requires borders has been erased from our political cartography. The conviction that the police exist to protect us has been displaced by a vision of law enforcement as counselors and socially woke psychologists. The left believes men should play in women’s sports, teachers should not teach, and America was not an inspired idea the world has been trying to emulate, but is a racist hoax, corrupt from its dawn.
     The notion that our flag unites us has been brought down. The left attacks the symbols of America’s founding, condemning George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and refusing to honor the pledge of allegiance, as a prelude to rejecting our nation’s exceptionalism. They replace the story of a New World, founded on the ideals of equality and self-governance, with a history defined by hypocrisy and exploitation.
     What is considered the “new normal” under the soft despotism of the left? Colleges should elevate dissent, not suppress it. We no longer have God-given rights as individuals but as members of oppressed groups celebrating victimized identities.
     Our elected leaders can erase a million jobs to raise the paychecks of other workers. We are defined by the color of our skin, not by the content of our character. Parents cannot choose what they read to their children and freedom does not mean you have the right to make decisions nor the responsibility to live with the consequences.
     The pace of this unraveling is unprecedented. Scared people, threatened with chaos, do as they are told. When our long-held beliefs and traditions are characterized as radical, fringe ideas, what will hold us together with other than the strength of the collectivist state?[1]

     These days, America’s educational institutions, from our public elementary schools to our prestigious institutions of higher learning, have become infected with the virus of left-wing liberalism. One consequence that has resulted in all too many cases is that, if you want to keep your job as a politically conservative public school teacher, you learn to keep your mouth shut and toe the liberal left line.
     Consider the story told by a Black Chicago area teacher. This “Dedicated Teacher” or DT taught English in middle school and, later, in high school in Cook County, Illinois, for about 10 years. Now in her early 30s, DT says she has had about all she can take of the progressive ideology being promoted in public education.
     “I definitely want out,” DT said, adding that it is “becoming even harder to stay apolitical, or to come across as being neutral.”
     “You are being forced to ultimately support the liberal narrative in public education,” she said of herself and other teachers. Public schools have “become indoctrination centers.”
     As a black woman teaching at a predominantly white high school, DT said she never would tell colleagues she was conservative for fear she would lose her job.
     “I would even say that [my colleagues] would try to school me in my own oppression,” DT said. “They would probably see me as though I was ignorant, like ‘Why are you, a black person, not part of our team?’ ”
     Assuming her to be in agreement with progressive views, DT’s school asked her if she would consider leading a class to teach high school students about white privilege. She declined the offer.
     “From my perspective, it’s a lot of self-hatred on their own part, like they feel guilty for being white,” DT said of her colleagues.
     DT said she watched as fellow educators adapted curricula in courses from English to health to further a far-left ideology.
     “Administrators are removing classic works of literature by William Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway, and Charles Dickens from English classes because they regard such works as furthering white privilege,” DT said.
     Adopted in their place are black books, and LGBTQ+ books. The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas, a book for young adults inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, is one book replacing classic literature at DT’s school which also asks teachers to include elements of The New York Times’ disputed 1619 Project in the English curriculum.
     The school’s health curriculum has seen “a removal of certain pronoun terms . . . to be more what they call LGBTQ+ inclusive.” The Illinois School Board of Education encourages all schools across the state to adopt a new, pro-LGBTQ+ curriculum that emphasizes use of more gender-neutral terms.
     After working in three different public schools in Cook County for nearly a decade, DT said, she has come to believe that “everything in public education is liberal, from the unions . . . to the school board, to the education administrators, to the educators.”
     “There are now interview questions that are strategically asked to gauge whether or not a candidate [for a job] is liberal or conservative” said DT. She admitted that she “had to lie a little bit to get the current position that I am in, because if I didn’t, I would not have been hired.”
     DT’s experience at her current high school over the past year added to her growing concerns over the trajectory of public education. When she first began teaching in 2011, she said she saw others teaching leftist ideas to students and allowing little space for opposing views.
     “When I started student teaching, that was my eye-opener to the narratives that were being indoctrinated into children,” DT said. She recalled that President Barack Obama visited the town where she was teaching in 2011. Teachers quickly “shot down” any student who questioned the president’s leadership or expressed criticism. “You were not allowed to say anything that went against liberal points of view,” and the middle school was “not creating forums for dissenting viewpoints.”
     “That was alarming because, as an English teacher, that’s one of the things you want. You want students to be able to think critically and think about different perspectives, and I was shocked to see that was not really encouraged.”
     As an African American, DT said she was troubled to see race used as an excuse for why students weren’t succeeding. She said the sentiment in the school was that “black kids are not achieving at the same pace as non-black students and . . . it is because of oppression. It is because of white supremacy.” “I had students tell me that they were still slaves to the system. They actually said that because that was being reiterated to them in their social studies classes.”
     The school administration actually created a separate set of standards for black students, calling it equity, but “it was not equity,” DT said. “I would argue that it was the epitome of bigotry.” She witnessed black students receive passing grades regardless of whether they understood the material or completed assignments, because teachers held them to a lower standard.
     Education has “become customer service,” she said, with teachers told that their main objective is to keep both students and parents happy. Educating the student is of secondary importance. And now, with administrators infusing progressive ideology in the curriculum, Foster said, a teacher who doesn’t support the liberal trajectory has no place in the system.
     “Public education, you would think, would be a forum to teach our students how to think critically and engage in difficult conversations, [but] it’s not happening,” said DT.[2]

     Under the spreading canopy of ultra-liberalism, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore a growing, insidious ethos overtaking America’s most powerful institutions. Individual merit and reasoned debate are out. “Lived experience” and the hierarchy of group grievance are now what matter most. Even truth is considered meaningless. Narratives are everything.
     The concept of fundamental human equality, derived from ideas at the heart of America’s founding and famously rearticulated by civil rights champion Martin Luther King Jr. in his “I Have a Dream” speech, is now being replaced by the enforced “equity” of the woke.
     The end result, ironically, is the resegregation of America.
     This new woke ideology, building on critical race theory, not only rejects the concept that people should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, increasingly embraces actual governmental race-based discrimination.
     The evidence of this shift is everywhere.
     Proposition 16 in California, which would have officially brought back race-based affirmative action to the state, was rejected by voters. But it was widely supported by a gaggle of corporations, nonprofit groups, and well-connected billionaires. While voters may balk at race-based discrimination, woke corporations are seemingly happy to inject racial categories in their business models.
     Open up an app for food-delivery services, such as Uber Eats, for instance, and you will likely see a section for “black-owned businesses.” Are we now going to start choosing our dinner by racial group rather than by cuisine? Such moves to create a more racialized society would be bad enough if they were only limited to college campuses and the practices of woke businesses, but they are disturbingly being incorporated into government policy, too.
     Two Democratic senators recently said that they would no longer vote to confirm “non-diversity” nominees for federal government posts. “I am a ‘no’ vote on the floor, on all non-diversity nominees,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., “You know, I will vote for racial minorities, and I will vote for LGBTQ, but anybody else, I’m not voting for.” Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, concurred with Duckworth. “We’re not just calling for [Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders],” Hirono said. “This is not about pitting one diversity group against them. So, I’m happy to vote for a Hispanic or black person and LGBTQ person and AAPI person.” So, they’d vote to confirm any nominee - as long as he wasn’t straight and white. And what about voting for the best qualified?
     Qualifications are irrelevant. Racial discrimination is good, as long as you discriminate against the right people. Several senators have floated legislation to create race-based programs that would direct funding toward specific racial groups. The Biden administration is backing the creation of a commission to investigate the possibility of reparations for slavery that disappeared in the United States some sixteen decades ago. Do you know any ex-slaves to whom we should pay reparations? How about reparations for the descendants of the Union soldiers who fought to end slavery?
     Cities are experimenting with race-based laws, too. Libby Schaaf, the mayor of Oakland, California, announced that the city will be creating a universal basic income program in partnership with a nonprofit organization that will only give money to “black, indigenous, and other people of color.” The program, which will give $500 a month to 600 low-income families for 18 months, was justified by supporters as based on statistical poverty disparities among racial groups.
     That opens up a few questions, beyond just its legality. Will American citizens now need to take a genetic test to qualify for government services? After all, we live in an age where gender is supposedly “fluid,” but race and culture, we’re told, are absolute. Also, what exactly does a group disparity or statistic mean to anyone living in poverty who doesn’t qualify as a “person of color”? You won’t receive aid, but there’s good news: You’re helping the government create more equity by being poor. Congratulations!
     Many of these proposals are likely unconstitutional and illegal violations of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and Titles VI and VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That clearly won’t stop the woke from pushing them on Americans anyway. “The woke Left understands that, as written and amended, the Constitution stands in the way of many of the things that it wants to do. This is why the Left has set about to cast the Constitution as illegitimate by, for example, purposely mischaracterizing the three-fifths compromise, pretending that the document perpetuated slavery, or calling it a ‘colorblind Constitution for a White-supremacist America.’”
     America hasn’t always lived up to the promise of equality laid out in the Declaration of Independence. Slavery and segregation ran alongside our institutions and culture of liberty. But the founding generation designed our system to bend toward justice and the truth. In time, we have built upon our cornerstone of freedom and corrected our flaws as a nation. The intellectual vanguards of wokeness and critical race theory demand that the most fundamental aspects of self-government and preservation of individual rights be abandoned to serve the cause of destroying “systemic racism.”
     So, not only is America to be resegregated, but unlike in our past - when the American people were persuaded and freely chose to abandon and prohibit race-based policies - this time we will have no choice, and will simply be at the whim of woke apparatchiks. Today, we may be debating whether our national origin is 1776 or 1619, but if our current course continues, our future will look more like 1917, the year of the communist Russian Revolution. For one group to rise, another must come down.
     Race will simply replace class as the prime motivator of the revolution and eventual tyranny. What we will end up with is misery, recriminations, and segregation now, tomorrow, and forever.[3]

     And then there is Antifa. The term "Antifa" is short for anti-fascist and people aligned with Antifa are mostly on the left of the political spectrum. Antifa is thus arguably a more militant manifestation of liberalism.
     Antifa saw a steady increase in media attention ever since former President Donald Trump took office in January 2017. Republicans often portrayed Antifa as a highly organized group of "terrorists" worthy of national watch lists.
     The right-wing media has blamed Antifa members for rioting and looting. Democrats have also condemned such violence, but many on the left say the rhetoric about Antifa is greatly exaggerated, and that it's less of an organized movement than just something of "an idea."
     But much of what politicians say about Antifa isn't quite true. Antifa is not a highly organized movement, nor is it merely an idea. Antifa is a loose affiliation of local activists scattered across the United States and a few other countries.
     In general, people who identify as Antifa are known not for what they support, but what they oppose: They oppose fascism, nationalism, far-right ideologies, white supremacy, authoritarianism, racism, homophobia and xenophobia. Surprisingly, some Antifa activists also denounce capitalism and the government overall.
     Antifa has no official national leadership, though followers have organized themselves into small, local cells that sometimes coordinate with other movements, such as Black Lives Matter. Some self-described Antifa adherents have organized to confront Patriot Prayer, the Proud Boys, and other far-right groups during public demonstrations.
     Mr. Trump pointed a finger at what he called the "alt-left" or Antifa following the infamous "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 where a white supremacist deliberately plowed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman.
     In the years since then, media coverage has identified Antifa as participants, and sometimes agitators, in clashes at numerous rallies and protests around the country. That includes a 2017 anti-hate rally in Berkeley, California, and a Patriot Prayer "freedom rally" in Portland, Oregon, in 2018.
     In the summer of 2019, Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Bill Cassidy introduced a resolution calling for Antifa to be labeled as a domestic terror organization. President Trump voiced his support on Twitter.
     The FBI has also taken aim at Antifa. After arson and looting broke out amid the protests in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd, the FBI said: "We're seeing people who are exploiting this situation to pursue violent, extremist agendas — anarchists like ANTIFA, and other agitators. These individuals have set out to sow discord and upheaval, rather than join in the righteous pursuit of equality and justice."
     Antifa has earned its reputation for sporadic violence.[4]

     After a period of relative silence, Antifa’s destructive activism came roaring back to the Pacific Northwest. And as the trial of a former police officer in the death of a black man was underway 1,650 miles away, this region worried that the violence not only would worsen but threaten to become a permanent fixture.
     Violence erupted in both Seattle and Portland, Oregon in mid-March 2021 as jury selection began for the trial of Derek Chauvin in the 25 May 2020 death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police.
     Yet this violence wasn’t exclusively connected to anger related to the trial; it was merely a symbolic restart to the extremists’ activism. Their violence uses social movements for cover. Their intent, however, is to dismantle our institutions and rebuild them through a lens of radical social justice.
     Early in March of 2021, Antifa unleashed a torrent of violence in Portland. The participants broke windows, started fires, and attacked federal law enforcement. One night, a group of 60 radicals in “black bloc” - the uniform worn by Antifa thugs to make it harder to identify criminals who destroy property and attack police – attacked the U.S. Courthouse. Police responded with nonlethal munitions, arresting only one person - a testament to how hamstrung law enforcement has been in engaging with rioters. The next night, about 100 Antifa and other agitators, assembled in Portland’s Pearl District to vandalize property. Portland police used a crowd control maneuver to contain a crowd in a small area, then allowed individuals to leave one by one. That move helped keep the violence and destruction at bay.
     Antifa in Seattle, Washington didn’t want to be left out of the fun. They, too, took to the streets. On the anniversary of the death of Breonna Taylor, killed in a botched police raid in Louisville, Kentucky, black bloc radicals vandalized property in downtown Seattle and assaulted police. The Seattle police made 13 arrests related to violence.
     The Seattle Police Department had seen a mass exodus of nearly 200 police officers in 2020 after a relentless public campaign by anti-police activists like Antifa and Liberal Left agitators to demoralize, assault, and defund police. Their response to Antifa-instigated rioting was therefore limited by their depleted manpower. The trend of officer resignations and retirements continues in 2021, with the Seattle Police Department having its lowest number of patrol officers since the early 1990s. The Liberal Left – and Antifa - was having its way.
     What’s worse, under an unofficial order, Seattle’s remaining police officers weren’t allowed to engage with Antifa, police sources said, even though a tighter grip on the group’s “direct action” would have lessened the likelihood of vandalism.
     As is also the case in Portland, the Seattle city attorney and the King County prosecutor do not charge anyone with committing most crimes associated with violent protests. Consequently, Antifa members and other vandals largely have escaped legal consequences for the destruction they caused. Does anyone out there still doubt that our liberals are leading America to ruin?
     And it’s not just that there are few consequences to their lawlessness; they’re being rewarded. Antifa members rallied for the defunding of police, and they have succeeded.
     Portland city officials cut the police department’s budget by $15 million. The cut included gutting a team to reduce gun crimes. The result: a 27-year high in gun violence - A big surprise!
     Likewise, the Seattle City Council cut 20% of the police department’s budget. In the process, it ran the department’s first black female police chief out of town. Seattle saw the homicide rate hit a 26-year high as a result. - Another big surprise!
     With these significant wins, combined with a lack of meaningful law enforcement in response to its crimes, Antifa has grown empowered to continue its domestic terrorism. The fear is that it’s about to get worse.
     These radical regional groups are overwhelmingly white, middle-class communists, socialists, and anarchists i.e., leftists. And they don’t hide what they stand for, though they position themselves as social justice warriors fighting for just causes.
     These extremists seek to abolish police, prisons, and immigration enforcement. They are anti-capitalist, anti-banks, anti-establishment. They believe housing should be free. They don’t believe in a free and open press. They don’t believe in representative government.
     They view most, if not all, conservatives as fascists - a term they throw around so freely it becomes clear they do not know its definition. In the name of Black Lives Matter, the extremists damaged, if not destroyed, Starbucks shops, bank branches, Amazon buildings, federal and local buildings, even local political headquarters. This does not serve black lives. It’s not meant to.
     Ultimately, under the guise of being “anti-racist,” Antifa and its ilk see this country as founded in white supremacy. Our institutions, they argue, maintain an unjust system of oppression. Thus, the system must be dismantled and rebuilt, i.e., America as we know it, must first be destroyed and then rebuilt in an Antifa, socialist, and Liberal-Left version.
     Most media outlets refuse even to identify the extremists as Antifa, referring to the mob as “protesters” and the riots as “demonstrations.” This only emboldens Antifa and its allies. They refuse to see or admit the obvious: These Liberals are Leading America to Ruin![5]

     Still more news about Liberals trying to lead America toward disaster! In January of 2021, some three illegal immigrants were separately arrested in Massachusetts for 1) aggravated assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, 2) fentanyl trafficking, and 3) carrying a large capacity firearm without a license, armed robbery, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. And the program that guaranteed those dangerous individuals would end up in ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) custody and not released back into our neighborhoods is now under fire from those liberal congressional Democrats who want to put their political agenda above the public safety and security of the people of the United States of America.
     Democrats Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) pushed for a Protect Immigration Act which would abolish partnerships between local and federal law enforcement by rescinding the Immigration and Customs Enforcement 287(g) program. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement 287(g) program ensures the safety of law-abiding American citizens by cementing the public safety bond between local, state and federal law enforcement and targets dangerous criminal illegal immigrants. Almost 150 public safety entities, participate in the program - and it is highly successful. In 2020, the 287(g) program helped keep hundreds of criminal illegal immigrants behind bars and led to deportation proceedings instead of having them released back into our neighborhoods, including 920 convicted of assault, 1,261 convicted for dangerous drugs, 104 convicted for sex offenses/assaults and 37 convicted for homicides.
     The only people the absurd Protect Immigration Act proposed by our liberal Democrat legislators would protect are criminal illegal aliens. Think about it: The people we elected to represent us in Congress are trying to end a longstanding law enforcement program that keeps illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes off the streets. Their proposal to end the 287(g) public safety program is a brazen attack on the collective efforts and partnerships of local, state, and federal law enforcement to keep our citizens and legal residents safe.
     These liberal lawmakers violate their oaths and the trust of the American people by diminishing the ability of law enforcement to enforce the rule of law. These liberals are intentionally protecting lawbreakers as a means of currying favor with the immigrant community for self-serving political gain. If we allow these Liberals to have their way, they will ultimately lead America down the road to ruin.[6]

     Our Liberal Democratic President Biden traveled to Virginia and Louisiana early in May of 2021 to pitch his American Jobs Plan - also called an “infrastructure” plan. New bridges, safer highways and more broadband are easy sells. But that’s only half the story. Biden’s plan was a massive and coercive push to unionize the American workforce - whether workers want it or not.
     Biden’s plan was a wish list of changes sought by union bosses. It cancels right-to work laws in 27 states that currently protect workers from having to pay union dues if they don’t want to join. It also rigs union elections by replacing secret balloting with a system called card check. Organizers will be able to see which workers vote “no” and intimidate them.
     During the 2020 presidential contest, unions donated millions to Biden’s campaign, manned phone banks and got out the vote for Democrats. Now, it’s payback time. The goal of the American Jobs Plan is to increase the ranks of dues-paying union members. When the next election rolls around, that will fund more campaign contributions to Democrats and more union help on Election Day. Unionizing America is the strategy to secure a permanent Democratic majority. The rights of rank-and-file workers be damned. Gig economy independent contractors such as Uber drivers also lose their freedom under Biden’s plan. It forces them to be “employees,” and therefore ripe for unionization.
     On April 26, Biden announced that it is “the policy of the United States to encourage worker organizing and collective bargaining” and he called for an increase in “worker power.” Biden sounded like Karl Marx calling on workers to unite. In an unprecedented move, Biden is establishing a task force to throw the entire weight of the federal government behind organizing American workers.
     To unionize America, Biden stretches the meaning of “infrastructure” to include anything he can pay for with our tax dollars. The biggest item is a whopping $400 billion to pay home health workers who will be given “an opportunity to organize or join a union and collectively bargain.” In 2020, Service Employees International Union, which represents these aides, supported Biden, and candidate Biden pledged $450 billion for more health aide jobs. On our tab, of course.[7] One thing about the Liberal Democrats - they reward their supporters - again, with every one else's money!

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References:

  1. It’s Not ‘Insurrectionists’ Destroying Our Norms. It’s The New Authoritarian Left,
    Bobby Jindal and Alex Castellanos, The Federalist, 12 March 2021.
  2. This Teacher Says Left Has Turned Public Schools Into ‘Indoctrination Centers’, Virginia Allen, The Daily Signal, 5 April 2021.
  3. The Resegregation of America, Jarrett Stepman, The Daily Signal, 5 April 2021.
  4. What is Antifa? Is it a group or an idea, and what do supporters want?, Leslie Gornstein, CBS NEWS,
    29 March 2021.
  5. Antifa’s Destructive Return Could Have Staying Power, Jason Rantz, The Daily Signal, 5 April 2021.
  6. Ending ICE program shields criminal illegal immigrants from law, Thomas M. Hodgson,
    Boston Herald: Page A13, 7 May 2021.
  7. Biden’s infrastructure plan panders to union bosses, Betsy Mccaughey, Boston Herald:
    Page A13
    , 10 May 2021.

 
  1 July 2021 {Article 482; Politics_70}    
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