All of the awful things that are happening in the United States can be chalked up to the culture of the so-called elite portion of the American population. These are people who are in the top 1% of income earners. They went to the best schools and work in professions and institutions that control the various important aspects of life in this country.
And there’s nothing unusual about this situation. In every culture throughout history the elites control and lead the culture and decide how it changes. For this reason, I guess what we are waiting for is to see if the elites spawn a movement that attempts to restore the culture to a less toxic mode.
Trump, I think, is the first manifestation of this movement. Of course, Donald Trump is a very old man and it’s the youth that has to take the lead in influencing change in the culture. But Trump’s revolt against the elite consensus was the beginning and now we have begun to see small cracks in the monolithic leftist culture. Someone like Elon Musk buying Twitter to allow a place for dissenting speech and Chris Rufo attacking leftist DEI and critical race theory at colleges and universities and Ron DeSantis pushing back against LGBTQ dogma being embedded in grade school teaching are all very promising signs for some kind of movement to challenge the direction of the culture and provide a rallying point for the very large number of Americans who abhor the Left’s vision of how we should live.
But I’m not convinced that this “movement” has the momentum to rollback enough of the woke culture to provide a lasting beachhead. I would say that the jury is definitely still out on the counterrevolution. Much of what has been done is dependent on a few states where a few leaders have stepped forward. And at the moment, the Supreme Court justices have the numbers it takes to protect conservatives against federal judges and the bureaucracy that is intent on attacking any progress that has been made. But that could change at any time. Clarence Thomas is a very old man and Democrats can just as easily stack it with leftists if they get the majority in the Congress.
So, what would convince me that we had reached a tipping point? What would tell me that there was something real happening that wouldn’t just peter out?
I guess I’d call it a stand. In other words, I am looking for a state or a group of states to say no to some policy that the federal government has taken. To put their foot down. A good example would be illegal immigrants. Suppose Biden or his successor continues to allow the southern border to remain open. The Supreme Court has already failed to help Texas and has said that the federal government has sole authority over the border. Governor Abbott has already raised a challenge saying that the unchecked migrants represent an invading army and that Texas has the right and duty to defend itself against this invasion.
Taking a stand would be Texas arresting all illegal aliens and imprisoning them until they agree to leave. The federal government would definitely threaten Texas officials with criminal charges for such a policy and might even move troops into place to stop such a policy. So, if Texas were to go down that road and then come out victorious, I would call that a successful stand. That would be the signal that something had changed.
And by the same token if some state begins to reverse some of the cultural degradation that has gone on in our culture; drugs, gambling, pornography; that would look like taking a stand.
So that’s my criteria. Until things like these happen, we haven’t begun to win back the culture in any meaningful way. All the histrionics and the gestures are window dressing. As soon as something is done by the states it’s reversed by a federal court. I’m looking for when the rubber meets the road and the feds blink. When that happens I’ll begin to believe in the movement.