Woke Cultural Hegemony Calls for Political Action

“Politics is downstream from culture” wrote the late Andrew Breitbart.

Some called this the “Breitbart Doctrine.” The founder of Breitbart News implied that culture shapes politics more than politics shapes culture.

Andrew Breitbart had a good point. But, for the last hundred years, it’s the global Left that has been winning the culture wars.

"Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity"

Early in the 20th century members of the British Fabian Society committed to gradually advancing the transition to socialism in Western nations.

Fabians adopted a quasi military strategy. They dodged frontal assaults on traditional society and wore down their opposition through a war of attrition. They played an important role in the development of 20th century socialist movements and the British Labour Party.

In the same era Italian communist philosopher, Antonio Gramsci, also recommended gradualist tactics. Gramsci set aside Marx’s ambition for a violent proletarian revolution in favour of an objective he called “cultural hegemony.” He believed that socialist intellectuals could capture Western institutions through the power of persuasion.

Gramsci wrote: “Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”

By the 1930s American New Deal Democrats were also taking their cues from British Fabians and European communists. After the USA established normal diplomatic relations with the USSR the idea of “convergence” between totalitarian-communism and democratic-capitalism was discussed at the highest levels of American leadership.

Woke leftist elite displays utter contempt for the virtues of common men and women

In the late 1960s, German Marxist activist Rudi Dutschke reaffirmed the Fabian strategy. "Revolution", he wrote, "is a long complicated process in which people have to change", and such change is effected only by a "long march through the institutions.”

Soon after the left’s long march entered the USA, liberal-progressives and neo-Marxists began to acquire enormous influence in America’s cultural institutions. They ridiculed and “deconstructed” the traditional customs and beliefs of the American people.

Academics, writers and artists provided intellectual cover for a range of activist movements that favoured secularism, moral relativism, sexual revolution, transgenderism, identity politics, globalism, open borders, social chaos, press censorship, pedagogical indoctrination, socialism and anti-Americanism.

Today, a woke leftist elite displays utter contempt for the virtues of common men and women. They regard enduring values like hard work, self-reliance, family loyalty, national pride, Christian charity, morality, tolerance, common sense, temperance, honesty, courage and justice as relics of another civilization.

The Final Assault on American Liberty

Over the past five years anti-American elites have taken steps to make their cultural revolution permanent. They set out to destroy both the integrity of American elections and the impartiality of the American justice system.

Honest and transparent election-day customs have been replaced by early mail-in voting, partisan ballot harvesting and unclear counting procedures. These changes were designed to make it easier to cheat and more difficult to identify fraud.

The Left has also weaponised the American Justice System. After Donald Trump won the White House in 2016 he was subjected to specious allegations of collusion with Russia and faced two unwarranted impeachments. A controversial 2020 election finally ended his presidency.

Immediately after the former Republican President declared he would run again he faced four criminal indictments launched by prosecutors who were directly connected to the Democrat Party hierarchy.

Last week, all it took was a leftist prosecutor, a Kafkaesque indictment, a biased judge and a partisan jury to turn the former President of the United States into a convicted felon.

Time to Put Politics First

Around the turn of the 21st century, many believed that the contest between totalitarian communism and the free world was over and democratic-capitalist culture had won the day.

We now know that the demise of the Left was greatly exaggerated. Marxists still control the cultural institutions and are preparing for a final assault on American liberty.

Donald Trump’s call to “make America great again” is more than a political campaign slogan. Clever academics may ridicule the 45th President for being loud and boorish, but he and his supporters intuitively understand that a radical culture is seldom superior to inherited values.

In his recent book “In Defence of Civilization: How Our Past Can Renew Our Present” Canadian scholar, Michael Bonner asserted that: “Every great revival of civilization has been inspired by the past. Rebirth comes not as the result of random experiments that happen to turn out well, but the deliberate imitation of what had worked before...”

Heritage Foundation scholar, Eric Teetsel, recently warned Americans that downplaying the importance of politics could discourage citizens from fulfilling their obligation to participate in the democratic process.

“Politics is not downstream” wrote Mr. Teetsel. “Politics—and the policy that results from it—is at the headwaters of the various streams that collectively become our culture. Politics and policy shape our culture at its most basic level.”

American patriots will not be able to expel Marxist ideologues from the nation’s cultural institutions without the support of strong and resolute political leadership.

Silence and resignation will not restore American greatness in 2024. With the single-party police state around the corner it’s time to start playing political hardball.