Thirty years ago, I was at a political conference in Washington. In my conversations with other conservative activists we all expressed concern about the climate of opinion in the country and if it was possible to avoid pressure to conform to liberal political and cultural views.
Although media bias was already well known. With 90% of the Washington press corps supporting Bill Clinton, I felt it was possible to lead a normal life without feeling your beliefs were constantly under attack by American institutions deeply hostile to your values. In other words, unless you were a masochist and insisted on reading newspapers like the New York Times or watching news anchors like CBS’s Dan Rather, you could live your life without having what we now call political correctness forced on you.
Fast forward to the present. You are now affronted daily with some variety of p.c., which you not only have to hear and see but give obeisance to.
For example, half the people I know will not admit there was widespread looting or vandalism during the June 2020 George Floyd protests on the Country Club Plaza. My liberal friends keep insisting how well things turned out, with no recognition that any violence or destruction occurred. When you confront them with specific examples, all they will say is “if there was violence or destruction, it was done by ‘right-wing’ extremists.”
Only someone who is dishonest or delusional would actually believe that the thousands of young people, many from out of town, dressed all in black, roaming midtown Kansas City, were really MAGA supporters in disguise. (I was going to say dishonest, delusional or someone who writes for the Kansas City Star, i.e. a trifecta.)
The surreal sense of cognitive dissonance was highlighted when most of the local establishment quickly rallied to the cause of Black Lives Matter. This would include virtually every elected official in Kansas City, the Kansas City Royals baseball team and the Nelson Gallery.
Now, almost two-and-a-half years later, there are still BLM signs in all the best neighborhoods, in front of many a multimillion-dollar mansion. Invariably these are families whose parents supported Ronald Reagan 40 years ago. They are unfazed by embracing a movement dedicated to their destruction, and are equally indifferent to the revelation that the movement is an extortionate scam, stealing $90 million in corporate contributions.
I attend a small traditional Protestant church in Prairie Village, Kansas. We try hard to avoid politics, so it is disheartening to see we are surrounded by three much larger churches, all blatantly partisan.
Each has had a gay pride, Rainbow Coalition banner permanently set up in front of the church, announcing its dedication to “diversity,” “equity” or “inclusion,” or other progressive buzzwords. The largest of the churches displayed a large Black Lives Matter banner for the entire summer of 2020. It was this church whose pastor made a second career out of lambasting religious-right figures such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson for mixing politics and religion.
All three of these churches have sponsored lecture series dedicated to promoting gay and trans rights, fighting climate change and opposing the Israeli “occupation” of Palestine.
Many local businesses now display BLM and LGBT banners and decals. For example,, my local veterinarian has a poster with a kitten wearing a Rainbow Coalition scarf.
These often bear the legend “All Are Welcome,” as if gays or people of color needed to be reassured that local businesses would accept their money.
How complete the indoctrination is came to me when I saw a copy of the Mission, Kansas city magazine from June of this year.
Mission is a town that I have fond memories of. I ran for the state Senate there 20 years ago and got 70% of the vote in the Republican primary. It‘s precisely because of its down–market provenance that it was so conservative, as opposed to Mission Hills – home of our local limousine liberals – where I got 23% of the vote.
(The less likely you are to go to college, the less likely you are to be force-fed books such as Robin Di‘Angelo’s White Fragility or Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me.)
Mission is apparently conservative no more. The city magazine ran a nice article where local grade school children were asked what they would do if they were mayor, which was very revealing.
One little girl, a kindergartener, said she wanted to fight climate change and promote sustainability. Another little girl, a 2nd-grader, said she wanted to “focus on equality,–both racial and gender. A little boy, a 5th-grader, said he wanted to promote “inclusivity” and a welcoming environment for “everyone.”
In other words, the children in this community are well-versed in liberal cliches at a very early age.
In short, we see right here in River City all the factors of a one-party authoritarian state.
What else would you call a society in which its citizens have to publicly display badges of loyalty to the regime? How else can you explain a 15-–story commercial office building on College Boulevard with a huge BLM flag painted on its side? Isn’t this a visible show of allegiance to the ruling party and its ideology?
Nor is this social pressure limited to your public persona. A 26-year-old white nurse at a local hospital was fired because she went to a Halloween party dressed as the African American performer Beyoncé. Cultural appropriation is now a firing offense, at least at a local hospital.
The left clearly thinks these culture war tropes are political winners. They can castigate the more traditional among us as bigots and fools. If the deplorables from places such as Lee’s Summit, Olathe and Shawnee fight back, it’s all the easier to label them as homophobes and white nationalists.
The rich ladies in places such as Mission Hills and Leawood already masochistically embrace these labels. If they’re interested, there’s a thing called “Race To Dinner” where an African American and an Asian woman will come to dinner at your house for $2,500 and denounce you and your white girlfriends as racists. (A tearful admission of guilt is not a permitted response because crying is a form of white privilege.)
Where liberals may have miscalculated is that telling 66% of the population they are evil, racist people and that they better mend their way or else (“time for a racial reckoning”) has little demographic appeal outside aging boomer women, the principal consumers of white suburban guilt.
There are signs that Gen Xers – those 45 to 64 years old – are already opting out of Wokeness. It couldn’t come a minute too soon. If the forces of Wokeness are not stopped, this is what we risk:
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.”
– George Orwell, 1984
