Time
constraints preclude the thorough analysis of “The Big Con,” the so-called
“conservative movement,” that this subject deserves. For now, however,
suffice it to say that the conservative movement is largely a fiction
constructed by the merchants of Big Conservative media—to whom, from this point
onward, I refer simply as Big Cons.
As
long as those of the Big Cons remain the faces of the official right, the left
will continue to do what it has been doing for the last so many decades: It
will continue cleaning house in the “cultural wars.”
Of
course, the Big Cons could never so much as remotely concede this as a
possibility, much less an actuality. Such an admission would, after all,
be bad for business. Yet it is true all the same.
Simply
put, Big Cons have neither the will nor even the imagination necessary to fight
the left on the terms that the left has established.
To put it even more bluntly,
Big Cons fear the left.
In fact, even this manner of
speaking understates the case: Big Cons are terrified of
the left.
So as
to avoid misunderstanding, the referent here isn’t limited to the fear of
professional ruination and/or the loss of social status, i.e. all of those
invitations to Manhattan and D.C. cocktail parties that so many Big Cons crave.
The fear to which I refer is more primal than this:
Big
Cons fear for their physical safety lest they get on the bad side of the left’s
more rabid faction.
Leftists make noise, issue
uncompromising demands, organize in massive numbers, clog streets, and use
abrasive, even outrageous, language—tactics designed to intimidate others. Yet leftists do more than
just intimidate. They attempt to slander and ruin reputations and
livelihoods. They are also known for destroying property and engaging in acts
of violence, even murderous violence, in some instances, against those who they
regard as their enemies.
All
of the while, the “respectable” voices of the left in government, academia,
Hollywood, and the media either ignore the thug antics of their street soldiers
or try to rationalize them away. Neither course of action is particularly
difficult, for Big Cons are all too eager to allow the Democratic left to
distance itself from the barbarism of its base.
Big
Cons can be counted upon to do one or more of three things, and they tend to
engage in these moves in tandem.
First, they react to the left’s more obvious excesses by
calling attention to them.
Then, they go on the defensive, bending over backwards to assure
the world that just because they are critical of the left for this or that
position doesn’t mean that they aren’t “sensitive” to the subjects at
hand. In other words, Big Cons spare no occasion to advertise to the world
their abhorrence of just those moral transgressions of which the left accuses
them—“racism,” “sexism,” “homophobia,” “xenophobia,” “fascism,” and so forth.
Finally, toward this last
end, Big Cons launch an offensive—only it’s an
offensive against those on their own side, or to their right.
This
three-fold prong is the standing operating procedure of Big Cons.
The
cooked Confederate monument controversy is a textbook illustration of this Big
Con pattern.
(1)Big
Con commentators focused their audiences’ attention on, say, the scene of a mob
of zealot leftists trying to tear down a statue of a Confederate hero—a scene
that any American with a scintilla of sanity and civility will have no problems
recognizing for the ugliness that it is.
(2)Then
they condemned the hysteria, irrationality, and destructiveness of the
“protesters” (yes, Big Cons never fail to accept whatever terms the left
selects for its positions and activities).
(3)However,
Big Cons were quick to qualify their condemnatory remarks with assurances that
they understood and empathized with those people, particularly black people,
who purported to be traumatized by the sight of statues of long-dead
Southerners. In doing so, they distanced themselves from Southerners (and
others) who defended the monuments, and in many instances, Big Cons joined the
call for the removal of the monuments and even went so far as to accuse some
monument supporters of being “racist.”
Big
Cons are partisans, for sure. They are partisans of appeasement,
appeasement of the left.
This
three-point strategy of Big Cons is, unequivocally, a losing strategy against
an enemy as aggressive and resolute as the left.
While
talking and writing are important, for sure, Big Cons never do more than
this. For instance, they never use any of their vast resources to call
for boycotts of leftist enterprises. Big Cons could quite easily organize
demonstrations rivaling, and possibly exceeding, in size those that George
Soros and other leftist millionaires and billionaires fund.
Big
Cons have refused to form marches on Washington D.C. and, for that matter,
around the country, pro-Second Amendment marches, say, or One Million
Deplorables rallies intended to register the disgust of millions of Americans
with the Russian-Collusion/Trump witch hunt.
If
only they had the will to do so, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham,
Mark Levin, Michael Savage, and the lot of the Big Cons, given their combined
fortunes and influence, could have effortlessly arranged for several of these
immense demonstrations of loud, militant, and enraged Americans.
But
they do not have the will.
Perhaps those Big Cons with
television programs could reserve a daily segment on self-defense training for
Americans who want to avoid being pummeled by leftist vermin simply for wearing
a MAGA hat or an American flag decal. These segments could include tips
on how to physically fight offensively, or
maybe even showcase an gun expert who could familiarize viewers with different
sorts of weapons.
The
point is this: Short of secession (which, ideally, is the most morally proper
option), there can’t be any peaceful co-existence between those who want to win
by whichever means necessary and those who live in fear of offending the
sensibilities of those who want to win by whichever means necessary.
There
can be no peaceful co-existence between people as long as one of these two
groups lives in fear of the other.
If a tentative peace can be
had, it can be had only when both groups
have fear.
This,
though, is the problem. The left, for all of its hysteria, doesn’t
genuinely fear their enemies. That is, they don’t have that raw fear of being
physically harmed. While violence is something to be avoided and used
only as a final resort, violent leftist bullies and terrorists must know that
if they proceed to lay a finger on the hair of the head of anyone who they
would demonize as a “racist” or “fascist,” it could mean their very lives.
This
is a message at which Big Cons will never so much as hint, lest they be accused
of advocating violence.
Interestingly,
Big Cons never tire of rejecting pacifism and appeasement as responses to
Islamic terror, and they are the first to lambast the “feminization” of boys
and men. Yet in the face of the ongoing violence to which non-leftist
Americans are being subjected right here at home by leftist thugs, the Big Cons
won’t dare suggest that perhaps those on their side of the political divide
prepare to physically fight in defense of themselves and other innocents.
As
long as the Big Cons remain in charge of the official right, the left will
continue to advance, for the left has no reason to fear the Big Con.
Jack
Kerwick [send
him mail] received his doctoral degree in philosophy from Temple
University. His area of specialization is ethics and political philosophy. He
is a professor of philosophy at several colleges and universities in New Jersey
and Pennsylvania. Jack blogs at Beliefnet.com: At the Intersection of Faith
& Culture.
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