https://www.realclearpolitics....aking_up_149299.html

Conservatives and traditionalists are often exasperated at the ongoing woke cultural revolution in their midst.

How can America be turned upside down, as it is, when there is little public support for the things happening around us?

They don't see much backing for the current border policy and illegal immigration, yet it continues.

Conservatives feel that most Americans reject the trend of biological men dominating female sporting events.

They fear American jurisprudence has become now vastly weaponized and warped.

Certainly, former President Donald Trump will be more likely indicted by a politicized New York City prosecutor for supposedly overvaluing his net worth over a decade ago than would be a current violent street criminal clubbing a subway commuter.

In 2020 torching a federal courthouse or massing at the White House grounds, in efforts to get at the president, earned either few arrests and little or no jail time. In 2021, if one entered the Capitol and illegally paraded around like a buffoon, he could get a five-year prison sentence.

Traditionalists feel that sky-high energy prices, out-of-control urban crime, a depressed economy, high interest rates, and a politicized FBI, CIA, Justice Department, and Pentagon are all needlessly self-created messes.

How then did these extremist policies that have little popular support become institutionalized?

Conservatives, by their nature and unlike the Left, are more inclined to accept existing institutions rather than to radically alter or destroy them.

They were asleep at the wheel in 2020, when left-wing-funded lawsuits radically transformed Election Day in many states into a mere construct. Some 70 percent of the electorate in key precincts voted by mail or early, with far fewer ballot audits or authentication.

They focus on nominating more conservative judges, not packing the court itself. They work to take back the Senate, not to end the filibuster or bring in two new states with four new senators.

Traditionalists often feel they have no time for politics. They prefer to focus on their families, jobs, communities, and churches. Until recently they shunned organized boycotts. They abhor massing outside the homes of left-wing politicians and judges.

They shrug and concede that universities, teachers, government unions, the corporate boardroom, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the media, entertainment, and professional sports are hopelessly activist and left-wing.

The environmental, social, governance (ESG), diversity, equity, and inclusion, and LGBQT+ agendas were unfathomable acronyms to Middle America and thus mostly ignored.

So conservatives often slept through the woke revolution.

Yet suddenly they realize their apathy allowed the country to descend into something the nation's founders never imagined or intended, and antithetical to what most knew as America just a couple of decades ago.

So conservatives are awakening from their slumber. And they are discovering that they too can boycott, agitate -- and roar.

The woke Target corporation in just a few days has suffered a more than $10 billion loss in its stock value. Millions of shoppers shunned its 2,000 stores after the chain showcased its "pride" apparel. The displays featured "tuck pieces" -- veritable codpieces -- that are intended to facilitate "women's" male genitalia.

Anheuser-Busch came up with the bright idea that it would highlight Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender performance activist, to hawk its Bud Light brand. But beer seemed incidental to the self-absorbed Mulvaney's fixation on promoting transgenderism. So Bud Light-drinking, red-state America got turned off by Mulvaney's in-your-face-advocacy.

An ensuing informal boycott cost the company nearly $16 billion in lost stock value. Hundreds of millions of dollars of unsellable light beer stagnated. Stores can't even give it away. Meanwhile, Bud Light's competitors coped with meeting record Memorial Day consumer demand.

Ditto the defiantly woke Disney Corporation.

The now politically activist entertainment corporation insisted on pushing woke agendas down the throats of its family-centered audience.

The result? Its online entertainment services are bleeding millions of subscribers. Disney stock has lost $16 billion in value. Its overpriced theme parks no longer count on continual increased attendance.

Sometimes traditionalists prefer simply to drop out rather than boycott wokeism. One result is that the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards now have a fraction of their previous televised audience.

In 1998 -- when the United States had a population of 275 million -- the NBA finals earned on average 29 million television viewers. This year the NBA bragged its finals averaged a pathetic 4 million viewers in a contemporary America of 335 million.

The Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team reinvited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence -- a self-identified performance art "queer" group -- to headline the team's "pride night."

The all-male "sisters" usually put on anti-Catholic pornographic skits that mock Jesus Christ and sexualize Christian rituals.

That Dodger indulgence is not going over well with its fan base, especially the city's millions of Catholic Latinos.

The woke Left still enjoys enormous advantages over the Right. The bicoastal elite has far more money, controls all the major American institutions, and dominates the dissemination of knowledge through the media and Silicon Valley.

But the Left does not enjoy majority public support. And now it has managed the impossible -- to goad the normally comatose conservative dragon to awaken.

And it is just starting to breathe fire.

Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Case for Trump. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.

As much as I admire and respect VDH, waking up to get up, or just muttering about a bad dream and turning over to go back to sleep?

I have seen these predictions over and over. If I had a nickel—well, maybe a C note—for every time people really, truly had had enough and were really, truly going to finally change things ..., but nothing happened (e.g., the “red wave” ), I could pay to have my suppressor upgraded by TBAC.

I hope I’m wrong, and maybe I’m just hoping that my skepticism will prompt Fate to prove me wrong just to say, “See: You’re not so smart after all.”

If the Republicans were actually conservatives/classical liberals, I’m sure they could do very well, but who cares about a party of Quislings.

Kudos to you, sigfreund, for taking the initiative to immediately quash any hopes with the first response in this thread. That's the spirit! Put out those fires of defiance right away, lest that stuff spread.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Kudos to you, sigfreund, for taking the initiative to immediately quash any hopes with the first response in this thread. That's the spirit! Put out those fires of defiance right away, lest that stuff spread.

and yet, he is right, is he not?



you know it, I know it, everyone of us that leans right knows it,

there are no more D's and R's, once those elected get to DC, they all turn into one party,

been that way for a while,


does it piss me off, damn skippy,

do I vote each and every election, damn skippy,


however I have 2 POS Senators in this state, that seem to be in that position for life, and a POS Congress Critter, since I am just a sliver of red in a gerrymandered district , for a guy that got reelected and died, yet ran knowing he was gonna croak from cancer, and his replacement, hand picked by his wife and the D party, handily won the special election to replace him,


very frustrating,

quote:

Originally posted by lyman:
and yet, he is right, is he not?

You need to be more specific. Right about what, exactly? State it clearly, please- no metaphor, no absolutes.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by lyman:
and yet, he is right, is he not?

You need to be more specific. Right about what, exactly? State it clearly, please- no metaphor, no absolutes.

those magical changes,

not a metaphor,

think about it,

tired of the woke, yup
tired of the men who wanna be women, yup
tired of the women who wanna be men, yup,

all and more being shoved down you throat in the media and advertising because some company wants a good ESG score, yup,


a lot of what was mentioned in the OP's copy\pasta of the article, is exactly what frustrates a lot of us today,

lyman, I tell you in all sincerity, I don't know what you're trying to say. I asked for clarity and got free-form poetry.

But, I have been very clear about how I feel about the negativity that seems at times to pervade this forum. I have been clear, and repeatedly so.


If it helps, let's try this:

Stop stepping on the tiny flowers
That burgeon through the earth
To feel the warm rays of the sun
If only briefly

Tread carefully, giants
Do not trample the garden
Stay on the marked path
And enjoy the sun



Dig, daddy-o?

Para is trying to tell us something.

We are only defeated if we convince ourselves we are.

The revolutionary war was won because people never lost faith in what they were fighting for.

Against all odds we prevailed.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
lyman, I tell you in all sincerity, I don't know what you're trying to say. I asked for clarity and got free-form poetry.

But, I have been very clear about how I feel about the negativity that seems at times to pervade this forum. I have been clear, and repeatedly so.


If it helps, let's try this:

Stop stepping on the tiny flowers
That burgeon through the earth
To feel the warm rays of the sun
If only briefly

Tread carefully, giants
Do not trample the garden
Stay on the marked path
And enjoy the sun



Dig, daddy-o?

got it Sir,

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Para is trying to tell us something.

We are only defeated if we convince ourselves we are.

The revolutionary war was won because people never lost faith in what they were fighting for.

Against all odds we prevailed.

not always defeated, but definitely frustrated,

Try buoying up your compatriots and maybe you'll begin to feel it yourself. All these things that trouble us these days- few of them affect us directly. Most of their damage day to day comes from how these distant things make us feel. Therefore, if you choose to have hope, you'll feel better. It's as simple as that.

And when these things invade our lives and we have to act, you won't be in a mental position of already having been defeated.

quote:

And when these things invade our lives and we have to act, you won't be in a mental position of already having been defeated.

Profound and words to live by. Thank you. I needed that. Rage and hope is a better combo than rage alone.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Rage and hope is a better combo than rage alone.

You're mighty right.

We are getting closer and closer to a breaking point. At this stage of the game, I can only surmise it is exactly what the leftist traitors want; simple division isn’t working like it did a few short years ago. They seem to want genuine inter class warfare, but what they are flirting with is an all out revolutionary war. The country is fed up with the southern border invasion, crooked politics, and the media overtly hiding the Biden crime family’s money laundering. Change is coming.

quote:

The environmental, social, governance (ESG), diversity, equity, and inclusion, and LGBQT+ agendas were unfathomable acronyms to Middle America and thus mostly ignored.

So conservatives often slept through the woke revolution.

Yep, VDH is right. We conservatives just wanted to be left alone to live our lives.

But those who wish to control us will not leave us alone. We have to fight.

The problem is, we don't really know how or where to fight back.

The "woke revolution" is recent, but it's a further manifestation of what's been brewing, slowly for 110 years or so. The vast increases in the size and scope of the federal government were not what our founders intended when they came up with the idea of this Constitutional republic.

What we are fighting against is the loss of individual autonomy we experience when we go along with the collective.

It seems the more woke the agenda is, the more resistance from the public, Bud Light, Target Disney are recent examples. Citizens are getting fed up. And IMO, a ripe stage for a guy like Trump to come along and thrive, just like when Obama was in charge.

The last straw was when they went after the kids. Started with Bud Light and because it was an easy target to just not buy that beer lots of other beer choices and 2 months in it’s been devastating to them . Then Target went in full bore. Conservatives and even a handful of non progressive liberals who were seething looked around and saw a lot of other people seething. Cracked their knuckles and straitened their back and said “it’s on!” Many many people may not agree with the old school gay lifestyle or even the marriage stuff but most of us know at least 1 or many gay folks often have them in our family and said whatever, they are decent people. Live and let live. Companies have been putting rainbows on stuff during June for years now. But then they overplayed their hand. when it was obvious they were going after the minor kids and advocating for mutilation of children. Add in the high school and college girls getting trounced in their swimming and running events by men. So fine. Corporations can continue their ways and people that feel the way many of us do Actively won’t buy the products and don’t shop at their stores. These companies want to push insane agendas but they will live with the stock market price punishment and loss of retail sales.

I have had some interesting conversations with people who are casually pro trans, with respect to these boycotts. When I ask them why are ok with a mastectomy for 11 year old girls and making eunuchs out of little boys it usually gets them to shut up fast.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
And when these things invade our lives and we have to act, you won't be in a mental position of already having been defeated.

I'm reminded of something I read recently in the book I'm currently reading: Zen Golf. The book is not about how to swing a club or course strategy or any of that, it's how to think about playing the game. He employs Buddhist teachings and Shambhala Training principles.

In many ways it's more about how to approach life, than merely the game of golf.

One of the things he teaches is the importance of "The Three C's": Clarity, Confidence, and Composure. Clarity in seeing what is, rather than what you believe, and of your goal; Confidence your goal is correct and in how you've elected to achieve it; and Composure in executing your plan and in the face of the outcome of that execution, whatever it may be.

In short: Don't defeat yourself before you've even started.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Most of their damage day to day comes from how these distant things make us feel. Therefore, if you choose to have hope, you'll feel better. It's as simple as that.

This is so true. If we allow these things to pull us down and keep us down, they win. I refuse to let that happen.