America is in the midst of one of the great moral panics in our nations history. If we dont stand up for our nations core values, the situation could get even worse and soon. If youve spent any time on social media in the last three weeks, youve probably noticed the organized campaigns to get college and even high school students expelled or denied admission based on their political views. Youve also seen gleeful mobs celebrating as Americans lose their jobs for running afoul of someones momentary political obsessions.
In every sector of American society, people are having their careers destroyed to the pitiless baying of the woke masses. Its happening in business. CrossFit CEO Greg Glassman spent 20 years building the fitness brand into a multi-billion dollar company, only to be thrown out of the empire he built for declining to go along with the racism is a public health crisis dogma.
Its happening in journalism. New York Times editor James Bennet, a liberal, was fired for publishing an op-ed by a sitting Republican senator advocating for a military response to nationwide rioting -- a position the majority of Americans agreed with. The same fate befell Philadelphia Inquirer editor Stan Wischowski, who was terminated for approving an article that condemned looting and arson.
Its happening in entertainment, in academia, and pretty much anywhere someone can be found who is not sufficiently supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Its even happening to people who didnt do anything at all. An L.A. Galaxy soccer player was forced to resign because his wife tweeted that rioters should be shot. A lawyer in San Francisco was fired because his wife was rude to a man she thought was spray-painting BLM propaganda on a building that wasnt his (it was). On Thursday, this Stasi-esque trend reached another level when a company called Equity Prime Mortgage fired the stepmother of the officer charged in the controversial shooting of drunk driver Rashad Brooks after he fought with and fired a taser at police. The stepmother was apparently fired for no reason other than family loyalty.
On Monday, the panic reached what one can only hope will be its peak when a San Diego Gas and Electric employee lost his job for making a white supremacist hand gesture. Weve long since debunked the notion that the OK sign is somehow racist -- that was just a fiction perpetrated by internet trolls -- but in this case, this man lost his livelihood despite the fact he wasnt even making an OK sign. He was apparently cracking his knuckles as he drove.
What America is going through right now is not merely another, more intense round of cancel culture. Were now in the midst of a full-force, totalitarian remolding of our society, one that seeks to place the petty resentments of an outraged minority of leftist activists above everything else in American life. Because of their willingness to riot, loot, and assault anyone they perceive to be insufficiently sympathetic to their cause, leftists are able to bully ordinary people into submission. As a result, television shows such as Cops and Live PD, classic films such as Gone With the Wind, and iconic brands such as Aunt Jemima, Mrs. Buttersworth, and Uncle Bens rice are consigned to the dustbin of history.
I used to speak frequently to nervous conservatives who were convinced that if we only allowed the left to tear down Confederate war memorials, they would be satisfied. How quickly events have disproved that wishful thinking. From Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the western pioneers, activists are now coming after cartoon sports mascots and college fight songs. Everything -- from the core of our countrys history to the values and norms undergirding American culture -- must be uprooted to appease the mob.
They are tearing down dozens of statues and facing no consequences whatsoever for vandalizing our public spaces -- including memorials to our nations greatest heroes. When private citizens try to do the job the government wont and protect our culture, our history, and our public property from destruction, local officials step in and remove the statues on behalf of the vandals, lest they injure themselves while imitating Iraqis celebrating the fall of Saddam Hussein.
These people are not seeking change at the margins. They are demanding a total cultural revolution, and cowardly public officials are giving it to them. If you look at this national outpouring of hatred and recrimination with horror verging on despair, I assure you that you are not alone. Tens of millions of Americans feel exactly the same way.