There may be some people that read this blog and think “you’re criticizing the Left for doing these things, but the right-wing and American government do some of them, too. Does it not backfire for them? Why do right-wingers get a pass?”
And, in fact, it does backfire for them. It has been backfiring for decades, and has damaged them in the culture wars. Yes, they haven’t constantly lost electorally, but they’ve lost the mindshare they used to have, and the faith in the establishment. It’s a price paid in National Will.
What does America look like without anti-war counter-culture from the Vietnam War? What does America look like if people have higher trust in the national institutions, in families, and so on? There was, apparently, once a time when people talked of men of science, industry, and government working together to build a better world, but sadly, at that very time, that combination did not deserve that level of trust.
How many of these movements and shifts are reactions to betrayals that were not deserved?
To hold power over the long term, to create something that lasts, it isn’t enough just to seize control. One must be worthy.
The Right, in many ways, has not been. And they think that’s about Christian morality, but it isn’t really, not as they conceive it.
