OPINION:
Americans are right to be concerned for the future of our country, but it is not the economy that should most trouble us. The present economic woes will pass. Our economy is resilient.
The ticking time bomb which could bring an end to America as we know it is the cultural disintegration eating away at the foundation of our nation. The use of race as a tool of political manipulation is a cancer destroying the body politic. This disease is transforming our institutions into weapons aimed at us.
Few Americans are aware of Antonio Gramsci and yet his influence on the left is second only to Karl Marx himself. Mr. Gramsci was an Italian communist and intellectual who sought to explain why the Bolshevik revolution in Russia was not replicated in Western Europe and America. His answer was that free countries are held together by intrinsic cultural values. To create a revolution in such countries requires supplanting the values which sustain what Mr. Gramsci called “cultural hegemony.”
The American left is following this prescription, using racial ideology to systematically destroy the cultural hegemony of our nation. The Democrat Party, supported by Marxist allies, claims that white supremacy is the foundation of our culture. Nikole Hannah-Jones, head of The 1619 Project, says that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery. Black Lives Matter says that systemic or structural racism is behind free enterprise, the Constitution, the police and everything else in America. Ibram X. Kendi, Boston University professor and LGBTQ activist, in his book “Anti-Racist Baby,” argues that white people are racist from birth. These Marxists have turned our colleges, universities, public schools, major corporations, mainstream media, professional sports and the entertainment industry into instruments of cultural disintegration.
Racism is injected into every crisis. Consider the Uvalde massacre in which 19 children and two adults were murdered.
Professor Anthea Butler of the University of Pennsylvania said that the police “didn’t give a damn” because they were “predominantly brown kids.”
The horrible event in Uvalde happened in a predominantly Hispanic town, with a Hispanic police force. Some of the officers had children in the school. Yet we are supposed to conclude that the “brown” police delayed storming the classroom because they do not value the lives of “brown children,” not even their own.
The point is to haunt us with the ubiquitous boogeyman of racism — to make us so paranoid, so suspicious, so bitter and fearful of one another that any sense of national cohesion is impossible. It is a Gramsci-style revolutionary strategy that has been operating for at least 60 years right under our noses. This is not a conspiracy theory, but a testament to the power of ideas, even bad ones. Marxist academics and activists probably never dreamed how effective race would be as a tool of propaganda. They have been seeding our culture with racial demagoguery for decades, and we are reaping the terrible harvest.
The acolytes of this insidious ideology are desperate to censor all opposition and capture the hearts and minds of our youngest children as the last domino to fall. They already have most college students, millennials and Gen Z under their sway. That is not enough for them. They know that babies and elementary school children will grow into adulthood and assume positions of authority and influence. They must be indoctrinated from birth and prepared to usher in the post-modern utopia. Parents who dare voice opposition are labeled terrorists and extremists and investigated by the FBI.
A cabal of elitists wants our youth to believe that everything about America is racist and unjust. They want to delegitimize the country and demoralize the people. If they can kill the vision of “one nation under God,” they can destroy our national unity and subvert America’s destiny. What will remain is warring tribes or a Marxist state. What will not remain is freedom.
The future cries out for an American cultural renaissance — an awakening. The November election can be the dawn of a new beginning, but it must be followed by a long march through our institutions to restore the values that made America great — faith, family and freedom. In honor of the patriots who have preceded us and on behalf of the posterity who will follow us, we the people must seize the moment, fulfill America’s national destiny and renew the vision of a shining city on a hill.
• E.W. Jackson is the president of STAND Foundation, Inc. [www.standamerica.us], a nationally syndicated radio talk show host for American Family Radio, a Marine Corps veteran, a former Republican nominee for lieutenant governor of Virginia, a bishop of The Called Churches and a retired attorney.
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