Since the American left has been seized and steered by its most radical elements, the right has enjoyed an organic appeal that it’s never had in my lifetime.
The left dominated the culture for decades, and thought they could embrace wokeness while maintaining their “coolness.”
But woke and cool can’t coexist in one entity for a prolonged period of time. Eventually, one succumbs to the other. As much as they tried to convince us otherwise, woke is an antithesis to cool. Woke demands hysteria, perpetual offense, and to become a spiritual hallway monitor, deriving validation from correcting and policing others over rules that don’t matter and never have.
As a result, the right enjoyed a first of its kind allure among unlikely allies.
The GOP’s cringe inducing attempts at “diversity” didn’t accomplish this.
Their Diwali graphics, their Kwanzaa tweets, their rap references didn’t do it.
Their self flagellating, their moderation, their endless compromise on issues like abortion and amnesty didn’t do it either.
Make no mistake; I feel an existential disillusionment and betrayal from President Trump’s attack on Iran that I’ve never felt before. I was disappointed with the handling of the Epstein files, but I assumed we didn’t have the full picture. I assumed there was something going on behind the scenes that they couldn’t share with the public, and could put their families in danger, so I was willing to give them grace.
But there was nothing I could tell myself about Iran that made it make sense to me. It just felt like I was watching the hero live long enough to become the villain, or the anti-politician become everything voters revolted against when they elected him the first time.
All that said, I can’t deny his impact. When the Republican Party — under the direction of Donald Trump — became the party of normalcy, unapologetic Americanism, and traditional values compared to lunacy, quirk chungus communism and victimhood as currency I think a lot of people found themselves abandoning the left, and open to a new ethos for the first time in their lives.
As a result, we probably have the most pluralistic coalition of my lifetime.
We’ve made inroads with every “minority” under the sun.
But as we’ve broadened our appeal, I’ve realized that every group thinks they’re special, and immune to criticism.
It became especially clear after Tyler Oliveira exposed a Hasidic Jewish community in Lakewood, New Jersey for exploiting welfare while having massive families and taking over local politics to divert funds away from public schools and into their isolated religious institutions.
What they were doing was technically legal, but if that’s the only way you can defend something, it’s usually wrong.
It’s technically legal for a Russian woman to fly to Miami 8 months pregnant, give birth to her child on American soil to take advantage of birthright citizenship, and fly back to Russia, but that doesn’t make it right.
But so many prominent influencers that cheered on Nick Shirley’s investigative work when he was exposing Somali fraud in Minnesota tried to destroy Oliveira over his journalism because they were Jewish too. And when Nick Shirley posted a 3 word tweet encouraging someone else to expose the systematic abuse of the American taxpayer, the same people turned on him.
Credit where it’s due; there were some sane, dissenting voices.
Funnily enough, Oliveira had also documented an Indian poop throwing festival, and Republican Indian-American commentator Dinesh D’Souza reacted emotionally as well when it came to his cohort.
This mentality isn’t exclusive to any one group.
But anyone that cares about the future of this country is going to have to challenge it everywhere and among everyone – including their own demographic.
As a black American, I’m aware that black Americans statistically have comparatively low IQs and comparatively high violent crime rates, among other things.
They’re uncomfortable truths, but they’re true nonetheless.
And as an American my responsibility has to be to my country before my complexion.
I have to be willing to admit when people that look like me are the problem.
I bought a house in a run down neighborhood because it was what I could afford, and because at the time, all trends pointed towards gentrification. When I see drug dealers, delinquents, and junkies the same race as me roaming the streets, I don’t shrug it off, make excuses for it, or deflect to the flaws of others. I hate it, and I want action, consequences and outcomes that prioritize order, safety and quality of life regardless of genetic similarities with the criminals in question.
But I’ve noticed that in general, people seem to be willing and able to acknowledge unflattering realities when it comes to every group but their own.
Hispanics embrace political incorrectness until it’s time to hold their abuelas accountable for moving to this country 30 years ago and never learning English.
Black people can enjoy punchlines at the expense of everyone else, but become suddenly sensitive when people express justified fatigue on the billionth video of “youths” on crime sprees.
The Chinese are happy to laugh at racist jokes until you point out the espionage scheme flowing from their mother country.
Indians can make fun of everyone else, but go ballistic at a criticism of the hygiene practices where they come from.
And Jews will call you every name but the one God gave you if you question the United States’ relationship with Israel.
But if America is ever going to reach its full potential it’s going to require every demographic willing to confront the least favorable aspects of their “own,” and holding themselves accountable.
There’s an interview of a black British citizen deported by the Trump Administration making the rounds on Twitter. He was brought here as a child, his parents never filed the proper paperwork, and didn’t realize he was in the country illegally until he was an adult. While he’s obviously unhappy to have been deported, he holds nothing against the American government for deporting him, and acknowledges that he should have been, and that sovereign nations have both a right and an obligation to control their borders. I think if everyone here adopted this selfless honesty and accountability, we’d all be better off.
People love to pretend that the American identity is some loose, subjective construct that can be redefined at will.
They insist that to be American means to have a piece of paper, or to exist on American soil, or to be a Zionist.
But to be an American in any meaningful sense means that your loyalty is to your country, not your ethnic enclave.
It means wanting what’s best for America; not what’s best for a particular segment of the population.
That means calling out fraud, waste, abuse, betrayal and entitlement even when — or especially when — the offenders come from your “tribe.”
And at its core, it means forfeiting foreign allegiances for an allegiance to one flag, one nation and its preservation, so that your tribe is not determined by where your ancestors lived a millennia ago, but where you live today.
I realize that this is no small ask, and that it defies human nature.
But with great countries come great responsibility, and if we believe that America truly is the greatest country in the world and is worth fighting for, we have to be willing to fight not just for ourselves but against our basest instincts.
I don’t believe that in-group preference is inherently evil, but I think in order for this country to be saved, what’s best for America has to be more important to everyone than for what’s best for their co-ethnics.
I’m not asking people to be colorblind or pretend that race is irrelevant, but on the contrary, a willingness to engage in conversations that demand the same of everyone no matter what they look like, and whether or not they look like you.
As I write this, I imagine the few liberals, centrists or moderates with the stomach to get through it might think my premise contradicts itself; they might argue that what’s best for the country demands an inherent “inclusivity” that right wing dogma flatly rejects.
But from my point of view, open borders and unlimited immigration from dramatically different cultures with no pressure to assimilate and massive social welfare programs ripe for the pillaging don’t make the country better and they never have.
Just because someone lives here, or got a piece of paper declaring them a citizen doesn’t mean they should, or that their presence is a net benefit.
And if someone thinks of America as a pyramid scheme to serve their country of origin and the people that came from there as opposed to a gift they should be grateful for, loyal to and protective of, the risks they pose to my home outweigh what they could ever contribute.
Until we reach a point where that’s the standard, and it’s applied across the board, America will be treated like a corpse for harvesting, being sold for parts to warring vultures, where our flag is reduced to a reminder of all that was squandered but standing for nothing and flying for no one.
what do you think?