August 14, 2022
Panic at the Top
By Clarice Feldman
If the absurd raid on Mar-a-Largo has not persuaded you yet that the Deep State and their cohorts are terrified of their loss of political and cultural dominance, I urge you to read this thoughtful piece by former CIA analyst Martin Gurri. He traces how with the panic over the Wuhan virus, the elites managed a level of control over both the population and the information about the disease and how to treat it.
It’s a wonderful, thoughtful essay and a summary cannot do it full justice, but if you are afraid that we cannot get out of the elite chokehold on our culture and political life, it may give you some comfort. He is optimistic as few are that the elites are rightfully panicked that their cultural supremacy is in its last stages:
Since conservatives and Republicans are politically strong but culturally nonexistent, they will flex their political muscle to try to right the imbalance. Virginia and Florida have banned the teaching of certain progressive doctrines in public schools. When Disney, Florida’s largest employer, vocally condemned these laws, the company was punished with the removal of local privileges. Should Republicans win Congress and the White House, I would expect American politics to experience a cultural Armageddon. [snip][R]aw political power can make the cost of cultural monopoly -- and of idle posturing, Disney-style -- unpleasantly high.
A second threat to elite culture is the defection of the victim class. The cult of identity generates an insatiable demand for victim groups, which, by necessity, must become ever smaller and more marginal not only to the mainstream but also to traditional minorities. Even as the elites solidified their grip on culture, the focus of their performative outrage was drifting from civil rights and pocketbook issues to more esoteric questions of sexuality and climate justice. The new causes simply don’t resonate with Hispanics or blacks, whose socioeconomic interests lie in other directions. [snip] Progressivism is essentially a protection racket. If the elites ever lose the undisputed right to shout “Racism!” at the producers of culture, the latter will begin to fracture like the rest of the country and to look to the marketplace, rather than ideology, for inspiration.
The last countercurrent may be the most potent of all: the internal churning and dispersal of populations spurred by the pandemic and the availability of remote work. [snip] Such sweeping tides of humanity have always exemplified the central tenet of the American creed: that we are not captives to fate. Each wave of immigrants will begin a strange new story. To tell it, the culture, too, must be reborn and reinvented -- and the mold of progressive dogmatism will be shattered in the process.
more
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/08/panic_at_the_top.html
