Did We Survive the Culture Wars?

0:00Alright, look, it's a relatively slow news day, relatively being the key word there. Plenty of stuff going on, but I'm going to lean more into a concept-based approach, a bigger picture that I've been chewing on a lot recently. And that is that the left and right wings in America have fought each other so hard during the culture wars over the last 25 years that they have become the very exact monsters that they had originally set out to destroy. Before you roll your eyes at that, this isn't some sort of reductionist both-side slop. I'm talking about how we are now living in the post-apocalyptic era of an ideological war that was so massive that many of us are only now starting to understand the size and scope of it with 2020 hindsight.

0:49The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, ushered in the era of the with-us-or-against-us political philosophy wing of the Bush Doctrine. Then came the rise of social media shortly after that only exacerbated the issue by turning every one of us into Monday morning quarterbacks and political science majors overnight. This is when the culture wars really started. Pushing back against that Bush Doctrine, the left went full tilt woke during the Obama years by acting like a bunch of racist bigots obsessing over race and gender, as if those two things alone dictate the orchestration of the entire universe.

1:28Anybody who disagreed with them was treated like the enemy, and in response, the right went full tilt Trump as the antithesis of wokeism, abandoning all conservative values of restraint, human dignity, and the rule of law along the way. And again, anybody who disagrees is treated like the enemy. Meanwhile, those of us in the silent middle majority are left standing here, in the smoldering ashes of what's left of our country, wondering what the hell happened. The culture wars are far from over, but the first wave came and went. And now we're in this Mad Max meets Hill Valley, under the control of Biff kind of alternate reality, where nothing makes sense anymore because all order and anything resembling stability has disappeared, and we're all living among the unholy remains.

2:19The fallout from a culture war that was so vicious that both sides abandoned their principles just to survive it. Get rewarded just for shopping with Simon Plus. Don't miss Memorial Day sales at Simon Premium Outlets and Mills. You can get points at scores of stores, access to exclusive offers, and exciting surprises. You've got an extra day off, so make it pay off with the best deals from brands you love all in one place. It's a summer kickoff thing. Join today at simonplus.com. Rewards program terms apply. See simonplus.com for details. Ensure the left correctly identified inequality and discrimination and corruption and abuse of power, just like the right correctly identified censorship and elitism and institutional arrogance and government overreach.

3:10So both sides went to war, and the end result was less free speech, unless it hurts your side, law and order unless it helps us politically, anti-establishment unless it's our establishment in charge, distrust in media unless the story benefits our side, anti-war unless our team is the one launching the missiles. This is how the left and right became everything they not only feared but hated. And now we have scores of politically active of voters engaging in mortal combat with each other over topics and issues that they don't know anything about. People who can't name the three branches of government or tell you how they're supposed to work together deciding your future and your children and your grandchildren's future in the voting booth after a grifter like Donald Trump tells them who they should be voting for as he steals from their wallets and generational wealth alike.

4:06The damage that Trump is really causing right now represents a momentum that we will never get back in our lifetimes. This isn't just a difficult time living under the reign of a tyrannical dolt who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. This is a setback for entire generations of men and women and children who will never know the American dream because we are ruled by pedophile oligarchs who are above the law in every way imaginable and unimaginable. It's no wonder people are sick and tired of working dead-end mcjobs just to pay taxes into a system that's designed to keep them feeding on the bottom their entire lives.

4:42It's no wonder that people are easily pitted against each other when opportunities are drying up while billionaires are cashing in. And it's no wonder that people are losing faith in institutions that look less like pillars of civilization and more like giant corporate machines designed to harvest debt, anxiety, and obedience from an exhausted population. I want out of this, Donnie, don't you? I am sick and tired of being branded as anything other than human first by a world obsessed on telling me who I am based on my demographics fed into some algorithm. We are sick and tired of having our money picked out of our wallets by Uncle Sam just to prop up this giant Ponzi scheme that won't even be there for us when we need it or be enough to sustain us even if it was.

5:30Can we like start a new country somewhere again? An America 2.0? Because these politics are starting to feel a lot like a religion that I'd like to get away from. Can we start a new country somewhere so at least we can enjoy life for a little while before the new system gets corrupted as well? Because all human systems get corrupted, don't they? It's why you can still get drugs and cell phones into supermax prisons. Why police departments form gangs within gangs, or why anti-corruption committees get caught taking bribes, and why charities spend more money protecting the institution than helping people, why activist movements become cults, why HOAs turn into miniature authoritarian governments, why small local newspapers become partisan machines, why revolutions eventually build their own ruling class, why churches split over money and power, and why online communities that begin around freedom slowly evolve into censorship and ideological enforcement.

6:23Our problem is a human one. It's not about skin color or the set of genitals you were born with. It's not the size of your house or the quality of your car. It's not whether you're left, right, or Christian, or atheist, or whether you suffer from a lifetime of trauma or a lifetime of privilege. It's about blindly placing your faith in systems that will ultimately fail. While those who understand system failure capitalize on the chaos by weaponizing identity politics to keep the body politic in a constant state of agitation. So how do we fight back? Well, radical centrism. The silent middle majority can remain silent no longer.

7:04It's up to ordinary people to take back our movements from these professional outrage merchants and ideological extremists who profit from keeping us divided. We have got to reject identity politics across the political spectrum and stop allowing activists and political influencers and corporations and media machines to speak on behalf of millions of people they don't actually represent. We all have a voice of our own, and it's time to start using it again. Using it again means refusing to participate in the outrage economy that keeps the culture war alive. It means having the courage to disagree with your own side when it loses its marbles.

7:42It means rewarding honesty over tribalism and rejecting the idea that every political disagreement is some sort of apocalyptic battle between good and evil. It's not. Look, the silent middle majority doesn't need to become louder. It just needs to stop being manipulated by the loudest voices in the room.