The current U.S. progressive movement combines the worst elements of the 20th Century’s most devastating regimes. It emphasizes an opposition to individual rights, racial animosity, socialist economics, and the utilization of violence and censorship. it includes the traditional authoritarian antisemitism and generalized assaults on religious institutions. Progressives have utilized historical revisionism, ideological domination of education and entertainment, and the ceaseless use of propaganda.
The failure of the Soviet Union was an abject lesson in the shortcomings of all-powerful central government and socialist financial practice. The rise and fall of Nazi Germany demonstrated the nightmare of race-based philosophy. Strangely, American progressivism combines these two horrific examples.
Progressivism is not just another typical political movement. It rejects standards to ensure honest balloting. It stridently seeks to censor political opponents. It tries to incite widespread division by outrageously false claims, including the alleged existence of “systemic racism” when not a single law or regulation exists to justify the claim.
Its essence, Progressivism is a rejection not just of American Constitutional government, but of much of western thought arising from both the Judeo-Christian ethic and the Enlightenment. One example: the abortion movement has metamorphized into the legitimization of infanticide, as support for the “woman’s right” to kill infants in their ninth month is advocated.
This grand rejection informs its overt distaste of popular traditions.
Churches have been threatened with legal action and harassment for observing their own traditions. Several years ago, the City of Houston, led by Mayor Annise Parker, issued subpoenas to pastors demanding they submit their planned sermons for government approval. The City of Philadelphia attempted to ban Catholic institutions from certain social services. The Obama Administration attempted to force Catholic nuns, the Little Sisters of the Poor, to accept participation in a practice that would be antithetical to their beliefs.
Expressions of patriotism or affection for the flag and the national anthem at sporting events are anathema to Progressives. Musical artist Macy Gray says the US should abandon its flag because it is “tattered, dated, divisive, and incorrect.” Some American Sports figures continue to “take a knee” in response to the national anthem, in what can be observed not as a statement on a singular issue but a rejection of America as a whole.
The concept of the nuclear family is ridiculed. Nyla Sampson, an artist and self-proclaimed “black activist,” insists that fathers are “unnecessary.”
Institutions seen as protective of the American form of government, and indeed, the existence of U.S. nationhood itself, are under persistent attack. Progressive elites, sheltered in gated communities or retaining private security, strive to defund police forces. Recently, fifty members of The Portland Police Department’s Rapid Response Team resigned from that detail following an indictment of a team officer for allegedly using his official baton to stop an aggressive protester last summer. Portland has suffered from frequently violent protests for over a year, including an attack on a federal courthouse. Progressive media outlets have continuously and overtly lied to their audiences, insisting that the protests were “peaceful” despite the reality that they included burning buildings, looting stores, and attacking innocent civilians.
Strident assaults on defense budgets, despite extraordinary threats from abroad, are harshly made. The very concept of the nation controlling its own borders is rejected.
The majority of the American population, steeped in the legacy of the Bill of Rights, form an obstacle to Progressivism, which opposes portions of The First, Ninth and Tenth Amendments, and engages in thinly veiled assaults on the Second.
The scale of the Progressive assault on Constitutional government, religious freedom, individual rights and Western Civilization is so thorough, and its practice so ably hidden by censorship, that it stands a reasonable chance of success. If it does, a new dark age will emerge.
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