”Christopher Rufo has done vital work exposing the truth about Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the insidious ways it has infiltrated America’s public schools. For that he deserves the thanks and congratulations of all patriotic Americans. Having achieved notable success at a relatively young age, however, Rufo may be tempted to overestimate the impact of his victories. In many ways—not the least of which is the re-election of Donald Trump—the left does seem to be in retreat today. But this poses a tremendous hazard for the right, which is that it might decide to “declare victory and go home.
”Rufo seems to be encouraging this unfortunate error with his essay, “America’s Verdict,” at IM1776. The essay argues, correctly, that the acquittal of Daniel Penny in New York City is a vindication of common sense and the rule of law. But then Rufo jumps to an unwarranted conclusion, claiming that “Americans are finished with the failed regime of the Left.” “Today’s verdict,” he continues, “marks the end of an era. BLM, which seemed unstoppable four years ago, is finished…. [A] brutal and stupid decade of moral and judicial corruption has come to a close.”As much as we might want this to be true, it is dangerous wishful thinking.”
Ellmers is a little harsh. Rufo does say that “ No doubt the violent spirit of the movement will seek to resurface in the future, but a brutal and stupid decade of moral and judicial corruption has come to a close.”
Rufo accepts that while we have won, that “violent spirit” will come back. This implies that the various aspects of the Left, especially its social justice wing, are merely instances of a larger phenomena.
Ellmers contribution is to point to the roots of that deeper phenomena and state that while Rufo is in the process of winning heroic battles of action such as eliminating CRT from schools, we need to remember that the ideological battle is still in doubt and therefore any victory is temporary.
What is the extent of that battleground? There is the current temptation to point to the past 12 years as some sort of postmodern madness emerging from higher education or even going back to the end of the Cold War with the release of Marxism and assorted utopian toxins from its association with the Soviet Union. However Ellmers goes even further back in time:
“What (Strauss) meant is that while the Nazi Wehrmacht had been destroyed in World War II, we had not vanquished German philosophy—represented especially by Friederich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, the original sources of academic postmodernism who continue to shape the thought of our intellectual class even today….
…The ‘so-called victory of liberal democracy over Communism being trumpeted in Washington, London, Paris… is a delusion,” Jaffa wrote in 1991. “The defeat of communism in the USSR and its satellite empires by no means assures its defeat in the world. Indeed, the release of the West from its conflict with the East emancipates utopian communism at home from the suspicion of its affinity with an external enemy.’
Therefore, Jaffa predicted, the “struggle for the preservation of Western civilization has entered a new—and perhaps far more deadly and dangerous—phase.”
Isn’t woke/CRT ideology just the latest iteration of this more treacherous phase Jaffa warned us about? If that’s true, it means that while the left may appear crippled now, its underlying pathology—the age-old desire to tyrannize over others—will re-emerge in some new form in the not-too-distant future.”
Using a metaphor of nature, once material utopianism came into being and escaped into the environment, it is very difficult to get rid of. Whether it’s a virus that can be beaten back but then lays dormant waiting for a host to re-emerge or kudzu that can be chopped to the ground but will merely spring forth from deep roots, the metaphor you choose is up to you. This is a civilizational battle that has been going on for more than 150 years.
That doesn’t mean we cannot in our time declare a victory and have a parade. One of the people leading that parade, perhaps the grand marshall, should be Rufo; he was the man who took the lead and fought when things were darkest.
However we should remember that no matter how the next four years turns out, it is at best only the end of the beginning. The blows we land today are jabs, not a knock-out.
However we should remember that no matter how the next four years turns out, it is at best only the end of the beginning. The blows we land today are jabs, not a knock-out.
Indeed. While some called Trump’s victory a “landslide,” Kamalalala Ding Dong won 48% of the vote. While that is a definitive victory, it is in no way a landslide. Even landslides can be ephemeral. Consider LBJ’s 1964 landslide, and Nixon’s 1972 landslide.