Trump Must Name and Condemn the Evil of Multicultural Ideology

By

Gadfly

The shootings in El Paso and Dayton are most unfortunate and reflect the hubris of America’s current culture.  Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.

 

The title of this essay is a spinoff from a Washington Examiner editorial, “Trump must name and condemn the evil of white nationalism.”  The editorial was prompted by the killing of civilians in El Paso, Texas.  Although well-intended, the editorial merely demonstrates how effective the Marxist left has been at controlling the public narrative.  Eerily, this dynamic is an example of communist Douglas Hyde’s experience as the news editor of London’s The Daily Worker in manipulating other communists and the general public, as described in his memoir, I Believed.  The dynamic also reflects Admiral Ben Moreell’s observations from the 1960s:

Our once free institutions, political, economic, educational and social, are largely in the hands of the proponents of the Welfare State, whose all openly avowed goal is to centralize power in the hands of the political apparatus in Washington. This enhancement of political power at the expense of individual rights, so often disguised as "democracy" or "freedom" or "civil rights," is "socialism," no matter what name tag it bears. Here we should recall the warning of the late Dean Inge:  "History seems to show that the powers of evil have won their greatest triumphs by capturing the organizations which were formed to defeat them, and that when the devil has thus changed the contents of the bottles, he never alters the labels. The fort may have been captured by the enemy, but it still flies the flag of its defenders."[1]

 

White supremacy . . . white nationalism . . . these are the crimes being advanced by the Washington Examiner and other critics based on the El Paso shooting.  According to social media statements, the shooter expressed anti-Mexican sentiments.  If we are to reason (or mimic) like the Examiner, then we are supposed to leap to the conclusion that America is threatened by white nationalism.  And if we are to maximize political capital (abundantly visible on today’s Meet the Press) from the event, then we are to blame guns for the violence and casualties.  How many guns were responsible for the 3,000+ casualties on 9/11?  And despite the unfortunate number of gun-related homicides, they pale when compared to the number of suicides afflicting our country.

The Examiner editorial board stated:

Plenty in the media and in politics blame Trump for the rise of white nationalism. Many of them are the same folks who have always argued that conservatism — whether tax cuts, defense of the unborn, or belief in free enterprise — is just thinly veiled racism, and on these grounds alone they don't deserve to be taken seriously. Even so, a president has to be above the blame game played by his critics. The single best way to prove them wrong would be for Trump to crusade actively against white nationalism.

The apparent “acculturated” thinking by Examiner editors may explain the incongruity of “a president has to be above the blame game” and the imperative to “crusade actively against white nationalism.”  Does this imperative also imply the need for a crusade against “white privilege” and any opposition to reparations and secular humanistic values?  For the supposedly educated members of the Examiner’s editorial board, this thinking puts its readers, if they buy into it, on a very slippery slope.

 

What motivates someone like the El Paso, Dayton, Columbine High School, Aurora theater (among other incidents) shooters?  Can reason be to blame?  What is reasoned about racial supremacy and its connection to murder?  The brutal answer:  absolutely nothing.

 

If reason has any moral basis, then how can one take the life of another person except as a matter of self-defense?  This question becomes more complicated when talking about war.  Even in this case, civil societies have defined moral boundaries as to what is just and unjust during war.  Islamic jihad further complicates this question because hostile actions stem from ideology and not the security interests of a nation-state.

This is the pressing issue for America:  ideology, especially multicultural ideology.  The Marxist left advocates for multiculturalism because it becomes its ammunition against classical liberal political philosophy that originally defined America.  Classical liberalism--with its emphasis on individual liberty, private property, limited government, free market/free enterprise grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition-- served as the organizing principle for American nationalism.  As a melting pot, American nationalism involved assimilation by a diversified population.

Multiculturalism is contradictory to the notion of assimilation and can only advance and survive based on acculturation, which is politically coercive.  Multiculturalism fragments and alienates.  It turns many into strangers in a strange land.[2]  Some become so alienated they find themselves on the dark side of humanity.  They act out on their pain—some through suicide, some through homicide.

 

We don’t hear the Marxist left address this form of alienation; to the contrary, they exploit this alienation in order to agitate and organize against classical liberalism, and we hear a lot about capitalist exploitation—Bernie Sanders and other leftist candidates are very bold and candid in their public statements.

 

Capitalism fuels prosperity.  Prosperity is not possible without capitalism.  The corruption known as greed occurs in any economic system, capitalist or socialist.  Unfortunately, bigoted views can obscure objective analysis—another product of the hubris of America’s modern culture as demonstrated in this pathetic article by Jeff Guo, formerly with The Washington Post.

Capitalist exploitation does not explain the brutal life in inner cities, such as Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit.  These are communities that have been run by Marxist leftist policies for decades.

 

When President Trump pulls the band aid off of this cancer, he’s labeled a racist.  And now, when a conservative editorial board picks up the left’s mantra about white supremacy, we may have crossed the Rubicon as a free and just nation.  This assertion does not deny the existence of white supremacists, or black supremacists, or climate change supremacists, or racists, or idiots, and so forth.  There is a huge difference between mole hills and mountains.  And as an old allusion by Aristotle states, “one swallow does not make a summer.”

For more analysis along these lines, I recommend some past Gadfly articles:

Trump Qualification Concerns

Where to Begin

America’s Dreyfus Affair

S*** Holes and S*** Sandwiches

Acculturation without Context

       

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[1] This quote is from a speech, “The Right to Be Wrong,” delivered on November 22, 1963—the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated—published in Vital Speeches, Volume XXX, Number 5, December 1963.  Note:  Dean Inge is Dean William Ralph Inge who was an English clergyman and writer. Inge’s quote is from Christian Ethics and Modern Problems, Kessinger Publishing, 2003 (originally published in 1930 by Putnam Sons), p. 142.

[2] Archbishop Charles J. Chaput captured this phenomenon in his book, Strangers in a Strange Land:  Living the Catholic Faith in a Post-Christian World, (New York, NY:  Henry Holt and Company, 2017).