J E Theriot
We have lived through decades of cynicism, but now the USA and the world are waking up.We have lived through decades of cynicism, but now the USA and the world are waking up to the faith and hope that are the natural and essential condition of life. There is a vast difference between the woke past, filled with lies and recriminations, and the blossoming of hope that we are now experiencing, many of us for the first time. It is wonderful to see decency, fair play, merit, and true equality emerging as the standards of conduct, even in D.C. (and maybe even at the Washington Post opinion page). Americans are beginning to realize that DIE and woke practices are nothing more than disguised self-interest on the part of empowered minorities and that preferential treatment of any race or segment of the population is nothing less than evil.
Cynicism was on display at the Sugarbush Ski Resort in Vermont this week when V.P. Vance and his family were greeted with signs held by misguided protesters calling him a “traitor.” Vance was forced to interrupt what should have been a peaceful vacation and remove his family to a safe, undisclosed location. Apparently, the protests were partly triggered by a post by a Sugarbush employee who wrote that “we are living in a really scary and really serious time,” presumably because of her opposition to Trump’s policies and specifically because of Vance’s valiant support for the president during his confrontation with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
When he ambushed Trump at Saturday’s White House meeting, Zelensky was in effect demanding unlimited military assistance (in the name of “security guarantees”) to continue his war against Russia. But the Biden policy of shipping close to a trillion dollars of military aid to Ukraine was cynical in several respects. The aid allowed Zelensky to avoid negotiations that would have ended the war. It also stripped American taxpayers of funds coming out of the pockets of hardworking taxpayers and denying them money that could be spent on their families or saved for their retirements. It is cynical and evil to steal from American citizens so as to enable a war in which an estimated one million soldiers and civilians have died since February 2022, but that is precisely the behavior that the Vermont protesters seem to favor.
Americans have endured decades of this sort of abuse. They have seen their federal taxes rise from 2% of GDP, the figure that prevailed from the time of the early Republic to that of WWI, to the $7 trillion of federal spending in 2024 (24% of GDP, not the 17% reported by my A.I. assistant, and with a similar rise in gross state tax rates, mostly based on property taxes).
Altogether, federal and state tax rates, including death taxes, approach marginal rates of 70% in some localities. At this rate, we have become a socialist society, with government controlling the economy and with individuals helpless and enslaved. Government is the slave-master draining the population of its hard earned money in order to support a bloated and corrupt bureaucracy, one that is not even showing up for work and that enjoys high salaries and full benefits. A rebellion is underway, but the cynics on the left are doing all they can to block reform.
It is utterly cynical to deny working families the security they deserve or to deny elderly Americans a decent retirement, as liberal administrations have done, by sending a large share of their income overseas or by transferring it to minorities by way of corrupt bureaucrats. Government theft is causing suffering and, in some cases, early death, as when older Americans cannot afford the treatments and medicines they need. I have seen a neighbor endure years of severe joint pain because she cannot afford the surgery she needs, and it is cynics like those in Vermont who are to blame. It is cynical to look the other way and pretend one is virtuous when, in fact, one is condemning a large segment of the population to hardship and pain.
We have endured not just an era of attacks on certain groups based on their race, gender, or beliefs but also an assault on talent and merit of all sorts. Those who worked a job for years and performed well at it had to sit back and watch less experienced and less qualified managers brought in, often based on their race. Even in the US military, places were set aside for individuals based on their race or sex and without regard for merit, skill, or seniority.
Hiring and promotion based on race, sex, or sexual orientation is cynical because it violates the rights of a majority of workers who believe in evaluation based on performance and promotion based on seniority and merit. When those standards are discarded, it creates resentment and demoralization among large numbers of workers, and with it lower productivity. It’s not just those who are passed over who are hurt: society as a whole is harmed by less production, lower quality of work, and the resulting inflation and shoddiness of goods and services.
Eventually, many simply surrender and decide to live with the system, however unfair. At this point, cynicism has won, as it appeared to have done throughout the Obama and Biden era. But it was out of the ashes of these years that Donald Trump rose to the presidency, and that victory was largely because of the simmering resentment and sense of unfairness that has existed for so long.
Perhaps now Americans are waking up. After the November 5 election, there was an immediate sense of hope and purpose — the same sense felt by the devastated populations of Germany and Japan after WWII or of those in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. At this moment, we too are survivors of a long and destructive period of oppression. “Wokeness” is merely a disguise for behavior that is far from “woke” and that is nothing new: it is the worst sort of racial and class oppression, a disguised form of tyranny that rivals that of former and current fascist and communist states.
What has taken place is not a “backlash”; it is a return to the natural and true state of human existence in which men and women live together in trust and faith and in which they work together governed by the principle of fairness. It is not normal or fair for one individual to be singled out for advancement based on his race — or for transgenders or homosexuals to be granted special rights and entitlements. It is not fair for white males to be sent to the back of the bus, especially when they have worked hard all their lives in the expectation of advancement. The imposition of DIE across society is a cynical power-grab on the part of and on behalf of minorities; it is a blatant abuse of the majority of workers, just as the preferential admissions and advancement of minorities and other identity groups over others at school and at universities is wrong in every way.
The cynicism of the last 50 years also imposed a mounting suppression of normal gender roles and identities. Under this regime, young men were made to feel ashamed of their natural talent and drive, and they were made wary of expressing their natural sexuality for fear of being labeled chauvinist or even criminally sexist. To act in a chivalrous manner, to express masculinity, even to use the “wrong” pronoun are behaviors that could cost men their jobs. It is time for this sort of madness to end.
Thankfully, President Trump is signaling that we are moving past all this. In the future he envisions, America will be a country of true equality — colorblind and gender-normalized. There will be an end to cynicism and the demoralization that attends it as Americans restore the normal and natural rules of human conduct. The rights of men and women will be respected once again, and all will be judged on their character and merit. Most importantly, we will be guided by the eternal rules of natural law — the law that was summarized in the Ten Commandments and that is inscribed in thousands of years of literature and in written and unwritten law. This is the law, without which a society cannot long exist, that affirms honesty, decency, and goodness as the basis for human interaction.
In the liberal culture of the last 50 years, we have lost sight of natural law, and we have lost the sense of optimism and trust that go with it. (Justice Clarence Thomas has been prophetic in pointing this out, again and again.) Wokeness, affirmative action, and DIE are not the natural condition of human beings: these misguided theories reflect an underlying ideology that has been imposed on the majority by a radicalized minority and that has destroyed the fabric of faith and belief that once governed our social relations. Now, under President Trump, we will return to what is good, fair, and true.
Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture, including Heartland of the Imagination.
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