The Real Divide In America

“Democrat” and “Republican” labels no longer sufficient to define America’s degenerating, postmodern social and political landscape

Vice President Mike Pence (second from left) listens while presumptive Speaker, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (L), President Donald Trump, and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) argue before a meeting at the White House in Washington on Dec. 11, 2018. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

Are Americans either Republican or Democrat? “Red” or “blue?” That’s what voting patterns show, but that’s not the whole picture by a long shot. There’s a lot more to our differences than simple binary political party distinctions.

In fact, politically speaking, America is not really a true red/blue society. In 2017, 42 percent of American voters identified themselves as independents. Only 29 percent admitted they were Democrat and even fewer, 27 percent, said they were Republicans.

Given the rise in popularity of self-identifying socialists politicians such as Corie Booker, Kamala Harris, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), and all the rest, it seems likely to stay that way. In fact, more Millennials identify with socialism than they do with capitalism. Why is this?

The Scourge of Postmodernism

It’s apparent from the stream of insipid pronunciations from the rafter of Democratic presidential candidates that what most Americans thought they knew, ‘ain’t necessarily so.’ “Socialism is good and capitalism is bad,” those candidates appeal to Millennials and the older generations desperately missing Obama.

“But where or when is true socialism really good?”, one may ask. “Where does it work? Venezuela? Cuba? The old Soviet Union? Albania? How about China? Are folks scaling the Great Wall to become a part of the ‘Chinese Dream?’”

What in the world is causing such a blindness to reality?

In a word, what we’re seeing is a result of “postmodernism.” That may sound like a pseudo-intellectual term you’d find in a grad school philosophy lecture and it certainly is that. But it’s also the driving idea behind the current thinking of many of our elite scholars, educators, cultural leaders, and politicians.

Postmodernism is a way of seeing the world and understanding reality. It’s a world view based on deconstructionism, a post-war philosophy concocted by French philosophers such as Jacques Derrida, who had way too much time on his hands and perhaps too much absinthe on his tongue. The essence of Postmodernism is a visceral distrust of tradition and thus seeks to destroy formal social structures, such as religion, social moral standards, and political institutions.

In a nutshell, in postmodernism, everything we think, know and believe can and ought to be critiqued under a deconstructionist lens, where everything is not only relative, but can be interpreted in unlimited ways. In such a context, there is no real, universal meaning in anything.

It’s All About Power

If there’s no validity in America and the ideas of liberty, personal responsibility, and limited government upon which it was founded - which is the message the left is selling - then what’s left?

The answer, of course, is statism. That’s the anvil upon which the left has beat on traditional values, Christianity, and conservatives to reshape the very idea of America itself for the past century.

Enter the new leftists of AOC and company. They’re not ideologues in the traditional sense. They’re the children of indoctrinated thralls who embrace a broader statist idea – globalism. In their own arrested intellectual development, they excoriate against America without the slightest idea - or care – of that vast territory known as history, economics, political philosophy that they know nothing about. But then, they’re too entitled to worry about stuff like that.

It stretches credulity to say that they have more than a rudimentary grasp of the concept of supply and demand. Nor do they really care about racism, sexism, antisemitism, or any other “ism.” All are used as needed to divide and tear down the American culture and the country itself. The goal, to quote Barack Obama, is to “fundamentally transform the country.”

Isn’t that what all patriots say?

The only thing that really matters to them is power and the quickest path to attain it. For the latest revolutionaries on Capitol Hill, the Democratic party is their shining path to political primacy. Even Nancy Pelosi is getting a taste of what’s to come from these young Stalinists. Before long, she’ll be (politically) devoured just like Uncle Joe devoured Bukharin. Purges are a big part of progressive ideals.

An Axis of Ignorance

Ignorance has long been an ally of the left. The Communist Party leadership used to call turncoats from the West useful idiots. Maybe they still do. But getting the ignorant and misinformed masses to support leftist ideologies has been their modus operandi from the beginning.

That said, what other reason could there be for the left wanting to let in millions of illegal, uneducated immigrants who immediately become recipients of American taxpayer dollars? Or seeking, as the Democratic-led House of Representatives just did, to lower the voting age to 16? Are they looking to fill the voting booths with the best and the brightest?

Not likely, is it. The playbook is thug democracy run by proto-totalitarians who are anything but democratic. It’s destruction by dilution. But hey, get enough non-Americans into the country, and promise millions of Americans free stuff, and voila! You’ve taken power.

Globalism Versus Americanism

What really divides Americans today is the left’s big idea that “America the Deplorable” doesn’t deserve its place of pre-eminence in the world and must be punished for its unending list of sins. America, they tell us in film, academia, and the news media, has gained from unjust privilege, intolerable prejudice, the usurpation of the fruits of others’ labor, and unearned wealth.

Come to think of it, aren’t all those things precisely what AOC and her ilk wants to achieve for themselves? Except for the criticism, of course. There will be “special camps” for complainers.

No, the AOCs of the Democratic party seek to overthrow America in a way that Barack Obama could only dream about. But it’s not all about self-aggrandizement; there’s globalism thrown in for cover. And in a very real way, Trump’s America First policies are a direct result of the left’s success in bringing America closer to their goals the past several decades.

This, then, is what really divides America: the choice between being a sovereign country with its traditions and political structure intact, or one that is subject to international regulations that strip us of our liberties, our economic power and our way of life. Trump know this and has worked to reverse the globalist tide by rejecting treaties and agreements that would certainly swamp America and our ability to maintain our top position in the world. The left - in all its social forms - are doing everything to change that.

The struggle, therefore, is keeping not just our country, but our identity, dictated not by our race or creed, but by our culture and our sovereignty.

James Gorrie is a writer based in Texas. He is the author of “The China Crisis.”

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.