Let’s start with the obvious. Britain has sent a letter to President Trask of the European Union telling him that they have voted. To leave. Parliament has passed a law saying they are leaving. So they will secede from the union. A blow for freedom, and for the ability for us to live soberly, quietly and in peace.
The narrative hates this, but… the narrative is boring, and it is losing.
Believe it or not, although they hold all the levers of power, even in the area of pop culture the Left is in retreat. Look at your local multiplex. Issue movies are dead, and the few that are produced flop.
Today’s movies are almost all escapist spectacle, superheroes working together in apolitical stories that utilize conservative and/or humanist themes about self-sacrifice, individualism, and the value of human life. Outside the spandex, Hollywood’s most popular franchise involves gas-guzzling muscle cars and a group of rebels who don’t trust the government, do believe in family and pray before every meal. The eighth installment of The Fast and the Furious arrives in May.
As far as television, while foo foo elites obsess over the low-rated Girls, a pro-abortion storyline on Scandal, and the latest in the destructive fad of transgenderism, elsewhere we are bombarded with countless shows that embrace that part of the American spirit most anathema to the Left – rugged, masculine individualism; entrepreneurs, devoted Christians, gear heads, gun owners, nuclear families, and homeschoolers…
Duck Dynasty, American Pickers, Doomsday Preppers, Pawn Stars, Moonshiners, Gold Rush, Mega Race, Diesel Brothers, Deadliest Catch, all those Alaska shows, Street Outlaws, Road Hawks, Swamp People, Mountain Men…
By far the most popular show on cable is The Walking Dead, which is primarily about the fight for liberty and family, a show that personifies e pluribus unum, the exact opposite of multiculturalism. White, black, Asian, Hispanic, ginger and gay characters all work together in a world where identity politics have been obliterated, where moral authority is earned, not simply handed to those with the “correct” skin color or sexual orientation.
Belief in God ticked up last year to 89 percent. The Super Bowl, one of the most culturally conservative events on earth, grabbed 111 million total viewers last month. That same month, the left-wing Oscars averaged just 32.9 million.
The Left is so not winning the culture wars, identity politics is the only thing that has ever put a dent in football’s popularity. The Left is so not winning the culture wars, they are now forced to pretend they respect and honor our veterans and flag. That just wasn’t the case a generation ago.
Democrats and their media are finally coming to terms with a polling blind spot. Basically, blinded by their own bubbled world, our elites under-sampled people not like them – meaning the rural working class. Moreover, the media’s ongoing assault against these voters as ignorant racists has had the additional effect of making them difficult to poll. They either won’t talk to pollsters or outright lie to them (which is what I do).
So let’s add to this “polling blind spot” a “watercooler blind spot,” where elites are so wrapped up in themselves, in their own supremacism, in Katy Perry, HBO, The New York Times, Jake Tapper’s sick Twitter TrumpBurnz, Planned Parenthood memes and vagina hats, that they have lost all touch with the cultural world the rest of us inhabit.
In other words, that massive media and cultural propaganda machine created to make normal people feel outnumbered has failed.
If you build your narrative and thus your god and mystery on a lie, you will fail, for it rings false, and people seek truth. Instinctively. The problem we face is not that people do not have ideas, it is that they are taking their ideas and religion, (a word that triggers transunicorns, so in polite society we call it ideology) far too seriously.
I still think he (and many others whom I’m greatly respect) are looking for a religion that does too much. And we already have one like that: It’s called Progressivism. Progressivism is a religion where being devout makes you be good. In an old-fashioned proper religion, being good makes you be devout.
The error that many neopagans on the right fall into is considering religion as a form of social cohesion: this is the Hindu error, and it comes from the pit. Instead, we are called not to fear God, but to love him.
For if Christ paid the penalty for our unrighteousness, we are to live for him, and let his spirit guide us. This is not a matter of virtue signaling or public piety. It is internal, and leads to us being changed.
12So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh — 13for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ — if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
18I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
The good news is that Christ has done what is needed. We can be redeemed: all creation is waiting for this. We can be made whole.
We cannot do this: we can ameliorate our conditions and undo some damage, but we cannot be made whole, and death will take us all.
But this I know: though the worms eat my body, in my flesh I shall see God. And the Spirit will call his own to him.
I pray that this is all those who visit, and all those whom I love