The left has been able to maintain a bulls**t reputation for decades as the party that parties. It’s the all-inclusive party of the “new” and the proud. At the Democrat Party, you could let your freak flag fly.

It was all a sham. In truth, the left and its Democrat Party are the most ideologically rigid entities in the western world. It meets disagreement with force, not open-mindedness or debate. It has a habit of “othering” people and you or a group you belong to may go from the toast of the town to being an “other” very quickly. Your acceptability only goes as far as your usefulness.

This is made all the more dangerous by the fact that the left is the establishment now. Institutions are under leftist control, be they our education system, sports leagues, and mainstream media and entertainment — all are under the guidance and rule-making of the left. It’s a systemic infection that has made the fascistic crackdown on opposing ideas acceptable. If the left decides to punish someone for wrong-think or blatantly lie about a person or group, its media allies will do what is necessary to make that move acceptable to the public.

While sitting and listening to the speakers at CPAC, the simple fact that the Democrats are the establishment became very clear, and that, what’s more, conservatives, libertarians, and Republicans are now the counter-culture.

It should be noted that the right, in general, always was the counter-culture. The Republican Party was founded on resistance to the Democrats’ established rules of slavery and continued to run against the social grain well into the civil rights era when it made equal rights a priority. Over time, however, the left sold the idea that the right was the establishmentarian entity in our culture through various means. The left really gained a foothold during the Bush-era when it adopted a mask of being “anti-war” and tied everything wrong with America to military action, big oil, religious belief, and put Republicans at the center of it all.

In a way, the Republican Party did have its establishmentarians and they did take hold for a while, but the party was hardly comfortable being defined in such a way. In fact, its total rejection of establishment Republicans could be seen during the Tea Party era and later on, the embrace of Donald Trump. Republicans may have their traditions and beliefs that they hold dear, but the one suit they feel uncomfortable in is the idea that they are the suits in the duopoly.

Meanwhile, the left is far more religious than the right could ever hope to be, despite rejecting the idea of established religion…unless that religion is useful to it at the moment. As of this writing, the left currently controls the largest businesses the world has ever seen in the form of social media, online shopping, and information distribution. It’s currently being overrun by a belief in a system that would give the government complete and total control over the people, forcing them to live as the establishment wishes them to. It’s even, once again, sunk itself into another unnecessary war, which apparently is okay now.

Meanwhile, the individualist nature of the right and its belief in freedom of everything from speech to gun ownership (both scary concepts to even old-world governments) continue to prove that the right is far from approving establishment beliefs and is, in fact, putting protections in place to see to it that no group becomes so established that it can dictate whatever it wants for this country.

The point is clear. The right is the counter-culture on both a countrywide and global level. We are the real “Resistance.” We’re the rebels, surrounded by a force whose primary goal is domination and subjugation. It is now as it was at our founding, and our Constitution is the barrier between us and the people who would see their way be the way for everyone and to punish those who refuse to go along with their rules.

This should excite the right. Rebellion is in our blood and the idea that we’re actually the new idea on the block is a message that should resonate with everyone, especially the young who are drawn to dynamic ideas and revolutionary thinking.

It’s clear the left’s thinking is old hat, flawed, and boring. The ideas that it wants to institute don’t work and the people generating enthusiasm about it seem plastic and fake.

The right should run with this idea and make sure we focus our speeches, talking points, and more around it.

We’re the revolution, not them.