They control the press. They have the entertainment industry. They have an iron grip on American educational institutions. Indeed, they even hold supremacy over social media and other various digital methods of communication. The far-left holds sway over almost every conduit through which ideas can be disseminated to the masses.
It can be no wonder that these people are able to saturate American society with their ideology. But what if, despite wielding this tremendous level of influence, the hard left isn’t winning the culture as decisively as we might think?
Over the past few years, it has become apparent that the so-called progressive crowd has not been quite as successful in winning hearts and minds as they would like. I know this might seem crazy – but hear me out.
I’ve spent the past few weeks writing about some of the hot-button issues that have been the impetus for fiery debate nationwide. I’ve looked at Critical Race Theory, Defund the Police, cancel culture, and other staples of the hard leftist movement.
What I found suggests that Americans aren’t on board with the left’s radical excesses. Indeed, most of the country roundly rejects them, even if they lean to the left.
I recently wrote a piece detailing how the Republican Party plans to use racism as a linchpin of its electoral strategy for the upcoming midterm and presidential elections. The GOP will push back on the hard left’s “America’s totally racist” trope by pushing the reality that America is not a racist country. This is not the usual example of right-wing reactionary politics – it is a calculated move predicated on various studies showing that the vast majority of Americans, Republican, and Democrat, do not believe that the U.S. is racist at its core.
Even further, the incessant push for more wokeism in the culture coming from the Marxist crowd is not exactly resonating with the public. Indeed, some Democrats are even realizing that it is a losing issue and are trying desperately to convince their comrades to abandon that particular messaging strategy.
The left’s response to the furor over Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the classroom has been uncharacteristically inept. First, they denied that any element of CRT has been injected into education. Then, when that lie did not work out, they began defending it. But, as I’ve stated previously, several polls have revealed that nobody is in favor of hard leftist thought being taught in the classroom.
Defund the Police has also become a millstone around the Democrats’ neck. Turns out that only about 18 percent of Americans favor the idea. Voters in New York City vigorously repudiated this idea when they chose Eric Adams to be their nominee for mayor after he ran a blatantly pro-law and order campaign.
But it doesn’t stop there.
What about cancel culture? Well, apparently, most Americans do not appear to appreciate the practice of digging up one’s old social media posts, statements, or behavior, and using it to ruin their careers. In fact, it’s going over about as well as Al Sharpton at a Ku Klux Klan meeting. A Harvard/Harris poll conducted exclusively for The Hill in March showed that most Americans believe cancel culture is a threat to their freedom.
From The Hill:
A majority of Americans say they view “cancel culture” as a threat to their freedom, according to a new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey released exclusively to The Hill on Monday.
Sixty-four percent of respondents said that there is “a growing cancel culture” that is a threat to their freedom, while 36 percent said they did not view it as a threat to their freedom.
Additionally, the poll found that 36 percent of Americans said cancel culture is a “big problem,” while 32 percent called it a “moderate problem.” Another 20 percent said it was a “small problem” and 13 percent said it is “not a problem.”
How about cancel culture’s mother, political correctness? It seems she isn’t faring too well in the minds of Americans either. The Atlantic reported:
Most members of the “exhausted majority,” and then some, dislike political correctness. Among the general population, a full 80 percent believe that “political correctness is a problem in our country.” Even young people are uncomfortable with it, including 74 percent ages 24 to 29, and 79 percent under age 24. On this particular issue, the woke are in a clear minority across all ages.
So, what gives?
If the far-left machine was the cultural Leviathan we typically believe it to be, why do most Americans reject their ideas? The Marxist crowd has exercised control over entertainment, education, and the press for decades. Furthermore, they enjoy dominance over Big Tech companies that routinely use their power to throttle conservative content.
The results of these and other studies demonstrate that while the left does have supremacy over our most important institutions, they are not as ahead in the culture war as they would have us believe. This isn’t to say that they don’t exert an incredible level of influence – they certainly do. But despite this reality, they are failing to win people over to their various looney causes.
This is an encouraging sign for the conservative movement, which has constantly found ways to subvert the progressives’ hold on these institutions. Despite the fact that they are in charge of these staples in American society, the right has used the internet, social media, radio, and other means of communication to get their message out to the public and, while the conservative movement has much to learn about messaging, it is still asserting its ideas in a way that is reaching people.
In this, we can find hope that the nation will not move further to the left, as the Rachel Maddows and Ocasio-Cortezes of the world would like to see. But the conservative movement will still need to find ways to fight smarter and more effectively – otherwise, the results of these polls could easily flip in the not-so-distant future.
