In an October 2020 speech, French President Emmanuel Macron identified an existential threat he claimed was stirring up division among citizens and undermining the country’s cultural heritage. “Certain social science theories entirely imported from the United States” were to blame, he said.
Then-French Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer echoed Macron’s sentiments. He warned, “There’s a battle to wage against an intellectual matrix from American universities.”
They were referring to the toxic wokeness that originated inside the hallowed halls of America’s finest universities. But this menace, even at the time these remarks were uttered, had spread its tentacles well beyond academia and had begun to alter the very essence of American culture. It was also starting to take root in Europe. Macron and Blanquer were right about the threat, but they’d arrived at this realization too late.
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President Joe Biden’s victory the following month sent wokeism into overdrive. Two years later, we are living in a country barely recognizable. Mainstream institutions, from media outlets to hospitals, want the public to believe that men can get pregnant and that children should be allowed to make life-altering decisions about their gender. These same institutions think climate change and white supremacy are the deadliest threats we face, while our southern border sits wide open and our military struggles to meet basic recruitment quotas. Equity has replaced meritocracy. In everything from sports to children’s entertainment, wokeism has become the norm. And its takeover has happened with relative ease.
The pandemic, however, forced the public to face wokeism head-on. Parents became aware, some for the very first time, of how deeply the woke worldview had already infected public-school curricula. A middle school parent with whom I chatted recently said her children’s public school has normalized “furries.” She told me: “Furries go to school acting like cats or dogs. They literally meow or woof, and their teachers must treat them like animals. They have their own litter box in the bathroom and everything.”
This is the logical conclusion of post-modern wokeism. If nothing is objective and everything is subject to our own whims and fancies, then why can’t a child be allowed to change his gender? And if a child is allowed to change his gender, why not let him decide his species as well?
We have two choices at this point. Either we can allow wokeness to continue until it destroys everything that made America great, or we can fight to eradicate it. I’m not suggesting that we take up arms. But if each one of us pushes back against this madness in any way we can, however small, the insanity will end. As they say in the stock market, a thousand “eighths” add up fast.
Last week, for example, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge James C. Ho, a Trump appointee, took aim at Yale Law School during a keynote address at the Kentucky Chapters Conference of the Federalist Society. The title of Ho’s speech was “Agreeing to Disagree — Restoring America by Resisting Cancel Culture.” Citing the cancel culture that runs rampant at the Ivy League school, he told listeners he would no longer hire clerks from Yale and encouraged other judges to follow his lead.
Ho said, “If they want the closed and intolerant environment that Yale embraces today, that’s their call. But I want nothing to do with it.” He acknowledged that cancel culture is a problem at law schools throughout America but noted that “cancellations and disruptions seem to occur with special frequency” at Yale, where conservative speakers are shouted down and harassed simply because they dared to defend the First Amendment.
Ho is just one of the hundreds of federal judges in the country. But he has thrown down the gauntlet. Hopefully, others will follow. Perhaps they’ll add to the list of law schools to avoid. They might start with the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Law, where, according to the Jewish Journal, nine law student groups have amended their bylaws to ban speakers who support Israel or Zionism from campus.
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Ho’s message is simple but powerful: It’s time for people to cancel those who embrace the woke agenda that is destroying the country. Ordinary Americans have allowed themselves to be intimidated into silence by the leftist mob, perhaps not realizing that we have the power to reject it.
But if we continue to mollify the woke, they will gain strength. It’s time for a little civil obedience and even some ridicule.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) provided us with another example of how it’s done in his latest campaign ad. After condemning the “defund the police” movement, he told voters: “Look, if you hate cops just because they’re cops, the next time you get in trouble, call a crackhead.”
Our path is clear.
Elizabeth Stauffer is a contributor to the Washington Examiner and the Western Journal. Her articles have appeared on many websites, including MSN, RedState, Newsmax, the Federalist, and RealClearPolitics. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.
