Commentary: The Great Woke Experiment

For nearly two years, Americans have engaged in a great woke experiment of cannibalizing themselves. American civilization has invested massive labor, capital, and time in an effort constantly to flagellate itself for not being perfect.

Yet neither America’s resilience nor its resources are infinite. We are now beginning to see the consequences of what happens when premodern tribalism absorbs Americans.

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Commentary: Fighting Democrats’ Dirty Politics

by Karin McQuillan   The midterms are in the rearview mirror and the chattering classes are back to debating fake collusion with Russia and a looming indictment of the president. Before the midterms, Republican voters were told this election was consequential. After the midterms, we’re told it is just one more split-government election, move along. I’m not moving along so easily, and neither is my circle of patriotic MAGA friends. Losing the House of Representatives was a crippling blow on immigration, the cornerstone of the Democrats’ drive to permanent domination. Any hopes of Democrats accepting Trump’s 2016 victory as normal politics is dead, and now they have Congress from which to harry and hobble the president. Democrats have dehumanized Trump and all his supporters as white supremacists, in order to justify violence against our republican foundations. Since inauguration day they have undermined respect for the presidential election, the Supreme Court, the electoral college, freedom of speech and religion and the right to bear arms. Democrats claim these hallowed institutions are bringing on fascism. Danger lights should be going off in every decent person’s mind. We are not in a terrain of politics as usual, but in a new and terrifying…

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Commentary: What Do College Chief Diversity Officers Accomplish?

by George Leef   Over the last few decades, the number of college administrators has grown far more than the numbers of students and faculty. Amid this administrative bloat, the greatest growth has been in “diversity” officials. Even community colleges have begun hiring Chief Diversity Officers (CDO). A persistent question, however, is whether having a CDO and other diversity administrators accomplishes anything of educational value. American colleges and universities are as inclusive and “welcoming” to students and faculty of all races and backgrounds as any institutions on the planet, so exactly how does a CDO make things any better? More than ten years ago, Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne of the National Association of Scholars asked “What Does a Chief Diversity Officer Actually Do?” and in an “emperor is wearing no clothes” fashion, answered that their jobs are pointless and self-serving. Among their observations were that the CDO must “ignore or trivialize any rational objections to the institutionalization of the diversity ideology” and to “keep the empty suppositions (about the benefits of diversity) going by repeating them tirelessly.” Wood and Thorne, in sum, found no educational value at all in college diversity bureaucracies. Another skeptic regarding the CDO is David…

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Commentary: How to Avoid Becoming a Self-Righteous Virtue Signaler

by Jeff Minick   Here is an online proponent for gun control, a man ignorant of the difference between a shotgun and a .22 rifle, decrying millions of gun owners as Nazis. There sits the woman who makes a point of telling her dinner companions, some of whom are eating the café’s steak special, that she’s a vegan. At the YMCA another woman throws scornful glances at the obese man working out beside her. Next up is the politician who flies by private jet to lecture his audiences about global warming. In the pews is the Christian who weekly hears sermons on mercy and forgiveness, yet plays God, deciding who among his family and acquaintances deserve heaven or hell. Condemnation by the self-righteous—what some call virtue signaling—is rampant these days. Many among us jump to conclusions before we have any evidence, eager to show we embrace a just cause or stand on some high moral plateau. We point accusatory fingers, insult those we disagree with, impugn our opponents with motives and deeds that have no basis in reality. Occasionally, though, if we are lucky or blessed, life can make plain the beam in our eye. That beam can become apparent…

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