Opinion: Leftist Activism Appears to Be on the Rise in the U.S. Will They Get Their Way?

WASHINGTON, DC, Apr 22 – It’s bad enough that elements of the “woke” faction are determined to brainwash our younger generations, but a potentially more depraved anti-American political movement has emerged, claiming status as a bona fide religion. 

The facts are that The Satanic Temple [TST] is recognized in the U.S. as a legitimate religion and is attempting to establish so-called After School Satan Clubs for first to fifth graders in elementary schools across the country. The Temple claims that their Clubs offer kids non-religious activities, but the reference to Satan has a significantly specific religious connotation and, at best, it can be confusing to children as young as six years old. Is that the TST’s goal – to confuse and manipulate future voters?

It is interesting to note that while the Satanic Temple describes itself as “the primary religious Satanic organization in the world,” it does not conform to the norm for religious organizations. Their website specifically omits any reference to God, a deity of any sort, or spirituality, and their description of themselves appears to be more atheistic than religious. And as the experts on atheism will tell you, “if atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.”

Nonetheless, though TST claims that it does not embrace deities of any sort, its headquarters in Salem, MA, features “an 8-foot, 6-inch bronze statue of a goat-headed, winged icon [or deity] called Baphomet. Asked if the Satanists here consider the monument to be holy, Greaves says it’s a loaded term,” according to Business Insider website.

Some time ago, author and journalist John B. Judis authored a lengthy essay for the Washington Post comparing the failures of the old left with the opportunities for success of today’s progressive socialists such as Satanic templars, Critical Race Theorists, and other emerging counter culturists.  

Judis wrote, “arguably dating to the Occupy movement of 2011, a new generation of left-wing activism has been stirring. A host of organizations (Indivisible, the Sunrise Movement, 350.org, People’s Action, the Working Families Party, Black Lives Matter, the Justice Democrats, a revived Democratic Socialists of America) and new publications (Jacobin, the Intercept, Current Affairs) are doing what groups like SDS did in the ’60s: elevating left-wing causes and promising dramatic societal change…These activists and their worldviews have made significant inroads in mainstream politics in a relatively short time. In 2016, Bernie Sanders — a socialist whose platform was well to the left of George McGovern’s then-regarded-as-radical platform in 1972 — almost won the Democratic nomination. This year [2020], Sanders, advocating a ‘political revolution,’ is once again in the top tier of candidates. So is Elizabeth Warren, who’s running on a platform of big, structural change…But at this moment of left-wing optimism, it bears remembering that the ’60s left never fulfilled the vision of [Tom] Hayden and others. Indeed, even as our cause appeared ascendant, a powerful right-wing movement was also percolating: Young Americans for Freedom, presidential candidates George Wallace and Barry Goldwater, California Gov. Ronald Reagan. By the time I saw Hayden speak in 1969, Nixon had been elected, in part because of a backlash to the new left. In 1972, he would rout McGovern at the polls. Less than a decade later, Reagan was in the White House. If revolutionary change was on the agenda, it was of an entirely different nature from what we had envisaged in 1969.”

Judis goes on to question whether today’s progressive socialists have what it takes “to dominate American politics over the next few decades.” 

In sum, this is yet another challenge from the secular left to divide and weaken our American resolve. We all have a responsibility in our communities and states to stand against those like these satanic groups and reinforce that America must remain “one Nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”