Waves of political correctness, pseudo-socialism, and wokeism have washed the U.S. political shores in recent years, inundating American workplaces, schools and universities, healthcare institutions, and communication venues.
A large percentage of the citizenry who live in this country, however, do not agree with these phenomena, nor the values and assumptions underlying them.
These persons, most of whom live outside the isolated urban centers, have been finding it increasingly harder to avoid the radical waves and go about their daily lives unimpeded by the intrusions on what they consider to be what they believe in and how they conduct themselves.
Many have come to think of the leftward lurch as permanent, and despair for their country, its institutions, and society.
However, there are now strong signals that this tide is turning, and that a new national direction lies ahead.
These signals, however, do not mean that the radicalism and its programs are over, nor even that the prospects of their disappearance are guaranteed and inevitable.
But public opinion and reaction in varying forms is changing in specific instances, and already acting as a breakwater to liberal excesses and overreach.
These changes are sometimes formal changes in government and organization, and sometimes informal developments in the culture.
Examples of formal changes include local, state and national election results, dispositive court decisions, and the revitalization of institutions.
At the local level, conservatives and moderates now dominate most non-urban elective offices, and, after a period of radical educational policies, are winning back school boards in local elections across the nation.
At the state level, conservatives and moderates are increasing their majorities in state legislatures and producing a number of outstanding governors who resist radical federal policies.
At the national level, Republicans won back control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022, and then interrupted the monolithic radical tone in Washington, DC.
In recent years, judges in lower federal courts have increasingly rejected radical legal assertions, and the U.S. Supreme Court now has a clear conservative majority.
There are also signs that schools, responding to new conservative and moderate school boards, are replacing recent radical educational policies. The signs of change in institutions of higher learning, however, are fewer, as the aggressive dominance of radical professors and administrators resists any attempt to challenge their woke notions and values which have transformed once vital colleges and universities into rigid platforms intolerant of free speech and the open exchange of ideas. This intolerance and the often egregiously high costs of a higher education, however, are beginning to force a reevaluation, as college and university enrollments are now declining.
In the less formal environment of public business activity, recent actions by consumers who reject corporate kowtowing to activist groups has signaled that radical wokeism in the marketplace is no longer acceptable. Whether it be a beer brand or department store purchase or a particular retail brand, large numbers of consumers are saying no to the politicization of the retail economy.
For years, Americans have observed the decline of their establishment media. Once important newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post have become little more than propaganda sheets, and major TV networks have become apologists for one party and its ideology. Balanced and fair political coverage has almost disappeared in the print and broadcast media.
The internet and radio, however, have increasingly become the primary source of news for many consumers, and brought about the emergence of popular conservative political coverage and commentary as well as the significant loss of numbers of readers and audiences of most establishment media.
This struggle over the radicalization of the American way of life, notwithstanding the signals of resistance just cited, is far from over. Like all social movements, it is a slow battle, and a difficult one.
The likely next battleground will be the 2024 national elections. In these contests for governors, senators, and members of the U.S. House, as well as for president, conservative and independent voters will need to show up in force at the ballot box if they want to make the radical tide decisively turn, and begin a long ebb into the past.
