Seems like yesterday, but we have suffered years of anti-Constitutional battering by those who deride the average American, one who believes in the Bill of Rights, and refuses to let go – who stands firm. We must keep standing firm, because truth does not change.
In the early 2000s, an inexperienced, quietly socialist Democrat sought and won the presidency. His political philosophy – at least European socialist, arguably far more leftist, accelerated the concentration of power in federal government, opposite tack from our Founders, who sought “limited government.”
In 2008, not happy with how slowly America was “transforming” into a socialist welfare state – shadow-boxing with Marxism – he railed against the First and Second Amendments. Mr. Obama said: “It’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them…to explain their frustrations.”
Interestingly, Karl Marx – whose writings, embodying anger and frustration – produced a tract that, in practice, became the Soviet Union’s operating ideology, later Mao’s, and modern Communist China’s.
Scholars note Marx was, like Mr. Obama, sardonic, accusatory, and delivered his anger as a punch in a velvet glove. Wrote one observer, not a critic of his life, his only humor was “sneers, taunts, and jibes, the studied insult…ill-conceived, excessive…”
Mr. Obama, it seems, was at least a good student of Marx, a thoughtful – or thoughtfully thoughtless – practitioner of Marx’s humorless humor. But then this is the way the left thinks, their “means justifying their ends,” no time for real laughter – least of all at themselves, as they are vicars of a state religion.
And this is where Mr. Obama’s attack on average, freedom-loving, faithful, and self-defending Americans is telescoped from 15 years ago – to now. Today, his former vice president, a model of self-promotion, public corruption, and leftist elitism – to the extent he can remember where he is – is the new vicar.
Biden and the Democrats who spent the nation into a 31.5 trillion dollar hole, who closed down the US economy – and tried to close down churches – have become inheritors of Obama’s “transformational” Marxist politics, from seeking to clip the First and Second Amendments to taking kids from parents, delegitimizing law enforcement, measures assuring election integrity, and the Supreme Court.
What has happened is that, in the past 15 years, illegitimate narratives – attacks on core values that made this country what it is, rights in our Bill of Rights and the Constitution’s articles, including impeachment, separation of powers, oversight of executive corruption, electoral processes, have been trashed with such regularity, that younger Americans are in a state of confusion, misled, disoriented.
With technical savvy, the political left has infiltrated and financially rewarded surrogates in the media, social media, and even government – literally creating a revolving door of book deals, jobs, and general impunity for those who overstepped the law while in the executive branch, Justice to State, for the left.
What presently infuriates most Americans, regardless of the political actors they like or dislike, is that government accountability to the people, which really means rule of law, respect for laws and institutions, a sense that laws and lawfulness matter, have gone out the window.
All this brings me back to where we are and what can be done. Yes, within an electoral system that worked well for many years, we must perfect, keep accountable, then use effectively what we have – getting honest Americans to monitor, and correct course through the electoral process.
But there is more to fixing what is broken than elections. We must speak up, participate in local meetings, school boards, civic groups, American Legion posts, chambers of commerce, sit down with media editors, volunteer to speak in schools, support legal causes and policy shifts that will return America to our roots, to the idea that laws and accountability matter, rules and the Constitution count.
What many do not realize, whether they live in a rural suburban, or urban area is that their all-American views are shared by others – who do not dare speak.
Often your neighbor also wants respect for laws, safe streets, an end to illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and federal mandates; they want parent-led schools, a stable job, currency, interest rates, and economy; they want honor and decency, not public corruption, half-truths and deflection; they want an uncontested right to educate their kids in life, faith, history, and biology.
Bottom line: When you think things have gone dark, look around. You may find that, by standing firm, you become the light. That is what this moment requires, like others in the past have.
This is a timeless message, one we often doubt. Said Marcus Aurelias in his day: “Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.” Said Ben Franklin at the time of our founding, “Stand firm, don’t flutter.” He did not flutter in his time – but stood firm. That is why we can now – and why we must.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
