"No one ever washes a rented car."  This old cliché explains much of what is happening in both politics and society today.

The entire CRT/BLM/wokist sentiment in the country — epitomized by what is happening in a sizable majority of high school and college classrooms — highlights what is arguably the most dangerous issue currently facing America: we are raising — encouraging, even! — an entire generation of people who feel no ownership of, loyalty to, or obligation to the country in which they live.

The woke movement is the predominant force driving the social and political narrative these days.  To begin with, the crazy, out-of-control wokist revisionist curriculum and history that both students and their parents have to deal with today would have been unimaginable just a short generation ago.  Never in our collective history has such a sizable segment of the population espoused such self-loathing, anti-American thoughts as today's misguided woke Progressives.  The irony of their unrecognized privilege that allows them the freedom to criticize the society they live in from a safe and comfortable vantage point is too obvious to bother pointing out.

The conflicted nature of education is illustrated perfectly by the experience a friend of mine just had with his college-age daughter.  She attends a prestigious college in New England.  Last week, on her first day of class, an all too familiar scene played out once again:

The professor announced to the students, "I will not accept anything on your papers from news sources that I consider biased, unreliable, or based on opinion instead of verifiable fact.  Nothing citing Fox News, Newsmax or the N.Y. Post is acceptable.  For current news sources, only the N.Y. Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, and CNN will be considered as trustworthy and credible."  These are sources that are solidly in favor of CRT, the 1619 Project, and BLM.

Following the new woke thinking, traditional (otherwise known as "accurate") American history is now deemed racist, discriminatory, jingoistic, even solipsistic.  The Founding Fathers are being painted with a harshly critical revisionist brush, their motives questioned, their wisdom challenged, their contributions minimized.  The wokists dismiss America's historical achievements as unworthy: to them, the Civil War was fought not to end slavery, but instead to preserve the intact nature of the larger national economy, thus assuring the continued prosperity of white Northern businesspeople.  Likewise, according to the new woke doctrine, World War One and World War Two were fought mainly by white people for the benefit of other white people, but non-white people remained persecuted and exploited, their lot in life unimproved by these so-called "victories."  The approved sexual and ethnic demographic sub-categories of today's Progressives did not share in the rewards of any of America's early successes; therefore, amends have to be made now to correct for those past transgressions.

Over and over, this is the wokists' message: "This is not your country.  You didn't get your share.  You were excluded.  It's your turn now; you're owed."  That is what is being taught by Progressives to Progressives.  They're "owed."  They are owed primarily by older working white conservatives, who they feel are privileged and undeserving, who have unfairly denied and oppressed younger minorities out of what is rightfully theirs.  Older financially and professionally successful Progressives are fine with this train of thought, for two reasons: 1) Those successful Progressives already have "theirs," and they don't think they'll be negatively impacted by any new laws or rulings that are enacted, and 2) virtually all of the resentment and animus from the woke contingent is directed at conservatives.  So when, for example, Boston district attorney Rachael Rollins announced that her office will no longer prosecute "low-level" crimes like shoplifting, Progressives were all for it. Younger CRT/BLM/wokists like it because they feel they're "owed," and older professionally established Progressives like it because it affords them a significant degree of smug do-goodism satisfaction (from a safe, unaffected distance, of course); assuages whatever vestiges of conflicted guilt they may still have; and makes them feel good, knowing they're angering conservatives, who abide by the traditional rules of law and order.

It all adds up to an overwhelming feeling of non-belonging and non-ownership by radical woke Progressives.  No amount of factual recitation regarding the progress of Civil Rights legislation in the last several decades, the number of blacks and women in high corporate executive or ownership positions, the recent record-low unemployment figures, or anything else positive matters to them at all.  Whether it's excusing inner-city crime and drug use, making totally fallacious statements like "women earn 77 cents for each dollar earned by a white man," or spouting falsehoods like "America is a fundamentally racist country," these thoughts are intentionally perpetuated by the Woke Progressives to very specific voting blocs with the explicit goal of shaping the prevailing public narrative for their Woke electoral advantage.

Convincing their most easily influenced loyalists that they have no ownership or stake in this country's fortunes — indeed, that this country doesn't care about them in the slightest — and that white conservatives are primarily responsible for the hardships in their lives is part and parcel of the electoral strategy of woke Progressives.  Conservatives need to wake up and implement some effective communications countermeasures — hopefully before the rental car has to be returned.

Image: JMacPherson via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

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