What is the most important aspect of a society? Is it the culture? Maybe the economy? According to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, it is the former:
“If the underpinnings of the culture are just being torn apart, I don’t think that that’s a society that’s going to be very successful over the long term.”
Gov. DeSantis’ instinct is not only correct, but his desire to enact policy that interferes with culture is justified.
Over the last few months, the Florida governor has been one of the few governors in the entire country to take on cultural and societal issues. He has taken on Big Tech, Critical Race Theory, the left’s LGBTQ ideology, vaccine passports—the courageous governor sees something that a lot of boomer-cons and republicans are missing.
Gov. DeSantis realizes that culture matters.
Andrew Breitbart’s famous precept, “politics is downstream from culture,” though sometimes possible, is not quite the be-all-end-all that boomer-cons/libertarian-type republicans think it is. In reality, culture and politics are not two definitively separate entities; they are intertwined. Contra to what one might be taught in a federal government class, politics is not merely “the battles over power and authority” (the definition I learned in college). Sure, the political process itself is largely centered around “power” and it’s distribution. However, the traditional conception of “politics” as a whole is a more encompassing definition. The classical definition of politics is centered around how people in society interact and live together. This involves “power” and all that entails, but it also involves what the “power” is intended to preside over: the citizenry and polity at large. Applying the antiquated definition of politics, one can see how the “Breitbart doctrine” starts to make a little less sense. “Culture” is what connects and holds society together. The customs, traditions, institutions, shared experiences, history, language, etc. of a society make up the culture.
If culture is so important to people like Gov. DeSantis, what is it that makes up American culture? Some people on both sides of the political aisle argue that America has no culture. These people seem to think that America is just a conglomeration of different foreign cultures, and these same people also hold the vacuous viewpoint that America is merely “a nation of immigrants.” This view is not only wrong and inaccurate, but it is tiresome and old.
I wholeheartedly believe that America is not merely “a nation of immigrants” nor is it cultureless. America is a nation comprised of the American people, and all immigrants (if we are even to let any in), no matter where they come from, have a duty to assimilate into our culture as much as possible. The American cultural underpinnings (and they do exist) that the left is currently trying to destroy are what help to hold us together as a civilization.
America has traditions and customs, and I think the American culture, despite the various ways in which it has been marred by the left, is one that revolves around our conservative founding, our national struggles, politics, Protestant work-ethic, culture of liberty and freedom (true liberty as an inherited tradition of order, not licentiousness), sports, language, Judeo-Christian values, nationalism, patriotism, Christianity, etc.
I mentioned above that our culture has been “marred.” I feel this almost goes without saying, since it is evident that the American culture has been/is under-siege by people who hate it. For years, multicultural leftists have been attacking the American way of life and breaking the bonds that hold the civilization together. They favor a nonexistent “culture” of different collectives divided into various different identity categories and classifications. In general, the entire ideology of the liberal left (and maybe the liberal right as well) purposefully does not include keeping tradition, beauty, or reality in the American culture. From infecting sports with “wokism,” to replacing beautiful buildings with repulsive modern architecture, to subverting natural sex; the left has attempted to annihilate everything that cohesively and beautifully holds together American society.
Most notably, the left (and some people on the right) have targeted one of the (if not the) most crucial cultural underpinnings of society: the nation. From decrying borders, to denouncing culturally protective economic measures, to desiring infinite “legal” immigration from immigrants who have no respect for our culture, traditions, etc.; people on both sides of the political spectrum want “America,” as a political and national entity, to disintegrate. They desire a world of indistinguishable, faceless, and ostensibly “free, equal, and consenting” consumerist machines.
The problem of globalism is for a much lengthier piece, so I will not even begin to tackle it in this brief piece. That being said, I think that, generally, individual nation states ought to be left to their own devices and their own path of self-determination and freedom. Nation states, in order to exist as such, must have a culture to cohesively hold the citizenry together. A nationalist sentiment such as this is ardently opposed to the globalism of the modern liberals, and the nationalist conception has withstood the test of time and I believe the tradition of nationalism is inherently conservative.
I would argue that the nation of America is in and of itself a direct part of the American culture. Since the earliest days in the republic, a spirit of absolute and unwavering patriotism has been characteristic of the population, and an unrivaled national pride has been a hallmark of the American people. For centuries, the American people have felt a bond of loyalty to their country and to each other on the deepest level that one can both physically and spiritually feel. America’s various wars and conflicts throughout the last couple hundred years have only served to strengthen this bond of loyalty and love that Americans feel for their country. One’s perceived loyalty to the nation is a central binding to one’s political existence, and the American way of life is centrally tied to the entity of the living nation.
The left’s attempt to destroy the nation — the highest object of political loyalty outside of one’s own “little platoon”¹ and the naturally arising groups that spawn from that—does not come without consequences. Revisionist hogwash like Critical Race Theory and other harmful ideologies promoted in the classroom, as Gov. DeSantis so excellently put it, “[teach] kids to hate their country and to hate each other.” The promotion of identity politics and use of dividing political ideologies fracture the country and inject animosity within the people who live in it. The left wants the citizenry to hate each other.
“And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand” (Matthew 12:25)
The left desires to divide the country so that it can be remade. The ruins of a country that has destroyed itself are what the left wants. They want to make the country anew, and they want to tear down everything in their way.
The left does not love the American way of life, the founding, or the nation-state. They do not love the true, the good, or the beautiful.
The left is an enemy of anyone who loves the country, its people, and its distinct culture.
Gov. DeSantis understands that politics is not necessarily downstream from culture. He understands that both culture and politics are in a “lake” together. Gov. DeSantis knows that it is culture, loyalty, and a great many other things that hold the fragile body of a society together. His policies and pursuit of a regime not defined by meaningless economic measures is necessary in this dark hour of American history. Conservative politicians (and conservatives at large) are faced with a grave choice: either they can go the Gov. DeSantis route and actually “conserve” something, or they can go the old, dead, and impotent way of the boomer-con/libertarian and let the culture, society, politics, America, and the West perish before their eyes.
Which way, conservative man?
Footnotes
[1] “To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ, as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and to mankind.” Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, pg. 292.
