Many of us (including yours truly) have walked through our lives in an occasional state of denial. We deny our fears, our loves, our true needs and desires and even the reality we so carefully say we're preserving. I'm not a sociologist, anthropologist, neurologist or any other kind of ologist for that matter, but I am a creature much like you that wants to believe that I can find the truth and that "the truth will set you free" (John 8:32).
That quest to seek the truth - and then to reconcile ourselves to living within it - is a perilous one as we are constantly having our reality, including our principles and the conclusions we draw from our own personal observations, challenged at every turn. I believe that one of the main reasons we're so frustrated and filled with angst and anger at just about everything these days is because we have lost our faith and moved to a cul-de-sac of doubt. We have lost confidence in our country's once-held core values and become super-skeptics and are now constantly and profoundly DISAPPOINTED. We have been thrown off-balance by the actions of ideological guerilla fighters who encourage us to question ourselves at every turn. They maintain that we have been "sold a bill of goods" about America's (and Americans') greatness by our parents, our teachers, our leaders, our historians and even our ministers.
Our self-doubt is all-consuming. Were we taken in by our own desire to believe that a nation built on an idea as powerful as self-determination and freedom could ever be as strong as those that have developed over the centuries and that have relied on tribalism and homogeneity to mature? That is the question many of us are posing, and while we're busy trying to answer it, like serious students of human nature, we have suspended our bedrock beliefs and in so doing have created a space for others to fill with their views.
Those 'others' are the ideological zealots who have a completely different world (and life) view and who have targeted our beliefs for total destruction because we represent a major obstacle to fundamentally changing America and all who live within her borders. It was no coincidence that back on October 30, 2008 Barack Obama declared, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Obama was not the first to give voice to the cultural revolution. Many activists before him had stated their willingness to upend our entire system, but he was the latest lightning rod that focused the energy of those cultural warriors who had now seized the power necessary to accomplish their goals.
Who are these people? It's tempting to call them all 'radicals' and 'America haters.' And while some may very well be, many others are just people who are among the economically disadvantaged, racially abused or are too young to have lived through better times. Then there are the 'historically-challenged' or true deniers of actual American history who would rather believe their history professors (who have made their living by pushing denial) and who have spread the lie that America was founded on abusive hegemonic policies, slavery and servitude - all designed to create a two-tiered society of haves and have nots. These people are not interested in a facts-based dialogue. They don’t want a serious debate. They want power and they want it NOW. They are worried that time is not on their side, that sooner or later we who seek the truth will eventually find it and then unmask them for what they are, ideological extremists who believe that America has long passed its expiration date and that personal freedom has outlived its usefulness.
It's time we woke up from 'wokeism' to the reality that no society can thrive - let alone survive - by living in a state of denial and that no people will ever be able to come together if they are constantly being pitted against each other like so many warring tribes.
Stephan Helgesen is a retired career U.S. diplomat who lived and worked in 30 countries for 25 years during the Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush Administrations. He is the author of twelve books, six of which are on American politics and has written over 1,200 articles on politics, economics and social trends. He operates a political news story aggregator website, www.projectpushback.com. He can be reached at: stephan@stephanhelgesen.com
