We all basically want the same things like a happy life, a comfortable home in a safe neighborhood, a good education for our children, adequate health care, enough money to take the occasional vacation and a rewarding job. Seems logical that we would use that simple wish list as a basic blueprint for discussions, and that as citizens of one of the planet's wealthiest countries, we could find a few ways to realize those hopes and dreams. It appears, however, that my friends on the Left and I aren't dreaming the same dream. As a child of the "Baby Boom Generation," I was spared the Depression, World War II and the social conflicts of my parents' times.
They did their best to protect me while still managing to keep me grounded with a set of traditional values. I will always be grateful to them for not totally insulating me from life but preparing me for it. And while their generation pampered us, they didn’t pretend that pampering was the rule. It was just temporary shelter from the reality of our social growing pains.
We carried the torch of American values throughout the decades, though it was frequently subjected to attacks. It would have gone out were it not for those of us who remembered why we were carrying it. We were practical idealists, a generation that vowed to make the world and the USA a better place. Our 'weapons' were the law, elections, free speech, protests and education, but most of all we used hard work to solve social problems. We elected people to leadership positions that we trusted. We became members of one of the two major political parties because neither one was opposed to our system of governance or capitalism. America for Americans wasn't a slur and certainly not an expression of isolationism (we learned the lessons of WWII and what isolationism could do).
Neither was it an anti-immigrant call-to-arms. None of us wanted to close our border and keep honest, hard-working people who sought liberty and freedom, out. We had no desire to subjugate minorities or keep the American Dream out of their reach. We passed meaningful civil rights legislation and pressured those with long-held prejudices to drop them. In short, we acknowledged our social responsibilities. We steadfastly fought against Communism and dictators and brought down the "evil empire" of the former Soviet Union by digging in instead of giving in. We dreamed big dreams and worked to protect opportunity but not guarantee it. America's history is an open book. Unfortunately, that 'book' is often examined by people who didn't live during those times or understand the dreams of those times. That's the case today with some Progressives who are either frozen in the past headiness and drug-induced stupor of the sixties or they are a younger version that has grown up in an atmosphere of über permissiveness. Hard work has become replaced with hard "woke" in the Progressives' dream.
Here in New Mexico we're heavily invested in the Progressives' dream, and we've entered into an unholy alliance with them in just about everything they touch. 'Wokeness' has broken down the door of our sensibilities and good judgment, but it's our fault because we keep electing the same people to office and expect them to wake up with a new conscience. We allow our goodwill (and votes) to be bought with rebate checks while our legislature pretends to be pro-parent, pro-business, pro-energy but anti-life.
We have become the land of self-delusion - locked in a downward spiral of hoping and praying that someday things will change. Bad things happen when idealism overtakes reality and ignores history. Societies' get turned upside down. Values are questioned, and those that hold traditional ones are viewed as domestic terrorists or insurgents and have their patriotism questioned. The bifurcation of America has never been greater except maybe during our Civil War. We are now truly two tribes of people: those who remember the America of old and those who are duty bound to destroy it -- at all costs. Progressivism is toxic for New Mexico and for our country. If left unchecked or unchallenged, it will become our newest and harshest reality - one where DEI will be the new DEIty.
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 thirteen books, six of which are on American politics and has written over 1,300 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
