Better a cold civil war than a hot civil war, one might say. We aren't exactly in imminent danger of a hot civil war, although there were times - the summer of 2020, for example - when that possibility seemed frighteningly real. Things have calmed down since then, some - but there can be little argument that the United States and indeed, most of Western civilization, has been embroiled in a cold civil war for some years now. On one side, we have the advocates for liberty, individual rights, free trade, and property. On the other, we have the advocates for collectivism, government control of people's lives from cradle to grave, the elimination of individual rights, and the destruction of what remains of the free-market economy and private property.
The advocates for collectivism have, in recent years, been winning. Their long march through the institutions has yielded fruit. While they may now be overstepping - some of their positions are too much, too far - they have, in large measure, succeeded in moving the national Overton Window to the left.
Which brings me to Tom Klingenstein. Mr. Klingenstein, Chairman of the Claremont Institute, is a philanthropist, public speaker, writer, and playwright. And, in a recent piece at the online magazine Chronicles, he has presented his ideas on why he thinks the right is losing this cold civil war to what he calls a "group-quota regime." And he may be right:
As Yogi Berra said, “Prediction is very difficult—especially about the future.” Even Yogi could predict that a Trump loss to Kamala Harris would mean hearing her cackling laugh for the next four years.
We might get an even clearer glimpse of the future if we understood that we face what I call, perhaps inelegantly, the “group-quota regime.” This regime wants to destroy us by overturning the principle of individual merit and replacing it with the assignment of guilt by race or sex. Better yet, we can understand how the group-quota regime works: its structure, where it’s going, how it plans to get there, and, of course, how to defeat it. If we don’t have at least a sense of these things, and few Republicans do, then we shall not defend ourselves as well as we might.
It's not just guilt, though - it's "justice." Not the kind of justice represented by the blindfolded Lady Justice one sees in courtrooms, but the kind of "justice" that punishes some and rewards others based on arbitrary standards, like the sins of ancestors long-dead - or by immutable characteristics such as melanin content.
Kamala Harris supports such "justice." We must remember that, back in 2020, when the nation stood on the precipice of a hot civil war, Harris lent her support to a fund that raised bail for the rioters - and she did nothing whatsoever for the people who lost homes and businesses in those riots.
See Related: Fund Still Promoted by Kamala Harris Bailed Out Man Accused of Penetrating 8-Year-Old Child
This phenomenon goes far beyond government. It goes far beyond the streets in the summer of 2020 - or in the likely unrest in the streets of our major cities in January of 2025, should Donald Trump win reelection. The left has come dangerously close to completing its long march through the institutions, including higher education, the legacy media, and the entertainment industry. These are people who will not only co-opt formerly respected institutions but do not shy away from violence.
See Related: Something More Dangerous Than Rhetoric Is Fueling Political Violence
Kamala's Celebrity Brigade and Their Reasons for Supporting Her Show Just How Out of Touch She Is
Mr. Klingenstein presents us with some chilling examples of how this is already happening:
The next thing may well be different punishments for black Americans than for white Americans who have committed the same crimes. This isn’t so difficult to predict because it’s already happening in California. Sometimes we just have to watch and listen.
Or, take another easy one. During the Biden administration, an office of censorship was set up within the Department of Homeland Security, brazenly named the “Disinformation Governance Board.” In this case, they got a bit ahead of themselves, so they “paused” their activities after media exposure. But, as the word “pause” implies, they will restart when circumstances permit. We must be prepared.
Indeed, we must be prepared - but are we?
K-12 education may be the last remaining institution that the group quota regime has not yet totally co-opted - at least not nationwide. I can promise you that educators and staff working in the elementary school in our little rural Alaska community are quite different from those in, say, Boston or San Francisco. That is as it should be; any government function works best when it is as close to the people as possible, and school boards are typically at the town or county (borough, in our case) level. And that may be where the counter-march will have to begin if the proponents for liberty and property are to have any hope of taking those institutions back.
This is not the task of a presidential administration. No one political figure, no matter how heroic or determined, can complete this task. This will require a Herculean effort, and we have no Hercules. If we can return the United States to a nation that puts individual rights and freedom above all, it will require engaging the left in this cold civil war; it will require reversing this long march through the institutions, and it will be the work of decades, the work of generations, to accomplish.
If we can accomplish it at all. The decline of free societies has never, in history, been reversed through peaceful means - and that is a troubling thought.
Mr. Klingenstein concludes:
Like Yogi, we’re not so good at predicting the future, but we must try. We must understand that these woke radicals are propelled by an uncontrollable moral certainty. Never underestimate their talent to sow the seeds of chaos.
It will take more than understanding. It will take action. And if peaceful action is (and it should be) our goal, we should have already gotten the ball rolling. But the fact that the vapid, ill-informed, cackling fleawit Kamala Harris seems to have a viable shot at the White House tells us that it may already be too late.
