Upcoming trouncing of Democrats will clear the decks
A few weeks ago I opined that it wasn’t easy being a Democrat these days. All the polls suggest 2022 will be an electoral disaster, and maybe 2024 as well. Looking farther down the road, the outlook for the socialist party the Democrats have become is far better.
My reasons go to the core of what the American electorate believes in, and will ultimately vote for. I drilled into my students the simple paradigm of Faith leading to Ideas, which drives our Actions, finally to the Consequences of those actions, both intended and unintended, good and bad. F.I.A.C.
Now by faith I do not mean just formal religious faith, but rather the core beliefs which animate us body and soul. Where do I come from? Do I have a purpose in life? What happens when I die? Why is there anything at all? We all answer these questions one way or another, and the answers drive our politics as well as everything else.
Karl Marx understood this well when he stated religion was the opiate of the masses. He wanted a revolution with communism supplanting the free exchange system he dubbed “Capitalism.” A brilliant bit of rhetorical sleight of hand, where supposed care for the community of workers was to replace the pursuit of bloodless capital, it has echoed powerfully down to the present.
Necessarily, the Marxists and allied leftists have to destroy that opiate, at which they have largely succeeded. Belief in God in the West has declined markedly since Marx wrote those inflammatory words. Even the most casual perusal of the state of religious belief in this country over the past century reveals a drastic decline in anything like traditional faith, such that church attendance is a pale shadow of what it once was, God has been expunged from the public square, the public schools, and just about everywhere the dead hand of atheism can reach. In Europe, serious belief in God has vanished almost entirely.
With God out of the picture, what must the average man look to? His own devices? I think not. The average man, according to the prominent mid-20th century psychologist Abraham Maslow, needs primarily physical needs — food and shelter — then safety and security needs. His famous “hierarchy of needs” then goes to ever-higher levels of psychological states, applying to fewer and fewer people. From whence are these needs to be met?
The Marxist’s answer is the state which, supplanting the non-existent God, provides the basics of life through all kinds of guarantees and programs. It may be a delightful image to consider the lilies of the field, but the government check is much closer to hand.
This substitute god, like all gods, must be obeyed. This substitute god, like all gods, does not tolerate competition. Thus Christianity must be attacked. The dwindling number of serious Chrsitians, who overwhelmingly vote Republican, pose a diminishing threat at the ballot box as they age out and are replaced in their millions every year by young, much more secular voters, a product of years of state sanctioned secular indoctrination posing as education.
The family is another competitor to the state, and likewise must be destroyed. Ever since Marx, all socialists have known this. Married couples with children vote largely Republican. There are fewer of these households with every passing year, as the advocacy of all sorts of nonmarital relationships — dare I say non-Godly relationships? — goes on relentlessly. As for children, the birth rate falls to new lows every year, helped along by unwavering Democratic support for abortion.
I’m out of space to mention other trends in the Democrats’ favor. So, if you’re a Democrat, be of good cheer! The current malaise is caused by putting forward really inept leadership. The trouncing soon to be administered will clear the deck for different leaders who, I don’t doubt, will be much more effective at turning the faith in the state into power for the party of the state. Get ready for the Squad.
Charles Milliken is a professor emeritus after 22 years of teaching economics and related subjects at Siena Heights University. He can be reached at milliken.charles@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Charles Milliken: Upcoming trouncing of Democrats will clear the decks
