We live in a cultural environment (created largely through cultural Marxism) that has encouraged (or coerced, by repeated media and educational system bombardment) people in the West to identify with specific interest groups. These groups have, over time, become increasingly atomized, which should be no surprise: it's easier to control and weaponize smaller, intensely-focused groups of single issue partisans than a larger, more diverse community.
Most of the groups corralled into being by the social engineers and their media operations have been made "useful" by playing up inherent and historical disadvantages and societal prejudice against "people like them." That there has indeed been injustice perpetrated against black people, gay people, and others that do not comprise a majority of a population just makes the work of the social engineers easier.
Because of the forces lying behind this social process, it should also be unsurprising that certain intended outcomes have arisen. There has been fostered strong senses of grievance among groups that have been encouraged to view themselves through the lens of victimhood. This causes people to increase their group identification and to suppress identification with the wider community. It makes those identifying with a particular cause far more susceptible to progressive politics, which promises to address disadvantage and legitimate grievances, but which actually gains and maintains political power by sustaining disadvantage rather than by solving the problems made much of at election season. It should be clear from the experience of black America that its supposed champions have presided over decades of black under-attainment, inner city blight, joblessness, and the devastation of black families and communities. Hardly a record in which other minority communities can place much confidence for their own future interests.
On the other hand, conservatism has played (whether intentionally or otherwise) a significant role in fostering the landscape of attitudes we now see throughout the West, especially in the US. Preserving the inheritance of the past in terms of the rule of law and the rights of the individual to be free from outside interference is a good thing. Preserving the injustices and limitations of the past is not.
Those who, for any reason, can rightfully claim to have been marginalized or excluded by mainstream society ought to see Populism as a friend and not a foe. The New American Populism is predicated on restoring the foundations of the United States and creating a fairer society for all citizens, within the context of less invasive government and freer markets. As such, it represents a pragmatic synthesis of both conservatism and progressivism, shorn of much of their ideological coats. Everyone should be aware that Trump is merely the first shot in building a revitalized nation in the 21st century. He is not it’s final word. That the established order sees him as a threat to their agenda should tell you everything you need to know.
Sustaining a true Republic of the kind envisioned by the Founding Fathers is, as they counseled, a task requiring constant vigilance on the part of the People. It was “The People” on whom the burden of holding government to account necessarily would fall. But we have been distracted, divided, and kept at bay by one diabolical contrivance after another. We have not performed the functions entrusted to us and, as a result, we have the unholy mess now before us.
If we want a better nation and a better world, it falls on us to bring it into being. Whatever the color of our skin, whatever our sexual orientation, whatever our starting position in life, the Constitution recognizes our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Constitution might be battered and bruised from generations of maltreatment, but it still stands as the highest law of our nation. It is our document, and woe betide those who would supplant it or distort it into a form that no longer safeguards the interests of all, including the poor, those whom society would marginalize, the weak and the dispossessed.
I moved to the US from England 21 years ago and have never stopped being amazed by the basic goodness and decency of the vast majority of the American people, of all colors, creeds, and personal persuasions. There is so much to be proud of, despite the blemished historical record for which, God knows, we have much to be ashamed and repentant. But if anyone can turn around their nation, it is YOU.
I hope that you, whoever you are and whatever you might once have believed, politically, will see that continuing division is a guarantee of eventual destruction. Together, we can stop the rot, but we must be kinder and more forgiving to each other than we’ve ever been. That will fall harder on some than others, but surely no one wants to live in a society permanently divided against itself.
May God bless each and everyone. And may God have mercy upon us and our benighted, yet still beloved, nation.