NextGen Marxism

In early summer 2020, protests erupted in more than two thousand cities and towns across the United States in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. All told, an estimated fifteen million to twenty-six million people participated in the demonstrations and more than six hundred riots. Black Lives Matter (BLM) signs went up in neighborhoods and store windows across the country. Whole streets were emblazoned with the words “Black Lives Matter.” Statues of historical American figures were torn down. Schools and streets were renamed. History was rewritten. Diversity, equity, and inclusion became the national creed. In the short four years since those protests, America has become nearly unrecognizable. Teachers are teaching children that they may have been born in the wrong body; school librarians and school boards are defending the right to have books containing lurid sex scenes in school libraries; college campuses have become centers of aggressive intolerance and purveyors of speech codes; men caricaturing women are being used to sell beer, athletic wear, trucks, and makeup, and even to recruit for the army. Indeed, in 2023, Americans were again shocked to see students rally on campuses across the country, but especially on the supposedly elite ones, in defense of Hamas’s killing spree in Israel in October (a massacre that included gang rapes). What has happened to America? Were the George Floyd protests and riots simply a spontaneous response to the unjust killing of one man, or was something more at work? Is the United States functioning as its Founders intended, or have insidious forces tipped the balance? Are Americans sovereign over their own lives, or are they being subjugated to forces they did not choose and over which they have little control?