The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal has described this current period of social unrest America’s “Jacobin moment” because it has the fervor and indiscriminate judgment of the revolutionary mind. The guillotine isn’t as yet in use, but the impulse is the same–to destroy careers, livelihoods, and reputations. And lately, the mob’s emphasis is to renew its attacks on American icons and history, beginning with anything remotely associated with the Confederacy. We’ve been there before, as recently as the mob response to the church shootings in Charleston, South Carolina in the summer of 2015. I looked back at what I had to say then, and I stick by it, as follows:
“What is most important about the monuments, school names, and other memorials to the Confederacy and its leaders is to get the history right and to teach it properly, a job that, in my experience, is insufficiently done. In American history, particularly as it pertains to the slavery issue and the causes of the Civil War, we need to understand the U. S. constitutional debates, the Federalist Papers, the Lincoln/Douglas debates, Lincoln’s first inaugural address, the Dred Scot Supreme Court decision, the ideology of the so-called southern “lost cause”, etc. In Texas history as in the case of the other former Confederate states, there should be full disclosure of who these people are that are memorialized in our school names and on our capitol grounds and other public venues. And, in cases where the inscriptions on the memorials are incorrect or misleading, let’s add a plaque explaining the full story with all the warts. I’m all for a special commission to lead and supervise this effort.”
Some of these statues and other memorials deserve to be in museums or other places of display, with the proper inscriptions for the sake of history and its perspective, and yes, a few should simply be removed as inappropriate. But beyond getting the history straight, are we then going to airbrush all other visible symbols of the left’s notion of “white supremacy” out of history? Where do we stop? Columbus has already fallen to the mob in several cities; are Washington and Jefferson next? This is where long overdue leadership comes in and it must come from whatever elements of the liberal establishment that still have the moral authority and courage to say STOP! Then the leaders of our most authoritative institutions–corporate, foundations, universities, cultural, religious, and media–must come together, stand up to the mob, and bring order to the room. If they can’t or won’t assume this leadership, then we truly are facing a Jacobin moment, not to mention a major backlash that will not be pretty.
Re-read Will and Ariel Durant, Lessons in History, and tell us where we are.
Not much more need be said of the present mobocracy than your message of STOPPING and invoking reason into the discourse, nearly drowned by the wave of mindless revolution washing over our cities.
Those Americans among us who are tough must use the system in place to STOP all of this crap.
Jimmy good reflection
These words from Trump’s Mt. Rushmore speech resonated with me. I believe there are those who want a refounding that goes beyond the Confederacy.
“Make no mistake. This left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress.”
Jim, your ” Then the leaders of our most authoritative institutions–corporate, foundations, universities, cultural, religious, and media–must come together, stand up to the mob, and bring order to the room”
is unfortunately a vain hope.
We have seen this daily since the clearly coordinated looting-arson riots began: a failure to stand up for America.
A “Summer of Love” declares the Seattle mayor, though two black teenagers were shot dead in the CHOP. The NFL will have two anthems. College administrators at even our most liberal schools are falling all over themselves to placate the Woke. Do I have to say anything about Austin? The COVID death rate has been modest, yet the entire population has been oppressed “to flatten the curve” as if we we Soviets. The media is almost totally Leftist, and you have hope for a word from them?
The Democrat Party is our Bolshevik Party. From them we will get an American Lenin when/if they achieve the takeover of Senate and White House in November. The USA has long been dying; see Chief Justices Warren, now Roberts. What’s lacking is only the death certificate.
I agree, but if the liberal establishment won’t admit that their Great Society has failed, then we truly are in our Jacobin moment.
And just imagine what will happen if Trump achieves re-election!
A big time backlash from the hard right which won’t be pretty.
I would say we’re in the run up to the French Revolution.
Jim, thanks for this commentary. You are right once again.
This craziness will not stop until it’s proven not to work politically. That means that powerful forces must physically bring it to an end. Or the other side shows through polls and other means that it isn’t “working.”
So far, neither has happened. And it continues.
This could mean that our culture is changing and the traditionalists have lost or are losing. Or it might be that traditionalists are slow to respond but will, say, in the election. Or that a civil war has begun.
In any event, it’s one of the worst moments in our nation’s history and plenty scary.
Sandy – Thanks for your response in both places. I think that Dennis Prager is right–that this battle is between the hard left and the liberal establishment; the traditionalist right no longer has a seat at the table. And if the liberal leadership doesn’t wake up and admit that, after $23 trillion, much of the Great Society was a major cultural failure and take on the mob, then we are approaching civil war and the hard right will surface–not pretty.
Robert Spencer wrote in pjmedia.com on 7/3: ” I know a man whose entire neighborhood has begun displaying Black Lives Matter signs, at the invitation of Leftist activists who politely knocked on their door and asked them to do so. When they came to him, he readily agreed: He knew that unspoken subtext was that if he did not, things would not go well for him in the future.
That is life in the new Soviet America that has been germinating for years and has descended upon us suddenly.”
My experience tells me future behavior is best predicted by pass behavior. So much for universities, corporations, the media and liberal elites pushing back.