Last week's webinar "Wealth Inequality - Disparity Driving Discontent" featured a simulated interview by KEI of Perry Kinkaide about Wealth Inequality followed by the viewers discussion of the results of the US election, results that have empowered the government to make change for resolving the frustrations of millions. The webinar's recorded video can now be viewed HERE Please consider Subscribing to the KEI Network's You Tube channel to receive access to future videos. - Editor
Global Chaos - "Progressivism" A Prime Driver
- Why Trump Won Big
The following article contrbuted by Robert McGarvey was published HERE by Troy Media Nov 07, 2024 under the title: "Trump’s victory - a stark rejection of woke 'progressivism'".
Robert McGarvey is an economic historian and former managing director of Merlin Consulting, a London, U.K.-based consulting firm. Robert’s most recent book is Futuromics: A Guide to Thriving in Capitalism’s Third Wave.
The re-election of Donald Trump has sent shock waves through the world; it really shouldn’t have. Underlying all the excitement about electing a first ‘black’ female president, the economy, and Trump’s sometimes-erratic behaviour lay the real reasons. This election was a referendum on the 21-century progressive agenda, as defined and implemented by the Obama - Biden - Harris Democrats.
Harris’s real weakness to many traditional Democratic voters, including increasing numbers of black men, Hispanics and most Muslim voters, is her close (but well disguised) commitment to a Woke-feminist progressivism. Trumps victory is many things, but it is most importantly a wholesale repudiation of the Woke doctrine, as well as its radical means and ends.
But, why is Woke-ism so unpopular? Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination". Sounds innocent enough, certainly a desire to raise awareness of, and potentially to reduce racial prejudice and discrimination has been a preoccupation of liberals in the United States for many decades.
However, for Woke progressives and their powerful allies, American society is a not an honourable institution; it is structurally oppressive, riddled with ‘hate’ and repression. For modern progressives, the very presence of social disparities, economic inequality or a lack of ‘adequate’ representation confirms in their minds the certainty of systemic subjugation of ‘marginalized’ peoples.
As a consequence, modern progressives have divided humanity into exploited victims (people of color, various marginalized groups) and nasty oppressors. Belief in this narrative is now so widespread that a great reversal has taken place, as identity (Caucasian), success and power, alone or in combination are evidence of guilt; corroborating proof of an elitist conspiracy.
How does this manifest itself in practice? Consider the phenomena of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). DEI was sold to the public as an extension of traditional liberal goals that seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people. DEI’s Woke rationale, however, essentially demonizes America and it’s oppressive ‘white’ identity. ... continued below
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84258596166?pw..
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84258596166?pw..
In practice DEI provides legitimacy for the wholesale replacement of dangerous oppressors from administrative roles in modern institutions. Diversity, for example, has been redefined by progressive activists as ‘anything but white’; Equity has been redefined to legitimize blatant inequality; Inclusion, needless to say, has become a license for racial-based exclusion.
What, you might ask, is going on? What is happening when a climate activist like Greta Thunberg joins forces with western campus activists in chanting hateful slogans calling for the destruction of the state of Israel? It is a total reversal in traditional social values that links so many of the popular anti-establishment causes together.
Why would a population of climate activists align with ‘Queers for Palestine’ to support Hamas in the middle-eastern conflict? Simple, Israel is associated in the progressive mind with the oppressor class, the Palestinians - whatever their crimes and murderous intentions - are fellow oppressed. The ultimate goal of both parties is to smash the ‘oppressors’ and destroy the status quo. Hence the alliance of virtue between progressives and Hamas, and the implicit (or explicit) support for the atrocities committed.
Woke-ism was only a nuisance and not yet a social evil while it stewed bad-temperedly in the gender-study backrooms of universities. However, today this virulent ‘cult of oppression’ has migrated from its isolated ivory towers. Critical Theory and its Woke narratives have now gained critical mass through its takeover of institutional authority; there has been a near universal Woke appropriation of academia, public school administration, professional governing bodies, Hollywood casting studios, and - dangerously - the mainstream media.
There is a strong liberal tradition in the United States particularly among newly arrived immigrant groups who, on the whole, are delighted to have escaped tyranny and oppression at home. These people know what real oppression looks like and it does not resonate with what the Woke progressives, and by extension the Harris Democrats are implying.
At the end of the day, Trump for all his faults (and there are many) struck a cord with core American values. Americans, particularly wage earners have awoken to a world under Biden’s administration of unaffordable housing, galloping food and energy prices that are driving them to the brink and, more importantly, in their minds, robbing them of their future.
The Trump backlash was astonishing, it is something the Liberal Party in Canada might want to consider in choosing their new leader - possibly before the same fate awaits Canadian progressives.
We are always interest to learn of your perspectives and consider articles and webinars from others in the Network.