An invincible summer: The power of courage in local politics
Sometimes the local news cycle feels like a never-ending winter. Upright free speech is penalized for being offensive (as with the aggressive censureship of college district Trustee Reynoso), while discriminatory remarks are forgiven for being free speech (think: Los Gatos's walkback from disciplining Planning Commissioner Clark's anti-white remark). Negativity reigns, while hope appears to shy away. In Commentary, Bari Weiss exhorts free thinkers to retain courage and loudly reject untruths. To demand gov't transparency across the board. To push back against injustices with the heat of a bold, unstoppable, unyielding summer.
The Woke Revolution has been exceptionally effective. It has successfully captured the most important sense-making institutions of American life: our newspapers. Our magazines. Our Hollywood studios. Our publishing houses. Many of our tech companies. And, increasingly, corporate America. ...
How did we get here? There are a lot of factors that are relevant to the answer: institutional decay; the tech revolution and the monopolies it created; the arrogance of our elites; poverty; the death of trust. And all of these must be examined, because without them we would have neither the far right nor the cultural revolutionaries now clamoring at America’s gates.
But there is one word we should linger on, because every moment of radical victory turned on it. The word is cowardice.
The revolution has been met with almost no resistance by those who have the title CEO or leader or president or principal in front of their names. The refusal of the adults in the room to speak the truth, their refusal to say no to efforts to undermine the mission of their institutions, their fear of being called a bad name and that fear trumping their responsibility—that is how we got here. ...
If cowardice is the thing that has allowed for all of this, the force that stops this cultural revolution can also be summed up by one word: courage.... Courage means, first off, the unqualified rejection of lies. Do not speak untruths, either about yourself or anyone else, no matter the comfort offered by the mob. And do not genially accept the lies told to you. If possible, be vocal in rejecting claims you know to be false. Courage can be contagious, and your example may serve as a means of transmission.
This article originally appeared in Commentary. Read the whole thing here.
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