Thanksgiving and why conservatives lose

So it was that time of year again.  Not the time when we're told how racist Thanksgiving is and how the holiday should be abolished while we put our emphasis on Indigenous Peoples Month. Nope.  Truth  be told, I heard and saw little of that this year.  The year 2021 seems to have been the high water mark of the Left's America hate, when that sort of thing was everywhere and around everything American.  This year it's been references to the strategically placed 'Native American Heritage and Indigenous Peoples Day', but not much else.  Which is like those atheists who post 'There is no God' around Christmas.  No clue if the election had anything to do with the dialed down level of such rhetoric this year.

No, I mean from the conservative side.  When I first became Catholic and was frequenting many a Catholic blog, most of which were right of center, I was rather taken by the posting around the first Thanksgiving.  As we went through RCIA, I remember one of the instructors saying that we Americans don't know the real first Thanksgiving, owing to our Protestant bias. Eh.  I though OK, fair call, but the holiday received is the one we received, and that's part of our shared heritage as Americans, so I don't feel I'll make any changes any time soon.  Plus, if most don't know the specifics, they are aware that Spain and Catholicism was here, it's just we became an Anglo-American society owing to the influence of Enlightenment era Protestant England and the victories and accomplishments thereof, so the traditional approach makes sense.

But that first year I realized this is not some off the cuff remark in an RCIA class.  That same approach was - everywhere on St. Blogs.  I lost track of how many blogs that year posted variations on 'The REAL First Thanksgiving' was Catholic.  And it still happens.  I don't think a year has passed that I haven't seen it on at least a couple Catholic blogs  Which, you know, is nothing other than a variant on 'It should really be Indigenous Peoples Day!'  If you think on it.

Oh, quibble all you want about leftwing agendas and the differences here, but ultimately what is being said is that the heritage we have in the Thanksgiving Holiday is flawed, and should be reframed, or rethought, or rebranded.  Which is all the Left is saying, just to other extremes.  

And that's why conservatives lose.  I've often said that at any time of the year, the Left can count on 1/3 of conservatives and those on the right jumping on board and siding with whatever the Left is pushing.  This goes way back.  One of my pet hypotheses is that America began its formal decline when we became convinced that America had no right to have a cultural and ethnic identity. That is, we could not be a WASP nation.  No matter how the nation attempted to allow others in and push equality and make sure everyone is given the same fair shake, we simply could not be a WASP nation by identity and culture and social majority.  

That was driven into me in elementary school, when I first hear the term WASP, and was taught how glorious is was that we were putting that identity behind us.  And first up on the list was not the Civil Rights legislation, or anything to do with Jim Crow.  It was Kennedy becoming the first Catholic president.  That was the wonderful chink in the WASP armor that signaled we were not longer merely a Protestant nation, we were a Christian one.  Much to the delight of Catholics then and now. 

Learning about that in fourth grade was, I'll admit, ironic, because by then we were already tossing not only our Christian ideals, but religious ideals in general, into the outer darkness and becoming a secularized, atheist state in all but church attendance.  Yet Catholics then as now cheered the idea of getting rid of that WASP, at least insofar as it meant Protestant, identity. The problem now is clear.  As I said, it didn't stop with erasing the Protestant. Nor did it stop with anything else.

Yet every year, on the Catholic internet, Catholics will join the Left in saying why Thanksgiving as we have it is at least flawed in our understanding. Most, of course, don't go so far as to say throw down the holiday and burn it in the turkey friers.  And there are those least those who are more conservative, who still celebrate and give credit to the traditional holiday and its more Protestant origins.    

But it's there nonetheless.  An 'us v. them' approach to the holiday that I've noticed the Left will always and forever condone and encourage and be grateful for, especially when done among those who otherwise oppose the Left.  Something you never see happen anywhere left of center I might add.  Which is why the Left wins.  Even amidst temporary setbacks.  Because whatever the Left doesn't learn, it will always know that in the future, conservatives will forever be bickering and dividing themselves, and if nothing else, the Left will be able to call that a win. 

Oh, and we won't even get into that odd 'the real lesson of Thanksgiving is that socialism never works.'  Not saying it does or doesn't, but the real lesson I grew up with until the rise of multi-cultural anti-Western dribble was that the Pilgrims put it all on the line and risked everything, even their lives, in this new land all because of their beliefs and convictions.  And when against hope they survived, they joined with the natives of the land and gave glory and thanks to God as the reason they survived.  Even in elementary school, we learned that.  So please stop with the 'enough of the God stuff Dave, it's about the economy stupid.'  Again, the first step in defeating an opponent is to stop helping the opponent.  Because anything that cuts through our side is always a boon for theirs.  

What we can expect to hear all day every day from the American news media for the next four years

 

My boys chuckled and said that in four days, they have heard more negative press coverage, more stories invoking scandal and controversy, more unfavorable analysis of what is actually happening with the incoming administration, than the total of the last four years combined.  

Not only that, but we caught a segment on one of the news shows pondering if Trump can live up to his campaigning and fix the economy as he promised.  We immediately asked fix what?  For three years the press insisted it's a mother beautiful economy.  Even on election night, on the ABC round table, they questioned why Americans just couldn't feel the awesomeness of our strong and robust economy.  Most likely something to do with many Americans not being able to afford shelter, fuel and groceries was our guess. 

But it's so nakedly obvious.  All pretense of not being ministries of lies and propaganda for leftwing globalism has long been tossed out the window by the media. Though it didn't work this time, just like it didn't work in 2016.   And my oldest son, no fan of Trump that he is, maintains that Trump's loss in 2020 was not some universal mandate for the Left.  He believes had Trump not told his supporters to sit on it and reject early voting, he might have won then.  

So the idea that the media and leftwing establishment has the power it had, even in 2014  - when BLM could change the appraisal of our history, leading to Talibanish purges of our historical monuments and memorials unhindered, and experts were trotted out to explain that Islamic terror attacks in America is the new normal, and that obviously boys should use girls bathrooms or the Fed will pull your funding - might even less true today than 2016.  

Though there is a positive, if you think on it.  Years and years ago, at the defunct Catholic and Enjoying It, Mark linked to another blogger who addressed the issue of Catholics voting.  At the time, Mark was moving toward his 'pox on both houses' position.  But the blogger stated that there was one unarguable reason to vote Republican.  Because as soon as Republicans are anywhere close to the majority, and certainly when they hold the White House, the press gets busy and begins telling us just how terrible things are in America and the world.  Mark agreed then, and I agree today, with the caveat that now the press isn't content with reporting the bad, but it will report that everything is bad whether true or not.

A couple old reflections for this Veteran's Day

Let's fight to keep what they served to protect

One here, remembering my family members who have gone before from an All Souls Day post, that includes some veterans on the list.  

And here, where I unpacked more my favorite veteran - my late dad, as well as others.  

Also here is a less pleasant one, a post dealing with Catholic BLM activist Gloria Purvis.  In it she claimed a celebrated war hero from WWII was never honored - I'll let you guess why she implies he was never honored.  Yet as readers of the comments section will note, and something I later verified myself, in a war that saw war heroes lifted up and celebrated for any reason possible, he was actually quite honored and celebrated in the day.  Far more than many heroes of the time. 

Whether partisan driven laziness or willful ignorance or whatever on Purvis's part, I don't know.  I'll take a charitable assumption and guess she just wasn't driven to find out the facts ahead of time (which was discoverable on none other than Wikipedia). And those who reposted her post back then with tears and sorrows for our racist nation assumed that she had done the required research.  

But given Veteran's Day as a day to remember those who served, and given that we saw such a repudiation of those like Purvis and their style of leftwing activism that seeks to tear down and besmirch what those veterans served for, it seems a fitting thing to link to on this day of remembrance. 

And just in case we need a reminder for those striving for goodness and virtue against the Left's alternatives:  

L to R: Not a Hero, Hero

Telling

That's deacon, teacher of theology and Catholic film critic Steven Greydanus. You catch that?  First, note the use of the euphemistic leftwing media endorsed term 'gender affirming care.'  That is, more honestly stated, sex change procedures, in the case of this discussion being used on minors. But you can't say that because the overwhelming majority of Americans don't approve of turning underage boys into girls and vice versa.  We won't even discuss how fringe the unpopular idea is that parents should be barred from being part of such life altering procedures.  

But note, he appears to have no problem with laws that would keep parents out of the loop as long as actual surgery isn't involved. That opens the door for all of those preliminary procedures involving puberty blockers and messing with their hormones and physical development in the name of transgender activism.  Which, from what I read, he is more than happy to support as well as keeping parents out of the loop in those cases.  That's hardcore left beyond what even some on the left will tolerate.  And, in a dose of irony, contrary to Pope Francis's opinions about the subject. 

Basically, Greydanus continues to demonstrate that he will completely follow the Left, embrace it entirely and defend it whenever possible.  If impossible to defend something, then briefly acknowledge it, downplay it, and attack anyone trying to make it an issue. I'm thinking of those who tried to get him to forcefully call out the leftists and non-white activists who were openly cheering Hamas and the worst single day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. We tried, but it got us nowhere.  

This shows that the leftwing bubble our corporate oligarchy has formed continues to preach to itself in the mirror, despite a growing number of anyone under the sun questioning some of its agendas.  As my son said, the problem Democrats have is that they will never be radical leftwing enough to appease the zealotry of the coastal leftwing fringes.  In trying to do so, however, they are becoming far more leftwing radical than most Americans of any stripe will tolerate.  

And what of the Greydanuses of the world, who appear willing to follow the left wherever it goes?  Again, thralls of the leftwing bubble, but increasingly out of touch thralls who have sworn themselves to a movement a growing number of people are beginning to doubt, suspect and even fear.