Progressives won the culture war by turning that which was sincere and wholesome into something lame and embarrassing. But then they became uncool. And that s when they lost their grip on power and lost their cultural sway.
00:01:45.540The art, style, and music they produce set the expectations and aspirations of the rest of the nation.
00:01:52.160In the United States, progressives secured the Mandate of Heaven by fusing the unprecedented material abundance of post-war America with cultural deconstruction.
00:02:03.520The United States was relatively untouched by a global war that decimated the economic and military capacity of Europe's great powers.
00:02:12.500Only one nation, the USSR, could even hope to challenge America's military might, and the United States stood as the economically dominant global player.
00:02:22.480America's mighty industrial capacity and financial sector turned it into the center of commerce while ensuring the nation would become the leader of the new post-war global order.
00:02:33.980A complicated network of financial and political alliances were about to connect the entire world through communications and commerce, and America would get to define their architecture.
00:02:44.240As Red America secured the nation's military and financial dominance, progressives shrewdly maneuvered for control of its cultural institutions.
00:02:55.020The vast size of the United States had always allowed for many different regional cultures, but that was about to change.
00:03:02.760Radio, television, and a push to standardize public education through a shared curriculum meant that for the first time, every American shared a set of formative cultural experiences and the left oversaw all of the relevant organizations.
00:03:18.340College attendants also experienced a rapid expansion in post-war America, quickly becoming a critical institution for any promising young talent looking to climb the economic and social ladder.
00:03:30.700The next generation of ruling elites were heading to college, and they were learning at the feet of a faculty that would be dominated increasingly by radical progressives.
00:03:40.560The left's institutional assault targeted any form of tradition in the United States.
00:03:46.100As soon as the nation had forged a shared culture, progressives began deconstructing it.
00:03:52.120Religion and family were coded as low class, while transgression became the highest goal of all artistic expression.
00:04:00.140Instead of affirming the value of tradition, the continued economic and military dominance of the United States only seemed to embolden and validate the progressive cultural revolution.
00:04:11.120The fall of the Soviet Union secured America's status as the most dominant global force, both militarily and economically.
00:04:20.060While the left began its cultural siege with a harsh critique of both capitalism and the military, the movement slowly changed its tune while acquiring control of the boardroom and the Pentagon.
00:04:32.800Suddenly, Wall Street and the armed forces were woke, and it seemed like nothing could stop complete domination by our progressive overlords.
00:04:41.120But then the most horrible tragedy that could possibly befall a ruling class struck progressives.
00:05:03.300That works fine if you're simply deconstructing what came before.
00:05:08.120But once you gain power and you need to maintain some shared moral vision that allows you to rule, you've painted yourself into a corner.
00:05:16.580Generations of Americans have been trained to see the sincere communication of values as low status, and this proved a critical weakness for progressive elites.
00:05:26.180We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.