Two hundred and fifty years after the American Revolution began, we are again at war, and Los Angeles is ground zero.
We have been in the prequel of the conflict for some time. In 2019, the late political scientist Angelo Codevilla argued that the United States was in a “cold civil war” caused by the “country party” (Main Street Americans) and the “ruling class” (the bureaucracy, Hollywood, Wall Street, higher education, etc.) living in two separate worlds. Class and social divisions have always existed, but the difference this time is that the two Americas are as contradictory as night and day. Previously, a common American identity had usually been able to bridge the divides, but this time even that lowest common denominator was smashed thanks to leftist pieties and projects such as the 1619 Project and “land acknowledgements.”
The summer of 2020 was the first real warming of Codevilla’s cold conflict. Postmodern Mongols burned our cities, inflicted $2 billion in damages, and were responsible for at least 25 people dying. All to ostensibly “fight racism.” But so-called “autonomous zones” — the most infamous being Seattle’s Capitol Hill Occupation Protest (“Chop”), where armed thugs guarded their “borders,” complete with signs saying “Leaving the United States”), and honest-to-God warlords ruled the roosts — exposed the truth: This was not about racism, police brutality, or George Floyd. It was about waging war against the United States.
The intifada in Los Angeles, Austin, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and even Omaha is the sequel to the summer of Floyd. And, once again, to paraphrase the late David Horowitz, the supposed issue is not the issue. You don’t change hearts and minds by throwing concrete blocks, Molotov cocktails, and industrial fireworks at law enforcement, or, by burning cars and defacing public buildings. You do those things as a show of force — to intimidate and make your enemies accept your demands. Which, not coincidentally, is exactly how Carl von Clausewitz, the 19th-century German military officer, defined war: an act of violence intended to compel an opponent to fulfill your will. In this case, the demand is the death of American sovereignty.
The ultimate proof is the flags. Protestors are flying foreign flags while burning American flags. Many have pointed out the illogic of illegal aliens and their comrades burning the flag of the country they ostensibly want to stay in while waving the flags of the countries to which they refuse to return, or have never even entered. On that surface level, it is illogical. But beneath the surface, it makes a terrible sense. Flags are symbols — shortcuts to realities. They are symbols of a country, her people, history, and beliefs.
Think of a baseball game where thousands of people, most of them strangers, all stand, remove hats, and pay respect to the flag. Thugs waving the Mexican flag is not just a case of ethnic Mexicans expressing pride at being Mexicans. It is a declaration of war — physical and metaphysical — against our country and everything she is and stands for. The fact that these people are monied and organized — some by China — just compounds this conclusion.
Americans Must Respond
What can the average American do besides Facebook posts and sharing memes on Twitter?
First, call a spade a spade. Too many on the right are leery of calling what we are in a war because we understand what crossing that Rubicon means. It means that the time for talk and persuasion is over, just like it was after Pearl Harbor, or when the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter, or when George III refused to even glance at the Olive Branch Petition. It means the time has come for do or die, conquer or be conquered. But our discomfort will not change the left’s hatred for us or the fact that we and they can no longer live together, our beliefs and worldviews being as wide as those between Americans and Britons in 1776 and Northerners and Southerners in 1861. The truth will set us free and give us access to the right tools for this job. Comforting lies will only hogtie us.
Second, we will have to prepare for war in the right way. Unlike the Soviet Union or the Confederacy or the British Empire, the left today is less a giant and more of a bubonic plague, jumping from host to host, infecting society. To beat that will require two things. First is legislation, both at the federal and state level. Make wearing masks illegal at public places except theatres and costume parties. Challenge and reverse Texas v. Johnson, which made burning our flag a form of “free speech.” Punish the businesses that hire illegal aliens. Put a 90 percent tax on the money illegal immigrants wire back to their countries of origin. Make the nongovernmental organizations and billionaires funding insurrections accountable for their destruction.
Next, go after the left’s centers of gravity, the wells from which they draw their power. DOGE has already started this process, but when every school board can be a hive for the left’s mind rot, related spending cuts must be accelerated and intensified. School boards and districts that promote the 1619 Project have to be taken over. Libraries that push DEI and the LGBT agenda will have to be purged. Local chapters of charities working for the destruction of the country will have to be ripped out. Churches that put illegal aliens ahead of the Gospel will have to be pushed to demographic death.
Third, we must create relentless pressure on the left in our own towns and cities. This is exactly what the left has done in entertainment, where men are always portrayed as idiots, nearly every couple is bi-racial, and gay pairs outnumber straight couples. The point was to crush all opposition to the left by making everyone who dissented feel like he was alone. Because the right, at this time, does not have control over the culture, how this strategy manifests will be markedly different from how the left does it. Regardless of how it takes shape, the goal is to make the left so uncomfortable in our towns and cities and counties that they will pack up and move. The process will then repeat itself until the left has no space left. And when that happens, it will be easier to make the left acknowledge defeat from the bottom of their hearts, which is what Miyamoto Musashi said victory looked like.
Finally, we will have to have the willpower for the long fight. As L.A. and the other cities make clear, the left is not going to go gently into its good night. Not only because they want power above all else but because they are betting on us tiring of the conflict and throwing in the towel before they do. It took us 100 years to reach this point and we will not dig ourselves out over a weekend or even an administration. Prepare for the long haul. And want to win.
