November 30, 2024

So many issues dealing with “rights” get muddled up by bullies who throw out insults and punishments rather than arguments. You would think, for example, that the trans rights movement is about trans rights, right?

Actually, the movement is more about whether or not we have the right to debate it.

Take the recent case of assistant volleyball coach Melissa Batie-Smoose of San Jose State University. After supporting a Title IX complaint filed by one of her players for allowing a trans woman (biological male) to compete against women, the school placed her on indefinite leave. Why? Because she spoke up.

“Safety is being taken away from women,” the coach told Fox News. “Fair play is taken away from women. We need more and more people to do this and fight this fight because women’s sports, as we know it right now, will be forever changed.”

Now, you can agree or disagree with the coach’s viewpoint, but to punish her for expressing it?

This kind of bullying is symptomatic of the intolerance the country rejected on Nov. 5. So many voters moved to the right precisely because they became sick and tired of being talked down to by self-righteous, power-hungry scolds who crush any dissent.

Take the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) movement that has swept virtually every corner of American society. Because it cloaked itself in the noble clothes of “anti-racism,” the movement’s leaders had a ready-made, two-syllable weapon to silence critics: “Racist!”

As a result, as Rich Lowry notes in NRO, “A booming industry emerged: About $8 billion is spent each year on diversity trainings in the United States, and more than half of Americans report that their workplace has DEI trainings or meetings.”

To the chagrin of this woke industrial complex, however, a ray of hope has arisen for dissenters: a comprehensive new study confirms that DEI fosters racial and group animosity rather than tolerance.

The study, released last Monday by Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University, is devastating. As Lowry notes, “the researchers found that participants exposed to DEI materials were more likely to perceive prejudice where none existed and were more willing to punish the perceived perpetrators.”

Think about that: $8 billion poured annually into a movement that aims to fight racism and ends up doing the opposite.

But why should we be surprised? Common sense alone dictates that any movement that puts people into boxes based on skin color cannot end well. Students are taught that they’re either an oppressor or a victim, full stop. Remember that American Dream where people of all races, classes and ethnicities dreamed of moving up? That has been replaced by something that can’t move in any direction: your race.

Given the growing backlash, I wouldn’t be surprised if DEI honchos across the nation are now running scared. They must realize that we’re onto them, that they are the ones who are the true racists. As more and more people are exposed to this massive scam, it will get harder and harder for DEI indoctrinators to shut people up with their go-to insults.

Democrats lost on Nov. 5 in part because they got trapped by a woke insanity that grew out of control under their tent. Instead of isolating their extremists, they emulated their technique of arguing with insults, hoping that attacks like “Trump is Hitler” would win the day.

Instead of listening to Trump voters, in other words, they insulted their leader.

Had they listened to any of the 77 million Americans who rejected them, Dems would have realized the extent of their peril. People didn’t vote based on their ethnic or racial identities but on basic issues like protecting borders, reducing crime and the erosion of their paychecks. As pollster Frank Luntz has noted, the 2024 elections were not about skin color, gender or ethnicity but about “paycheck to paycheck” voters.

Maybe the Dems were simply too invested in a woke path that worships group identities over common sense. Perhaps their biggest blunder was to lump all Trump voters into one group, a blunder best exemplified by a teary-eyed Jimmy Kimmel on the night after Trump won. “It was a terrible night for everyone,” he railed, proceeding to list pretty much every institution and country and cause under the sun, before making sure to add, “everyone who voted for him too. You just don’t realize it yet.”

That kind of insufferable sanctimony speaks to an utter inability to imagine how anyone could possibly have different views from yours. That’s why woke bullies silence their critics with insults, regardless of the cause— they can’t conceive of any dissenters having any legitimacy.

Democrats are now paying the price for allowing this dogmatic insanity to go so far. To regain their mojo moving forward, they will need to renounce the woke virus that has infected their party and replace it with a huge dose of “paycheck to paycheck” common sense.

That will be good not just for their party and their country but for the many voters they lost.