It’s Never Been Like This…Except It Has
“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay.
Oh I believe,
In yesterday.
Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be.
There’s a shadow hanging over me.
Oh yesterday,
Came suddenly.”
“I’ve never seen it this bad,” you say. The country is so divided. The constitution is being shredded. The Communists and Islamists are taking over. We have an authoritarian government. The judiciary is out of control.
I could go on. You may never have seen it this bad. But that doesn’t mean that before you formed memories, it had never been like this.
Because it has.
I subscribe to the theories of the Fourth Turning, espoused by William Strauss and Neil Howe in their 1991 book, Generations. Their theory stretches back as far as the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. But, within American history, it starts with the conflict that became the American Revolution in the 1770s. Four score and seven years later, the American Civil War overturned society and governance. 70-80 years after that came the depression and World War II. Now, another 80 years on, society is creaking and appears to be in the need of a reset. All of those Fourth Turnings represented a period when America was at a turning point and chose one direction over another.
Living through any of those 4th turnings was probably not fun. There were wars in all three. There was political, social and economic upheaval. Many saw their lives turned upside down for one reason or another.
But, we look back at all three now and say that the end result was good. The formation of a new nation out of the American Revolution was a good thing, even through the eyes of many Brits in later times. The Civil War ended slavery and established a stronger federal government and system. The depression and World War II led to the establishment of social safety nets (social security, etc.) and made the United States the preeminent power in the world.
Kind of like a needed surgery that is no fun but you emerge stronger afterwards.
Still, the surgery part is painful. And that is where we are right now. There is some solace, however, in knowing that none of this is new and that we survived it before. Niall Ferguson recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “If you hate Trump, maybe you just hate the times we live in. For Trump is the zeitgeist on a golf cart.” I think this is a wise comment. For those who think Trump is authoritarian, those of us on the other side of the political aisle thought the same about Biden and Obama. “Imperial presidencies,” we called them. The reality is that Trump is using similar tactics to those successfully employed by the left over the last 20 years. If leftists and never-Trumpers were honest, they would say, “well it was OK when Obama did it because he was doing it for good,” rather than suggesting the Trump is a king or is otherwise operating lawlessly. And of course, three of our most revered presidents, Lincoln, TR and FDR, took much more authoritarian actions than anyone in the 21st century has.
America is divided for sure. But this not new in any sense. The civil war was obviously our greatest and most consequential divide. But there were others. Divisions over the Vietnam war in the 1960s were pretty deep. There was a strong contingent in the United States that wanted us to enter World War I, on the side of Germany! Imagine that divide. During the American Revolution, a very large part of the population were “loyalists,” who opposed breaking from the British crown.
The judiciary is under pressure at the moment. Again, this is not new, particularly in the early years of this republic. The form and function of the judicial branch was very much in doubt and the subject of intense debate and violence. It was settled when Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall succeeded in shaping the court in his image, over the objections of presidents. On the left, you can see the new view that the judiciary is not supposed to interpret the law as written because those laws are racist. Instead, rule on the basis of what is “right.” That is not rule of law. That is rule of man. That is what communists and socialists want.
Speaking of socialists, they too have been around before. After losing several runs for political office as part of the socialist party, Upton Sinclair became the Democratic nominee for governor of California in 1934. He lost, but he was a “Democratic Socialist.” Does that sound familiar?
After the Bolsheviks took over Russia and formed the Soviet Union in and after 1917, there were many in the United States who looked on Lenin and Stalin as the model for the what America needed to be. Upton Sinclair was one of those along with Caesar Chavez, in whose name California created a holiday which I voted against while in the legislature. The communist influence in Hollywood and media in the 1950s that was revealed by McCarthy and Richard Nixon was real.
Socialism and communism do not work. As Sir Winston Churchill pointed out, they equally distribute misery, and that’s about it. But the allure of “equality” to many in the Democratic Party has existed for 100 years. It has been dormant for a while. But it is now back with avengeance, led by the likes of Bernie Sanders, AOC, Mamdani and with new ambition-motivated adopters like Gavin Newsom. “From each according to his abilities. To each according to his needs” sounds so right. It’s just that it collides with human nature and fails.
The point here is that these new socialist/communists do not espouse anything new. In fact, they are treading a well-worn path. They hope that this time, with the aid of media and Hollywood and with decades of having indoctrinated youth in university that they will prevail. Even in the presidential election of 1972, George McGovern proposed “redistributing the wealth.” Bernie Sanders must have been an acolyte.
There is one new wrinkle, however, and that is the introduction of Islam as a part of this coalition. Not that conflict with Islam is new, however. Our very first foreign war, after achieving independence, was against the Barbary states in the Mediterranean Sea. The Muslim Barbary pirates were capturing unarmed American merchant ships, stealing their cargo, and selling the seamen into slavery unless a ransom was paid. This very first foreign war involved most of what was a very small American navy at the time. We won this war when the US Marines, “on the shores of Tripoli,” raised the flag on foreign soil for the first time.
Interestingly, this war was not declared by Congress, although the Navy and Marines were dispatched, an invasion was launched and men and ships were lost in several years of fighting. So, the idea that Trump’s attacks on the Venezuelan or Mexican drug cartels has never been done before and is extra-constitutional is hogwash. Besides, every Democrat president since JFK has sent American military power overseas without congressional authorization.
But back to Muslims: We have been at was with them since the founding of the Republic. In addition to the Barbary Wars, the Islamic Ottoman Empire was with the Axis Powers in World War I. The Empire was broken up after World War I, after which Turkey remained neutral in World War II until late 1944.
America’s wars of the 21st century have all been involving Muslim countries. We tried installing Jeffersonian democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan. That failed. I agree with Charlie Kirk that Islam is not compatible with democracy. Turkey was secularizing some years ago and becoming truly democratic. But Erdogan has reversed that. This does not mean that we cannot have peaceful relationships with Muslim countries. We can. But America is a Judeo-Christian constitutional republic and cannot exist within Islamic law.
What I find very interesting, is the current love fest between the Islamic left and the Democratic left. The Democrat left embraces S2LGBTQii+++ and transgenderism in all of its iterations. Fundamental Islam executes people for being gay. Mamdani has said he does not think NYC police should be involved in domestic disputes. Is this because fundamentalist Muslims believe that women are chattel, and therefore men can do what they want with them?
At the moment, Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS- a real thing) is uniting the Islamic left with the socialist left. Also, remember that in the end, this is all about our culture. The left wants to take down Judeo/Christian western culture. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, I guess. But, if they succeed in getting power and changing the culture, LGBT Leftism and Islam cannot coexist.
So, why did I write all of this? If you are all upset because you think we are entering some new never before seen era of conflict in the United Stares, let not your heart be troubled. None of this is new. It has all happened before. Just in different ways.
That said, although the prior “Fourth Turnings” all turned out in ways we now see as positive, there is no guarantee that will happen this time. And if you were a loyalist in 1776, or a Confederate in 1861, or of German descent in 1918, or had all your money in the stock market in 1929, the times were challenging. All the prior ones also resulted in war.
But the ending of this Fourth Turning is not written yet. It could, but does not have to result in armed conflict. We also don’t know which side will prevail, or if the country will move forward or backwards as a result.
We must all engage in this fight to ensure that the bad guys don’t win this time. If they do, you can see what they will bring forth by looking at California. Get enough power and then change the rules so the other side can never get power again.
Do not get all hung up on this or that bill or action with which you don’t agree or have not agreed in the past. The stakes are too high. Pay attention to the big stuff. We can argue about how to go forward once Islamic communism has been defeated. Our culture and very way of life is at stake.
I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
Drive Fast & Live Free
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