In 409 AD, the Visigoth King Alaric began a siege that would lead to the sacking of Rome. It was the first time in 800 years that Rome had been occupied by a foreign army. Alaric didn’t stay long, choosing to move further south into Italy to continue sacking and pillaging. But another Germanic tribe, the Vandals, followed the Visigoths and put the final nail in the western Roman Empire’s coffin in 455. Most history books mark the fall of Rome as the beginning of the European Dark Ages that lasted from 455 until about 1000 AD during which Europe experienced economic, cultural and intellectual decline.
In the 13th century Baghdad was one of the largest cities in the world. It supported a library called The House of Wisdom that rivaled the great library in Alexandria and contained thousands of collections. The Mongols arrived in 1258 and sacked the city, murdering hundreds of thousands of residents. They threw so many parchments into the Tigris River that it was said the river turned black from the ink. This event is considered the end of the Golden Age of Islam – one in which the Middle East was a global leader in education, technology and culture.
The falls of Rome and Baghdad are examples of advanced civilizations being overrun by much less sophisticated groups, primarily to plunder the wealth those civilizations had accumulated. Unfortunately, when less sophisticated groups plunder more sophisticated groups, it often leads to a period devoid of continued economic and cultural growth. One could argue that both Rome (Italy) and Baghdad (Iraq) have floundered ever since those pivotal defeats.
In 2020-24, Kayla Aliese Carter, Racial Equity Officer for the city of College Park, Maryland, frequently posted black liberation ideology on social media including phrases like, she is working with other activists to “plan how we will eat, live and grow after we burn it all down,” “Police are the White Supremacists, “and “Why do Black people always have to rationalize our violence and anger?” Carter represents a minority of African Americans who favor a violent revolution to dismantle American societal structures and systems, replacing them with one which doesn’t resemble western values in any way. “I can’t wait for society to collapse so MY ideology can rise from the ashes!” Carter posted. Carter and her ilk consider themselves “at war with Colonialism.”
Stanford University student Hamza El Boudali recently called for the assassination of Joe Biden blaming him for what he believes is genocide occuring in Gaza. He attempted to soften his remarks by saying that this should not be done by a vigilante, but by a military, in the same way America deals with terrorists with dark skin.
While the number of left-wingers who want an armed revolution is small, the number who align themselves with Carter’s dream of dismantling the remnants of a Colonial system is much larger. Likewise, the number of left-wingers who would agree with El Boudali’s wish to see Joe Biden dead is very small, but the number who agree with him that Gazans are victims of genocide (which is also linked to Colonialism) is also much larger.
I don’t fear a violent overthrow and occupation of America by a foreign enemy. What I do fear is a sacking of America at the ballot box, resulting from a growing popularity of ideologies that are antithetical to our constitution and the foundation upon which the American experiment was built. However, I am also optimistic. Here are some trends that give me hope:
Anti-squatting laws. Florida just passed an aggressive property rights bill that makes it easier for property owners to evict squatters. I suspect other red states will soon follow. Contrast this with states and municipalities that are heavily influenced by progressives, like San Francisco and New York. In these progressive enclaves the squatter seemingly has more rights than the owner – just ask Adele Andaloro, who was arrested for confronting squatters in her property in Queens, NY. Property rights are a key component of western civilization and is loathed by those who want to dismantle it and replace it with public (government) ownership. Letitia James’ threats to seize Donald Trump’s assets to pay a fine that doesn’t go to a victim, but rather to the government, should strike fear in the hearts of Americans whether they love Trump or hate him. Even more frightening is that the face of progressivism in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has loudly supported the A.G.’s efforts to seize the former President’s assets.
School Choice initiatives. The growing popularity of school choice options such as vouchers, charter schools and home schooling is a positive trend. As I mentioned in an earlier article, school choice is going to be critical factor in helping young people learn to read, write and think rather than be indoctrinated as social justice activists. Progressives don’t want smart kids, they want obedient kids. Perhaps the best outcome from the COVID years was the outrage directed at public school closures. Randi Weingarten did more to help the school choice movement than anyone in the 21st century.
The end of DEI as an institution. Declaring DEI dead is certainly premature, but seeing corporations start to distance themselves from DEI as it evolved in the past two decades (after the E for Equity was added to D&I) is encouraging. It seems that perhaps the country is finally trying to have a conversation about whether we stand for equal opportunity or equal outcomes. The DEI folks have tried to shut down any such national dialogue. But ultimately it is of national interest to understand the difference between breaking down barriers that limit opportunities from creating barriers to ensure equal outcomes.
Pushback against ESG. Larry Fink, CEO of investment management giant BlackRock, was a leading proponent of using Environmental, Social and Governance policies to evaluate companies in addition to their financial performance and market potential. Ultimately, companies who do not embrace and promote progressive ideologies like extreme climate change may have difficulty accessing capital. I recently had a sales manager show me an application that his firm had to complete in order to do business with a large client who was following BlackRock’s lead. In order to be an approved vendor, he had to provide policies related to LGBTQ, practices related to environmental sustainability, etc. Not so long ago, all the client cared about was could the vendor deliver the products or services, were they using illegal workers or illegally obtained materials, and were they financially viable. BlackRock finally admitted that pushback against this type of overreach has caused them to rethink that initiative.
Rethinking De-fund the Police. Despite the progressive narrative that police protect the rich from the poor and the white from the non-white, urban working poor are realizing that police also protect law-abiding poor from criminals in their own neighborhoods. Haiti is a horrible example of what happens when the criminals become more powerful than law enforcement. The government has broken down and various criminal gangs are asserting their political authority. Russia is another example where the state essentially behaves as a large organized crime syndicate, with bribes required at all levels and political dissidents are eliminated. Our system of having law enforcement divided between local police and sheriffs, state and federal agencies has historically been much more effective than having a national police force or policing by the military as most communist or heavily socialist countries do. The reason humans begin banding together as tribes at the very beginning was for security. And providing the law abiding security from the lawless is a core function of government. As progressives have pushed that shoplifting, looting or property crimes in general are not crimes, the consequences have been ugly. Seeing businesses shutter or move out of those communities is awful, but it has opened some eyes.
Rethinking Homelessness. The recent revelation that California can’t account for $24 billion in funds that were designated for addressing the homeless crisis and a new bi-partisan bill in that state that bans certain homeless encampments and incentivizes the use of shelters illustrates a general re-thinking on how to best serve these people with mental illness and substance abuse issues. It appears that “advocate” groups sprung up in urban areas have been awarded millions for their services, and those millions just disappeared with no accountability and no evidence of positive outcomes. Allowing drug addicts and the mentally ill to sleep and even die in the streets is cruel. We can do better.
In summary, I am optimistic, but do fear that western values are eroding under the constant attack. The hesitancy of many traditional Democrats to condemn the anti-semitism occurring on college campuses plus the eagerness of some progressives to support those campus protests that include Hamas flags and chants of “Death to America” is chilling. The Claudine Gay plagiarism scandal at Harvard opened the door for peer scrutiny of the lack academic rigor in many “studies” programs at universities nationwide. That the progressive movement is so comfortable with low academic standards and shoddy scholarship points to a declining influence of the American academy.
At some level, the Occupy movements, Black Lives Matter, DEI and the Free Palestine movements each have their roots in the same anti-capitalist, Marxist idealogical base. If these movements gain momentum and become dominant in America as they have on university campuses and in progressive enclaves like California, we will surely drift into a modern version of the Dark Ages when our economic, political and cultural influences on the world wane.