In October, Joe Biden told us America is headed into a “dark winter” and repeated that phrase Wednesday in his Inaugural Address. As America and Western nations head into a new Dark Age, ordinary citizens have increasingly little say over their own nations’ political decisions. And when voters do exert their preferences over the objection of globalist elites, the political establishment uses their control of the bureaucracy to hamstring and block every change until they can reassert control.
In last week’s column, many commenters took offense at what they believed was my call to surrender. While not advocating surrender, it is important to understand that the candidates who tacitly endorsed and openly assisted Antifa, BLM and other street-level fighters now fully control the federal government. Publicly expressing a difference of opinion from leftist orthodoxy was already a firing offense for most Americans, and we should be prepared for the personal cost of self-expression to increase. In fact, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor claims the government may punish you for even questioning the election, claiming that such opinion falls outside the bounds of protected speech. Now is an appropriate time for conservatives to take a step back, honestly assess the current situation and consider the way forward.
The first effort should be to disengage from major media and social media. They are intrusive and unhelpful. For conservatives, it seems the sole purpose of major media is to provide daily grist for outrage, existing only to churn out partisan garbage for the express purpose of outraging people and prompting clicks, shares and retweets. But our participation in this daily provocation is entirely voluntary. Turn it off. You do not have to give them your attention.
Many Americans who are not already banned from social media are realizing these sites are no longer worth the trouble and invasiveness. Have you ever discussed a product or service, only to pick up your phone to find advertisements for the exact product or service? A friend recently mentioned she was not wearing her smart watch as much anymore, even though she really liked it, explaining, “I’m just sick of being tracked and biometrically recorded.” Over the past year, nearly all of my colleagues have switched to encrypted messaging apps and secure, encrypted email. Use of a virtual private network (VPN) to mask one’s IP address is now standard. What is driving these and other measures to secure our communication? Americans are becoming more electronically discrete as a result of tech companies collecting information to sell, government mass data collection that reveals private communications and software apps that track and collect data. People are coming to realize they have been too trusting with their personal information and communications, and that trust has been abused.
These sites are not only tracking you and getting rich selling your data, they are increasingly dictating what you are allowed to say. The tech giants have become monstrously large through our own laziness. Not only have we allowed them to get rich by invading our privacy, but by allowing them to grow unchecked into the largest monopolies in world history, so wealthy and powerful that no politician is able to oppose them.
Social media startup Parler’s destruction demonstrates this unchecked power. It was permitted to exist only until a significant number of users who were banned from the mega sites switched to Parler. This reveals that the purpose of banning users is not simply to cleanse unapproved speech from their own sites. The point is to silence those users altogether. As waves of banned users flowed to Parler, the company’s mobile app was banned by Apple and Google. Within hours, fellow tech giant Amazon delivered the kill shot by announcing Parler’s entire site would be banned from their hosting service.
Besides disconnecting from major media and social media, it is imperative for conservatives to begin paying attention to politics at the lowest level, the exclusive territory of the left for decades. This inattention has allowed liberals to colonize even deeply conservative areas by winning nonpartisan offices and building political networks under the radar. This stealth political tactic was first brought to my attention during a discussion with a guest on my podcast right before the election. He shared his frustration that conservatives tend to ignore local races and allow liberals to win nonpartisan offices such as school board “…because she’s a PTA mom and she’s involved in the Lion’s Club, and nobody pays attention to those races, anyway. Next thing you know, they’ve changed the curriculum, and your kid is being taught to hate himself and hate America. Then, after she’s built some relationships and got some influence, she starts getting some funding from the Democratic Party and their donors and she’s running against your Republican incumbent, and the party is having to redirect money from other races just to hold on what should be a safe GOP seat.” These local elections are just the tip of the iceberg, because they usually come with the power to make appointments and spend public money.
Now is a great time for an honest self-assessment. Faith, health, finances, marriage, family. If any of these foundations are broken, do what is necessary to repair them. Do what you can to be as independent as possible, so that you can be helpful to those around you. When was the last time you talked to your neighbors face to face? Strong families and personal relationships make a better foundation for change than social media.
We have allowed our current situation to happen. The people who vote for patriotic, populist candidates tend to be people who work hard, take care of their families, pay their taxes, pay their bills and trust things will work out. The old saying “You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you” is showing its result. While good people were ignoring politics, except for every four years, the other side was building a monster.
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This article was originally published by the WND News Center.