Heartland America Will No Longer Be So Easily Silenced Amid Leftist Chaos
By: Bob Ehrlich
The resistance of Heartland flyover America to the Biden regime and to woke cancel culture has only just begun to fight. From local school boards to city councils to county supervisors to the states resistance is on! Whether it’s mandates or CRT or increased taxes or more regulations or immigration or the debacle in Afghanistan, we the people are standing up for our rights. We will not check our freedoms and liberty at all. We will not shut up and obey. We will resist and defy to their faces and openly mock the secular progressive bi coastal elites and Biden voters to their faces and laugh at their attempts to silence us or curtail our freedom. Viva the constitution and the rule of law legal under it. 1776 rules!
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Bob Ehrlich: Heartland America Will No Longer Be So Easily Silenced Amid Leftist Chaos
Op-Ed
Protesters burn an American flag in Portland, Oregon, on Nov. 4, 2020, during a Black Lives Matter demonstration. (Kathryn Elsesser - AFP / Getty Images)
By Bob Ehrlich September 17, 2021 at 12:16pm
I run into a wide range of political viewpoints during my public appearances. Some folks are hardcore, right or left. Others identify as “establishment Republicans” or traditional Democrats.” But the most interesting — and infuriating — are those folks in the middle.
You know them by their disgust with both parties, a seemingly permanent state of affairs. They relish their self-described resistor ways, steering clear of the “Christian right” and the “progressive left.” Their internal governors invariably point them to the middle, to a supposedly safe place where they can express their dismay with the purists on both sides of the aisle.
Their favorite term is “compromise.” And they find it incomprehensible that this lofty goal is so difficult to achieve.
For them, the Senate’s recent $1 trillion infrastructure bill represents the holy grail, as nineteen Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in the cause of (at least partially) repairing our transportation infrastructure.
But infrastructure may be the only policy win for moderates in this Congress. Any more controversial issue stands little chance of bipartisan cooperation.
Still, it is too easy to attribute the present dysfunctional state of affairs to “Rs” vs. “Ds.” Political parties in free democracies have always fought (often harshly) over policy differences. It is why we have elections.
The more immediate reason why “getting to yes” is so difficult in this era has far more to do with a cancel culture-motivated assault on free speech and expression .
Indeed, what had begun as systemic repression of speech on campus has now metastasized into the wider culture. Today, a majority of Americans recognize that expression of opinion — especially conservative opinion — can lead to public shaming and worse.
Not a day goes by without a storyline about the suppression of free speech somewhere in the world. This is where we all find ourselves, captive to an ascendant screaming army of “doxxers” trained and indoctrinated in American institutions of higher learning. And offenders please note: Sincere apologies for past transgressions are neither requested nor accepted.
The army of righteous indignation reserves a special animus for those who knowingly engage in “un-woke” thought, speech and deed. And it is not just directed to those of us who fall on the conservative side, but any and all who resist progressivism’s newly hatched transformative language and “values.”
And so professional sports leagues and big business and Wall Street and Silicon Valley and Hollywood and the legacy media have teamed up to limit the speech and thought of the approximately 74 million voters who supported Donald J. Trump, boo kneeling football players, resist progressive school boards, demand border security, expose the terrible inconsistencies of the CDC and WHO, protest censorship and reject the Biden administration’s rationale for America’s grossly negligent exodus from Afghanistan.
But recent events reflect a growing dissatisfaction within flyover country. It seems middle America will no longer be so easily silenced when it comes to border chaos, big-city violence, indoctrination in lieu of teaching, ’70s-style inflation, and edicts issued by lockdown-happy authoritarian executives. You can bet this large (and growing) opposition is not ready to “move on” from our Afghanistan debacle either.
And so a displeased commonsense majority begins to re-engage, a necessary prerequisite if reasonable accommodation is to return to our public discourse. But the re-engagement is unlikely to please the aforementioned middle-of-the-roaders. Indeed, this resistance is more along the lines of “less compliance, more defiance” toward those who intend to limit their First Amendment freedoms.
Quite simply, these good folks see “less free” as too high a price to pay for social accommodation.
At its core, America should be defined by diverse opinions, individual liberties and a most unusual experiment in melting-pot assimilation. None of these fundamental values can be allowed to pass quickly into the night. They are worth fighting for, which means the time for accommodation has passed.
The bottom line: Cultural adjustment and mutual respect of the type that moderates so desperately desire does not work when one side believes it exclusively owns the moral high ground. Accordingly, our national discourse will remain dysfunctional (with an abundance of unconcealed resentment) until enough people figure this one out.
Free speech is one aspect of the culture war that we cannot afford to lose, the importance of just getting along notwithstanding.
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Cartoons of the day:
What makes me laugh is that you don’t realize that what you are complaining about is exactly what you want to force on everyone, except your version. Husker, you are a brutal totalitarian at heart.
That’s wrong. We are live and let live. We don’t care how people in bicoastal urban centers choose to live and run their localities. We simply expect your side to not care about the choices we make in our communities, counties, and states. We are all in on resistance is less compliance. It is the secular progressive left that are open totalitarians. Our resentment directed at the coasts and their urban elites is no longer concealed and is now stronger than their disdain and open contempt for our heartland flyover lifestyle and culture.
No one ever accused totalitarians of consistency.
It is worth noting that Trumpist-Fascists cannot conceal their hatred and rage. We saw it on full display during their January 6th insurrection, shattering windows in the U.S. Capitol, screaming for the hanging of Mike Pence, setting up gallows to enforce their murderous intent. Their hatred and contempt for the police was also readily apparent, attacking officers with poles carrying Trump banners, spraying them with toxic chemicals.
The victimization propaganda is also interesting. Since normal people don't believe any of their ridiculous nonsense, you have to wonder if they are just trying to convince themselves.
What sad and miserable lives Trumpist-Fascists must live.
Lol said every totalitarian ever.
I think he knows full well.
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”....Ronald Reagon.
Ronald Reagan would despise Trumpism. He would undoubtedly discern its totalitarian/authoritarian nature and reject it completely.
Can anyone imagine Reagan paying homage to a brutal dictator/former KGB agent like Putin the way Trump did?
Ronald Reagan might despise the state of California he once governed. The country has changed a lot since the 80's.
People and politics haven't. He would have just moved to Florida.
There is no way that Ronald Reagan would despise California. California is a vibrant, dynamic, economic powerhouse. Reagan would revel in it.
Yes, the country has changed a lot since the 80's. The Republican Party that Reagan led has become a right-wing extremist personality cult dedicated to the subversion of democracy.
Actually they have and dramatically so.
It's a place that the middle class have fled. So much so, that the state lost representation.
Completely true.
He would be disappointed, certainly.
What has changed is almost instant access to information and communicating like this.
What may have been
and should have been
once limited to the government, universities and the military is now common place for anyone
with any level of education to peruse on the internet and spin to their hearts desire.
Remember the halcyon days of waiting for Newsweek or Life to "hit the stands" or the barber shop?
To get the professional investigative reporters in depth assessments?
TV is only 71 years old. Radio, 125 years old.
Now, something happens and within ten minutes
millions of self deluded experts are online telling us who is responsible
and how they should be punished.
People are just the smartest of the stupid animals on this planet.
Be afraid.
That is false. The middle class has not "fled". Some middle class people have moved out, but California has always had people moving in and moving out. As the economic climate continues to improve, things will improve for the middle class.
The 2020 census showed that California experienced its slowest growth rates ever during the 2010s. The slowdown cause the loss of a seat in the House of Representatives, but it is part of a decades-long trend.
“Despite the popular notion of unhappy Californians leaving the state en masse, our robust research shows there is actually no exodus,” said Thad Kousser, chair of the political science department at UC San Diego and the lead researcher of the most recent survey.
This author sheds light on the migration issue. While he refers to the "California exodus", he most certainly does not put it in apocalyptical terms.
We are in full decline. I have an interesting video from 1962. At the time Alabama Governor George Wallace, the leading segregationist, went to UCLA to critique the pending Civil Rights Law.
What is interesting is not what he says, but the civil discourse that took place that day. The man who introduced him indicated that many disagreed with him, yet please note how civil the student body was when somebody many of them opposed spoke:
59 years ago and how civil we were!
No? And Wolverines make good house pets/s
I believe the factual analysis, not right-wing propaganda.
Or to Texas.
And if I were younger or older with no living older family left, I’d likely leave too. Fortunately I live in one of the inland areas where a working to middle class suburban to rural lifestyle with good schools, parks, and hospitals is still happening. Where the vote to recall Newscum was 2-1 in favor.
How did we lose congressional representation in the House if not for small business and middle class flight?
53 years ago I was terrified of Rizzo's Philadelphia police and whether I would get arrested for my hair being too short or too long.
And he was a Democrat.
There's no need to be civil because of fear.
That is not something to value.
Is Redding hollowing out and turning into a ghost town?
Read the links I provided.
You were terrified by Rizzo and that justifies this?
Justifies what?
A return to the good old days when locked and loaded National Guardsmen shot and killed American students
on 2 American college campuses in 1970 under Nixon?
Or jump forward to 1983 Beirut where our USMC guards weren't allowed to have a round in the chamber
and a terrorist drove a truck bomb straight through 3 checkpoints and layers of barbed wire into the lobby of the
BLT building killing 241 Americans under Reagan.
Those were the good old days when Reagan found an excuse to bomb Tripoli and Benghazi hoping to kill Quadaffy
in 1986 but only managed to kill 30 soldiers 15 civilians and a member of Quadaffy's family, a daughter maybe?
Ahh the good old days...
What link? The answer is no.
You seem deeply invested in trying to prove they weren't.
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"
Nah, just invested in living a normal life without all the sky is falling BS by the self appointed judges
of appropriate patriotic thinking.
See Comment 3.1.9.
You should have invested in Moderna a year ago.
I did and sold three times. Did very well, thanks.
I held it all that time. Stocks do tend to test our resolve!
test yer own, I buy low sell high and wait. It plunged two more times and I sold when I believed it topped out.
I was very pleased with the income and reinvested in different things that have done better.
Ironic that the market did very poorly today except for a few like the New York Times.
I’m thinking it’s a good time to get out and go to cash, precious metals, and commodities that reflect inflation. Maybe get back in if the the tax increases and the 3.5 trillion “human stimulus” are finally defeated. I won’t be in at all the moment the Dow drops under 30k.
Well, the last crash was caused when McConnell demanded loyalty and the following day
20 something Republican Senators broke rank and did the right thing.
All of the losses were eventually recouped, but the political dramatics were unnecessary.
Stabbing the economy in the balls for politics is why I switched from GOP to independent decades ago.
The Dems solidly voted for raising the debt ceiling or suspending it 3 times during the Trump Administration
because they aren't locked in partisan BS. They don't fuck with everyone's wealth to make a political score.
That's basically the only difference between the parties anymore.
I will hold fast rather than be part of the panic.
I imagine that if they cut the other reconciliation bill down to the same size as the bi partisan infrastructure bill bill that there could be a bi partisan effort to raise the debt ceiling.
Do you realize that the infra structure bill is only $350B per year?
Less than half of the annual military budget.
It's a ten year plan, that probably won't make it past 2024 or 2028.
What's $350 billion between friends?
Enough to end friendships in DC I hope. Democrats must be forced to pass the debt limit bill with only their own voters if they pass the big bill through a 2nd reconciliation bill in the same year.
I fondly remember the black macadam streets of Philadelphia melting every summer
and the Amish delivering fresh vegetables by horse drawn wagons in the lanes behind the row homes.
Later, using the worst pick up trucks ever, Jersey growers hawking Jersey peaches and tomatoes.
Nostalgia is one thing, reality is quite another
and going back is not an option.
No it isn't. We have to deal with what confronts us.That which grew out of the university (like most terrible ideas).
FDR said the only thing to fear is fear itself.
Don't be afraid Vic. It's that simple.
Is that what he told Japanese-Americans?
I would like to know why, if the 'heartland' is still red and conservative, what are they complaining about? They have their own people in charge and are doing things they want to do yet somehow it is all being destroyed by some unseen outside forces that are going to make them all get vaccinated and eat Cheerios...
I say to these 'heatland' people, if things suck in your neck of the woods, look for different representation...
It’s that the current evil regime in DC and the bi coastal elites won’t leave us alone to live our lives as we’d like despite our elected representatives expression of our wishes. Things don’t suck where we live until people from the outside come in to interfere.
So it's, stay off my propty gosh dangut. I have a gun....
Shame those bi-coastal elites just won't stop.
I am so sick of them ringing my doorbell and trying to change my ways...
they remember your address after going away in handcuffs a few times. most cops don't buy the religious persecution bullshit thumpers are peddling. no solicitation signs work on them too.
It’s not just personal door bells. These bi coastal elites try to compel us to change toward their attitudes and dogma and world view and we flat out refuse. Even in blue states many of these urban types won’t venture into rural, small town, or exurbs/small outlying cities in order to enforce the change in us they seek. We openly defy them wherever and however we can. Being over 500 miles away from LA and over 200 from SF has its advantages.
The police are much different here. They are also much more supported by their community around here too.
they just turn and walk away when some dumb ass thumper wants to argue the law with them?
Nothing like being stuck in ones own personal cocoon.
... a type of norman rockwell/boys town world smothered in christo-fascist sauce.
They would not put such persons in handcuffs in the first place. If a person walked away from a residence like yours, the police wouldn’t do anything but take a report over the phone. They certainly wouldn’t patrol the streets looking for the people.