The Clash of Crippled Ideologies is Leading to the Nation’s
Demise
Richard Gale and Gary Null, PhD
Progressive Radio Network, October 7, 2020

One does not need to be an oracle to envision the future. All that is
necessary is to examine our constraints and foibles. We are now facing
a perfect storm of pain, suffering and destruction: financial inequality
and poverty, global warming, environmental migration, and disease
pandemics. Yet when any reasonable person questions what can be
done, we are told we are fine and the best and brightest are on hand
to solve our problems. However, in no small measure, it was the best
and brightest during the past 60 years who were the architects for
many of the crises we face today.
We need to step back to have a purview of the larger picture in order
to observe what we as individuals can do to prevent or mediate the
catastrophes we will all face. But this begins by reaching agreement
that those in power are the structural problem and can never come of
up with satisfying solutions.
An optimist will say that our socio-political and ecological conditions
will improve, especially after the election and the real work demanded
can begin again. The pessimist reflects back upon all of the previous
administrations since Eisenhower and declares nothing fundamental
will change. It will only worsen. The climate optimist says that they are
lucky their home has not been swept away in a flood, burnt to the
ground from a wildfire or leveled by a hurricane. For the moment their
lives are safe so everything will be fine in the future. The pessimist
focuses on the reality on what happens when we do not have a
national or worldwide Marshall Plan to curb our impending crises. As
one example, this year 9000 structures and 4 million acres in
California were destroyed in fires as 1,700 towns require emergency
assistance. In addition, there were the deadly derecho storms that
destroyed approximately 10 million acres in the corn belt of Iowa and
surrounding states.
Throughout the US, people are waking up to a once in a lifetime
experience in our body-politic. Others are waking up unknowing
whether they will be evicted from their homes and apartments
tomorrow. It is estimated that upwards to 75 percent of restaurants
and bars will never reopen again. Yet the sole message fed to us daily

by the mainstream media is that the only important issue on hand is
to remain fearful of coronavirus, get tested, social distance and
quarantine yourself until Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates otherwise give a
green light for a vaccine to be distributed across the entire population.
Governors, state legislators and mayors are contributing as well,
advocating for mandatory mask wearing and testing while imposing
strict penalties on those who resist. Google, Facebook, Twitter and
Wikipedia do their best as well to be sure that no medical experts,
advocates or common citizens with data or facts on social platforms
contradict the official health policies and narratives.
In the meantime, the nightly news, depending upon the political
ideology of the network, airs images of either peaceful or violent
protests or the latest Covid-19 spin of that day. If the average person
asks what are the top ten or so issues that our nation should be
focused upon, barely anything found in the mainstream media would
be on that list.
Why?
It is not as complex or as unfathomable as it might appear on the
surface. The basis of Ockham’s Razor is that to cut through the fat to
get at the meat, the correct answers are usually the simplest. We
might begin by acknowledging that we are a nation divided but we
have always been divided to some degree; however it has never been
as purulent and hostile as today. The uniqueness of our society has
been our diversity, languages, cultures and accents, and its ethnic and
racial differences. America’s dialectic has been one that inspires to
become acquainted with these differences, such as southern
hospitality, the Pacific Northwest’s relaxed and playful lifestyle, the
quiet reserve and rural persona of the Midwest and the frenetic
professional energy to succeed in the Northeast and California.
Perhaps we appreciate each other in more ways than we consciously
realize. Historically, when it was necessary to unite together, we did so
as a nation – the world wars and the Great Depression are but two
examples.
If we were to ask the average person in the 1930s what their priorities
were, they would not be much different than today: a living wage, a
home, food to feed the family and educational opportunities. Families
wanted their children to be educated and succeed in ways the parents
were unable.

There have always been conflicting attitudes towards social order or
how the nation should be governed. But today what we are observing
is not concerted efforts to advance improvements for how we govern
ourselves, but rather we are retreating backwards into tribalism,
identity politics and a new class warfare. No one can predict where this
conflict and confusion will ultimately lead.
Identity politics, the effort for groups based upon race, social status,
gender or religion to create exclusive political alliances founded on
groupthink, has found its scripture on the Left in Robin DiAnglo’s best-
seller White Fragility. The text argues that if one is born Caucasian
then racism is built into your genetic inheritance. There can be no
escape from this curse, DiAngelo suggests, no redemption or
purification by fire regardless of how much public service one performs
for the greater good. On the Right we have the identity politics of
white supremacism, anti-Semitism, and a fascist Christian
evangelicalism built upon medieval superstitions.
Contrary to DiAngelo, Melanie Phillips gives us a clearer understanding
for why we should not rely upon those pundits who believe that either
conservative or liberal truths will save us from ourselves. Despite
disagreeing with Phillips on many of her other socio-political positions,
we believe she correctly identifies the fundamental flaws in the
contemporary liberalism now being voiced by Black Lives Matter,
across our campuses and within the Democrat party. First, it is unable
to establish a hierarchy of values and morals. For example, if one
refuses to say that any lifestyle or culture is better than another, then
it cannot be said that liberalism is better than conservatism or any
other ideology. Consequently, faux liberalism cannot legitimately
defend the very principles upon which it defines itself: freedom of
speech and religion, tolerance, gender and class equality, etc. It
contradicts its own principles and removes the dignity of the individual,
which is at the heart of liberalism and serves as its moral backbone.
What we are witnessing therefore in modern liberalism, according to
Phillips, is “the strong dominating the weak,” and this is a “libertarian
ideology that suppresses the facts” that contradict it. It is therefore an
ill-liberal ideology.
Sadly we find highly educated people supporting these irrational
beliefs as well as elected officials in both parties. On the Left are the
college educated young adults who are highly sensitive and were
raised in protected bubbles with the beliefs they are exceptional and
entitled. These are the ones demanding fealty to Black Lives Matter.
On the Right are the less educated, the disgruntled working class and

disenfranchised dropouts of society who value a perverted Libertarian
ideal built upon gun ownership. And both have their allies in the
mainstream media — MSNBC on the Left and Fox on the Right – to
provide a bullhorn to the larger public.
Both true liberalism and true conservatism, which at one time could
share a constructive dialogue together, have morphed into their polar
opposites: an irrational faux enlightenment of liberalism versus a neo-
fascist traditionalism that is petrified of the future and wants to turn
back the clock. The current speed being measured of the melting of
the Arctic and Greenland, and the recent breaking up of the Antarctica
ice sheets will sooner rather than later be experienced up and down
the Atlantic coastal cities and the Gulf. Nobody in government is
addressing this far greater threat than a virus that seems no more
dangerous than a bad seasonal flu.
Amidst all of the noise of protest, identity classes and coronavirus
panic a laundry list of more serious issues are either being ignored or
completely drowned out by the cacophony of overtly emotional hyena
cries. How much attention is being given to the 66 million Americans
now food insecure or the 2 million who don’t have clean drinking
water. Four in ten Americans, 132 million, are conservatively
financially broke. While everyone awaits a Covid vaccine, which real
statistics seems to indicate is medically unwarranted, the co-morbid
conditions associated with 96 percent of the advertised coronavirus
deaths are criminally being neglected. Obesity is the coexisting health
risk most associated with Covid deaths; 40 percent of American adults,
20 years and over, are clinically obese and another 72% are
overweight. What is being done to free our federal health agencies
from the grip of the junk food industry’s lobbying? Nothing. To make
matters worse, 44 million Americans are uninsured and an additional
38 million have inadequate health insurance. Approximately a quarter
of the population has health coverage well below the standards of any
other developed nation. How much of this gross neglect has
contributed to the US having the highest percent of world Covid
deaths?
And should it not surprise us that the ideological clashes have become
so vile and contemptible? But the underlying problem does not reside
with the camps facing each other on opposite sides of the street.
Rather our educational system is a disgrace. Forty-three million
American adults (21%) are illiterate or functionally illiterate according
the National Center for Educational Statistics. So how much of our

neglected educational system, and legislations’ disdain for teachers, is
contributing to the civil war many analysts fear is brewing?
We have a president who is in a trance of pathological denial about
climate change and then a Democratic contender who thinks he knows
something about global warming based upon the corporate capitalists
who whisper in his ear and fund his campaign. Daily, new studies are
being reported that indicate the climate crisis is far worse than earlier
forecasts presumed. Instead of worrying about Central American
climate migrants trying to enter the country, rather we should be
preparing for the massive migrations that will be happening within our
borders. Half a million Oregon residents, about a tenth of the state’s
population, were given evacuation warnings due to the increasing pace
of wildfires. This is just the beginning
And if anyone believes that the US is economically capable of tackling
these problems without a catastrophic blowback, they are delusional.
The US’ total debt now stands at $82 trillion, $9 trillion more from a
year ago under Trump’s administration. Mortgage debt: $15.8 trillion.
Student loan debt: $1.7 trillion. Unfunded government liabilities at an
astronomical $155 trillion. This is a financial tsunami that can only be
curbed by keeping the dollar printing machines rolling 24-7 until
doomsday. In the meantime, other nations will usurp America’s former
role as a world leader as we sit back and watch the country mutate
into a third world nation.
The big question is whether we have the capability, let alone the
willingness, to relinquish our personal dogmas and then individually
and collectively step outside of the malignant atmosphere of
negativity, hatred and virtue-shaming and begin to address real future
threats? Urgently the future needs to be re-envisioned. It might be
based upon the Great Reset being orchestrated by Davos and the
global elite. However, the very principles upon which a Reset will be
created are the very failures of neoliberal capitalism that has brought
the US and the international community to the impasse of self-
destruction. Nor can we look back at the past. It is history. Neither our
modern conservatism or liberalism as they are currently being
politically identified would have a constructive role. Both are terribly
outdated, decrepit and utterly corrupt.
Bertrand Russell remarked that “science is what you know, philosophy
is what you don’t know.” Yet science doesn’t, nor can it ever, provide
the truth of an entire picture. It can only tell us about distinct parts. In
that context, we must begin to investigate what we don’t know in

order to arrive at a consensus of truth for saving the planet and
ourselves.