You can tell how they are losing by their desperate rearguard holding actions against us, where they are digging in at the last barricade, trying to leverage default respect, assuming they can evoke a dead memory of when we once cared about dead principles and corrupted institutions to keep us under control. But we're not interested in being kept under control. This isn't working anymore. See, many of us have cracked the code. We don't have to pretend to care anymore. We don't have to pretend about anything anymore, especially that there's nothing wrong, that our society is exactly as it was 20 or 30 years ago. Institutions we once respected, norms we observed, they've changed. They're gone. We don't have to do that anymore. Our strength comes from not only accepting that this is a different country than it once was but having the strength to deal with it within the context of that new reality.
What am I talking about? Well, you see examples of them trying to use old norms to constrain us all the time. It's most common when they attempt to turn our own principles against us – remember, anybody who talks to you about principles, and how you need to do something the leftists want because of those principles, is trying to screw you over. Take my friend Jesse Kelly as an example. He wasn't defaulting to respecting people who deserve no respect, and he had to be stopped. Governor Gavin Hairstyle's crew of social media dorks took offense when he refused to express reverence for the garbage Winter Olympic athletes who decided to dance for the pleasure of foreigners by trashing their country, like a little monkey dances for peanuts. Jesse wasn't going to support them or their event, so Team Brylcreem tweeted: "Wow. MAGA admits it is rooting AGAINST Team USA because athletes are using their first amendment rights!"
See the flex? "Why aren't you being patriotic, Jesse? We thought you conservatives liked patriotism." But, of course, it's all baloney – Democrats are to patriotism as herpes is to Valentine's Day. Moreover, it's historically fun to see them posing as friends of the First Amendment – which they revere so much that they failed to capitalize it – especially since Newsom was behind a failed law that would have outlawed making fun of political candidates. But you see what they're doing. They're making an argument that might've worked in 1996, but it's 2026, and we conservatives have broken out of the default norms that once kept them in check. In this case, we're not allowing these ungrateful snow-snarfers a free pass just because they're wearing the flag.
The regime media, of course, is another example of one of those institutions that desperately demands that we default to respecting it as if journos were neutral truth-tellers who deserve that respect. They create a web of lies to disenfranchise us from power – that's exactly what the Russian collusion hoax was for, to keep us from being able to exercise the power we earned at the ballot box. And then they continue with lie after lie after lie, and we're not supposed to notice. No, we're supposed to default to respecting what they have to say and pretending that they serve some useful purpose beyond transcribing whatever new Democrat talking points they got off the morning phone call.
Remember Peggy Noonan? You might have to ask your dad who that was, because she's been around for 40 years, and she's always wishing it was about 30 years ago when she mattered. She recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal, expecting us to care, how we should be horrified at the loss of the old regime media and its gatekeeper function, and so on and so on. And we're supposed to listen, because, well, it's Peggy Noonan. Peggy Noonan, people!
Oh, and how often have we seen leftists who hate Christianity with every fiber of what would've been their souls if they had any explain to us how Jesus thinks we have to subscribe completely and without reservation to each and every perverted and deviant plank of the 2024 Democrat platform? My favorite was the fat and ugly female minister – you just know she had to be a Methodist – explaining how abortion is not only OK but an actively good thing to pursue according to Christian doctrine. I'm no theologian, but I know male cow feces when I smell it. And then we've got that little weird Pete Buttigieg-like guy in Texas running against the ghetto fabulous loudmouth for the Democrat Senate nomination doing similar stuff. James Talarico is constantly evoking his deep and abiding faith in Christ; he's basically saying to conservatives that he likes Jesus, so it's OK to vote for him. Of course, he recently explained – and this was intentional, through his own website – that he believes all religions are valid, not just Christianity. Seems like a weird take when you don't believe your own religion is the true one, but the more likely answer is, he doesn't believe in his own religion at all. It's a pose, a gimmick, a lie. He is the living embodiment of that meme where the soy boy says he's not a Christian, but if he tweets that Jesus said something, maybe you Christians will do what he wants.
Why did they do this? Because they can't do anything else. They can't make us do anything. They must convince us to make ourselves do what they want. Remember, power grows from the barrel of a gun, and they don't have guns. What they have is the ability to convince us not to use ours, figuratively and literally. When athletes misbehave and insult us, we can either be silent and default to going along and cheering on America's team, even though its members hate America, or we can say the hell with them. To say the hell with them breaks a norm. But that's what we're doing, and the Left hates that we are slowly freeing ourselves from self-imposed constraints. Not all of us. There are still some Republican suckers who fall for it, but there are fewer of them every day.
Of course, the ultimate manifestation of the rejection of self-imposed constraints is Donald Trump himself. He took it upon himself to make a radical departure from the solemn, gentlemanly acceptance of abuse and bad behavior that the old Republicans had turned into an art. You saw how much crap W took from the Left – including being portrayed as a monkey, which I am informed is the worst thing in the universe – because he defaulted to the idea that we are supposed to be nice. Now, keep in mind that Bush's fake adherence to principles was all a fraud – loyalty is supposed to be one of those principles, and it demonstrated just how sincerely they hold these principles that they never stop talking about when W tossed that one out as soon as we voters rejected his fat brother. From then on, he turned against us as he aligned with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
You're not a hero for adhering to norms that died decades ago. You're gutless. Guys like him and Romney and the weak dorks who eagerly accepted the Democrats' premises and collectively wet themselves over the animated "Lion King" video clip don't even have the courage of their lack of convictions.
But we have the courage not to comply. We take a lot of grief for it. They call you bad names. But we don't have to be manipulated. There's a way to avoid it. We can just not care. It's OK to just not care. It's OK not to treat the institutions as if they hadn't been turned against us. It's OK not to allow the Left to use rhetorical judo to turn our principles against us. It's OK not to cry when they slander you. Just reject the assumption of the legitimacy of the institutions that the Left has conquered. We can choose not to be impressed by academia. We can choose not to rely on the regime media. We can choose to ignore blasphemous heretics purporting to explain religious doctrine to us. Simply because they occupy lofty positions in the institutions that once meant something itself means nothing.
They want us to give them respect. I say give them nothing.
Read Kurt Schlichter's JUST RELEASED new bestseller in the Kelly Turnbull People's Republic conservative action novel series, "Panama Red," and follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter.
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