Part 1: Are You One of Us?

In CS Lewis’ The Last Battle, there is a scene of quibbling dwarves arguing about nonsense and fictions in a dark stable, while just outside paradise was theirs for the taking. The factions on the Right (use whatever label you like, they’re all limited) are like these dwarves, endlessly critiquing and undermining one another while all around them the Left continues advancing their toxic Utopia. What is most frustrating is that success—tremendous, history altering success—has always been in reach.

When I was coming of political age, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” was a somberly stated maxim. The only appropriate response when it was invoked was a serious face and a knowing nod.

It sounds great, but the lived truth is that this sentiment has little practical urgency when life seems stable. We pretend we’re engaged. We enjoy complaining and grumbling about the political shadow-play on our cave wall, but we don’t honestly think there is any looming threat because deep down we believe it’s all just business as usual. 

“The pendulum is just swinging, left than right. There’s no need to get too worked up, it always self-corrects. It’s going to be awesome when our side is back in power.”

However, right now, the great middle section of the Right’s bell curve is finally stirring and questioning the core pieces of the American superstructure: the failure of democracy, the reality of the manipulated market, the corruption and unreliability of the military, the mirage of the Constitution, the sham of political parties, the evilness of the greater culture, the hate-fueled agenda of the media, crime and race realities. 

This is an unprecedented and remarkable moment. Tens of millions of men in particular (a number greater than the populations of entire countries in Europe) are receptive and eager to be shown a viable alternative. A critical mass of these men are in the South.

A Pendulum in Free Fall and an Unremembered Past

The main point of this article is not to trace how we got here. Individually, and collectively, we let our guard down foolishly believing that men of good will always magically be on the same page concerning important ideas and principles and that we will spontaneously rally when necessary.

Someone else was being eternally vigilant for us. It was someone else’s duty to be keeping their eye on things. Someone else was passing on hallowed traditions.

But now the pendulum threatens to not only stop swinging, but to rip loose from its mounts and crash to the floor. There is a sobering realization of how dangerously vulnerable we are and why vigilance was supposed to be a personal and collective daily affirmation.

There is compelling evidence that millions of self-identified “conservatives” from not just the South but all regions, are profoundly questioning the American experience and would agree with the eloquently stated mission on the Identity Dixie About page, in particular this:

We reject the grand hypocrisies of the American Empire. We affirm, with sobriety, the ongoing tyranny of the Federal Government. Our land is under military occupation and our people suffer from economic exploitation and cultural genocide.  We deny that nations are ideological constructs of intangible ideas such as liberty or capitalism.

A critical difference, however, between the millions of today’s disaffected compared to the founding generation is that the colonies were only capable of doing what they did because the people shared a rich integrated system of beliefs and civil practices that flowed naturally from them. Coupled with a genuinely educated population, even at the lowest strata, it was possible to communicate in a rousing and sophisticated way.

This is simply not possible today. To pen the founding documents, constitutions and even popular tracts, required both the authors and readers to come to them as sons and daughters of the West, already possessing the cultural, religious, and philosophical disposition and education necessary to understand the nuanced ideas of life’s purpose and self-governance.  

It turns out those great documents (from the Bible to the Federalist Papers, never mind Allen Tate or even the Foxfire series) are nowhere near as accessible, nor their meaning as self-evident as we want them to be. They’re cited reverently without ever being read first-hand, or if attempted, they are found to be too dense and the intent and significance almost incomprehensible. 

The Canon has lost its power to inspire because the great majority have forgotten too much about the ideas they are based on. We’ve drifted into a conceptual and cultural void, not just as Southerners and regional Americans, but as inheritors of the West. 

And yet, this is an almost perfect moment of opportunity for those of us who do remember and do understand the way forward.  The post-Trump, post-election moment is remarkable because it is an opportunity to re-catechize and restate robustly and with precision some of the most basic ideas that can no longer be assumed.