Take a quick glance at those protesting (dare we say rioting?) in the streets of the nation today, and one quickly realizes that all those folks filling your 60-inch H.D. flatscreen are barely old enough to shave and have recently outgrown training bras.  They are a nation of children who grew up in a culture where everyone gets a trophy – the winners, the losers, those who tried hard, and even those who downright stink. 

For the past twenty years, any parent whose child has played soccer or Little League knows this.  This is because these postmodern parents insisted on teaching their children that there are no winners or losers – merely participants who need to raise their self-esteem.  My dear, sweet mother-in-law first apprised me of this when she commented years ago that it seemed parents today are more concerned with instilling self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth in their children than excellence.  Indeed, the American meritocracy has been replaced with a celebration of mediocrity on a national scale.  These postmodern parents have raised a nation of individuals who are emotionally crippled and unable to deal with reality.  In the words of that famous theologian, Jeremiah Wright, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

This child-rearing philosophy has resulted in a large group of young Americans who have grown into a cavalcade of sour grapes, sore losers, and mentally prepubescent citizens who are unable to accept the final score of a game.  And when whining and crying doesn’t get them their way, they resort to violence and vandalism.  It’s a temper tantrum on steroids.  If you extrapolate this flawed parenting philosophy to society writ large, it becomes apparent that the real fight for the soul of this nation and its people emanated out of the family and cultural spheres and is now being consummated in the political.  Alas, there are some who saw it coming.

My good friend L. Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center, first acquainted me with the big-picture backdrop of this phenomenon when he said, “The left figured out a long time ago that if you can change the culture, politics is the end game[.]”  When he first said this, it seemed a bit obtuse to me.

But now we can unmistakably see just what Mr. Bozell meant when he differentiated the culture from the political realm.  The argument he makes is that American culture – academia, entertainment, even the news – has been co-opted by progressives.  When was the last time you could watch a television show without at least one homosexual reference, not to mention major storylines that plainly show sexual intimacy between two people of the same sex?  How about a new blockbuster film without any sort of liberal agenda?  Or a cable TV show that doesn’t depict people of faith as pistol-packin’ Bible-thumpin’ bigots who yell racial epithets at innocent people of color?  Come on.  Admit it.  It’s hard to find.

The objective of this assault on American culture is to change the hearts and minds of our children.  That, coupled with everyone-gets-a-trophy parenting, brings us to where we are today.  The truth of the matter – written by those sage philosophers the Rolling Stones – comes from a song that was played at just about every Trump rally on the campaign trail:

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometime you find
You get what you need

A few weeks ago when I emailed Mr. Bozell a little missive forecasting a big Trump win, he wrote me back three words: “I predict violence.”  Sorry to say he was right again.  Perhaps it’s our turn to hit that bourbon bottle.