It can be difficult to look at the political left and ascertain just what is going on in their minds. Much of what they say they are about involves looking out for the oppressed, leveling the economic playing field, teaching people to be more tolerant of those outside of the norm, and helping children learn and feel more safe, among other things.
On their face, each of these seems to be worthwhile and even virtuous positions to take, and they are politically speaking. However, there is another reality that follows the political left as well – their results.
Looking at the apparent “oppressed” championed by the left, such as the BIPOC community, the LGTBQ+ community, women, teens, and the poor, one simply needs to look at the data, empirical and anecdotal, to see if their efforts are having the desired effect. Perhaps the most obvious group to consider is teens, given that the vast majority of teachers align politically to the left. Here are the numbers:
- Among English teachers, there are 97 Democrats for every 3 Republican
- Among Health teachers, there are 99 Democrats for every 1 Republican
- Overall, there are 87 Democrats for every 13 Republican teachers
Though the hard sciences and math see more Republican than Democrat teachers, it’s the social and soft sciences where the preponderance of teachers are left, even far left, in their ideological leanings. How far left? Enough to brag about sexualizing and indoctrinating your children on social media.
If our teens are overwhelmingly taught by Democrats and Progressive left ideologues, are there any studies that can tell us how they’re affecting our children?
There are, and they’re not good.
As of April 2022, the CDC reports that 44% of teens report feeling “persistently sad and hopeless,” up from 37% in 2019. Though one might be quick to blame the pandemic for this rise, the likelier root cause was two-fold: the handling of the pandemic and the change in schooling during that time. The handling of the pandemic likewise came down to how the left took action versus the right. Left-run states like New York and California were tyrannical in lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and doomsday messaging. Right-leaning states like Florida and Texas were quick to eschew lockdowns, mandates, and fear-mongering. As a result, students from K through 12 either suffered or thrived under these measures. However, overall, the effect on children was negative by looking at the numbers.
CNN reports youth depression and anxiety doubled during the pandemic and no doubt this wasn’t isolated to states with certain political leanings. Despite the left’s attempts to treat students like adults by including early childhood sex education and year-round LGBTQ++ programming, the kids don’t seem to feel comforted by either when they’re told to wear masks militantly, see their parents get laid off for matters of personal health autonomy, and 24/7 panic messaging regarding COVID, souring race relations and climate change:
However, it’s not just the children and teens who are trending downward. Gallup notes global levels of unhappiness have been on the rise for more than ten years. They attribute this less to simple economic discrepancies than to a sense of well-being. Though the number of people reporting living a “great life” has more than doubled, those stating they’re living their “worst life” has more than quadrupled. The factors include job satisfaction, financial stress, community life, physical health, and loved ones they can turn to for help.
The pandemic saw a massive flight from left-governed states to those governed by conservatives. California and New York again saw record numbers of migration to states like Florida, South Carolina, and Texas. Meanwhile, teens were left to wonder about this “new normal” governors like Andrew Cuomo, Gretchen Whitmer, and Gavin Newsom were saying we’d just begun.
Enter Herbert Marcuse, author of three critical writings from the 1960s. Marcuse, a German expatriate, came to the United States from the Frankfurt School, known for its Marxist thinkers, such as Theodor Adorno and Gyorgy Lucaks. Marcuse, after a short stint with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, wrote “Essay on Liberation,” “Repressive Tolerance,” and “Eros and Civilization.”
Disenchanted with the failings of the working class revolution begun by Marx, where capitalism had satisfied the needs of the workers, namely those associated by Gallup with well-being, Marcuse looked out at America in search of revolutionary energy.
In the third chapter of Essay on Liberation, titled “Subverting Forces…in Transition,” he said the revolutionary energy would be found in the “ghetto population” as well as those now labeled LGBTQ+. They could be roused to see their marginalization and thus be made activists against the capitalist forces in
America. Marcuse and his protégé, Angela Davis, would champion these ideas to black Americans, alongside the Black Panther Party and Huey Newton. Some sixty years later, we can see his plan still working with BLM, Antifa, and their supporters. In fact, Marcuse is credited with the ideology behind Antifa.
However, it’s the first chapter, titled “A Biological Foundation for Socialism?” where he suggests the movement requires a fundamental change to man’s biology, which he believes can be accomplished:
“The rebellion would then have taken root in the very nature, the “biology” of the individual, and on these new grounds, the rebels would redefine the objectives and the strategy of the political struggle, in which alone the concrete goals of liberation can be determined. Is such a change in the “nature” of man conceivable? I believe so, because technical progress has reached a stage in which reality no longer need be defined by the debilitating competition for social survival and advancement.” (p. 10)
However, Marcuse doesn’t see this nature changing naturally but by manipulating man’s desires via subversion:
If you read that to say Marxists will defy the free will of the majority of Americans and their chosen interests by subversion, that is exactly what he is saying. This is the arrogance of the Marxist left – they believe they are better and they know better than you and I, so much so they can justify subverting your will.
How they don’t see this as crypto-oppression is beyond me.
In part 2, we look at the following arguments Marcuse makes that aim at destabilizing the minds of children as well as the mentally ill influencers from whom he draws his theories.