This morning, Braden at Langley Outdoors Academy comments on a very interesting interview of Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson. In it, the star proclaims that in the interests of not further exciting division among those who pay attention to him, henceforth he’ll keep his politics to himself. It was an exceptional display of humility for an entertainer, a species not generally known for humility, and noteworthy for that reason among others.
Johnson says that his motivation is not to foment further division among those who pay attention to him. That’s laudable, to be sure…unless you’re on the Left, which feeds on division. Popular anger and its mobilizing effect on its allegiants propelled the Left into power.
Anyone familiar with the theses of Karl Marx will recognize the centrality of class warfare to the Left’s political strategy. The process is simple:
- Invent some sort of division among the people. For Marxists, that’s traditionally been economic in nature: the “capitalists” or “bourgeoisie” against “the workers.”
- Inflame those on the “losing end” of that division against the “privileged class.”
- Use the anger thus evoked to mobilize for revolution, whether violent or peaceful.
It works in places where the privileged class benefits substantially from the political power. The natural sense of wrongness about such a situation is readily exploited for political purposes. The pattern is on conspicuous display throughout Latin America, for example.
Until recently, it hasn’t worked in the U.S. Economic mobility and the economic impartiality of the law have stood in its way. While that’s no longer perfectly true, the Left has succeeded in using other kinds of division, most notably race and ethnicity, in a similar fashion.
There’s nothing new about any of that. I’d expect my Gentle Readers are already fully aware of it. But another effect – again, one of which the readers of Liberty’s Torch are already aware – now threatens the Left’s program. For the Left has relied for some time on its dominance of the channels of communication, particularly the mass media and the entertainment industry. Any degree of disaffiliation by the luminaries of those channels threatens the Left’s ability to maintain the divisions it has exploited.
Dwayne Johnson’s proclamation is of a kind that’s been rare up to this point. But it may not be so henceforward. If other entertainment celebrities should embrace Johnson’s “my politics are private” stance, the effect on the electorate – especially the younger cohort – could be massive.
I have no idea how to encourage other entertainers to emulate Johnson’s stance. Do you, Gentle Reader? Might pressure to that end be building today? If so, how could we amplify it, without insisting on a change of alignment rather than simple silence on political subjects?
More anon.
