The Pendulum Swings
The Silos of the Woke Come Crashing Down
America’s democracy is the cornerstone of the American Experiment. Voters matter.
Some may believe social causes are the responsibility of the Federal government. Others recoil at the thought that the government should use your tax dollars for the favored programs of the party in power. The pendulum swings as the voters decide what is best.
When it swings too far in either direction, Americans will pull it back toward the center with their collective power – the ballot box. From the mid-19th century, when the United States became a two-party system with major differences in style and substance, the pendulum has swung from Republican to Democrat to Republican and back again.
This applies not just for the epic quadrennial presidential election. U.S. citizens can always make mid-course corrections via how they vote for legislators as well.
Most recently, when voting for a president, Americans chose to elect a Democrat in 2012, then a Republican in 2016, next a Democrat in 2020, and now a Republican in 2024.
A schizophrenic electorate? No. Just Americans expressing their opinions by casting votes for the candidate they believe will deliver their best hopes for the future.
In 2024, the greatest plurality of voters were aghast at just how far to the left the pendulum had swung. Many are just now seeing the subtle wrongs that are being exposed every day.
Why did the pendulum swing so strongly in this election? A basically centrist nation had gone too far in the other direction.
Most of the time most voters will vote based upon the economy. Not just the economy writ large like the rate of inflation, the size of the national debt, or the spending of massive amounts for what, in retrospect, were frivolous -- and yet dangerous – diktats to change America.
More voters are also seeking the answer to questions like, “How are we doing in establishing a comfortable retirement?” and “Can we afford to give our kids a good education?” “Is my job secure?” and “Will we be able to buy a home of our own?” The answers were clearly in favor of a distinct change in leadership.
But in this election, another issue was even more compelling than the economy. It was about the nation's culture.
Voters clearly rejected the swing to fatuous imbecility in language and, worse, the increasingly stilted interactions between citizens by an administration that focused on our differences rather than our shared hopes and dreams.
For instance: Who created the non-word “Latinx?”
“Methinx” it was some politician pandering for votes. Hispanic Americans, when asked if they prefer “Hispanic” or “Latinx,” they answered: Hispanic. The purveyors of this linguistic nonsense didn’t care. They had a new buzzword they were all a-titter about.
Take for example Stanford University’s (fortunately aborted) guide to correct language. It was called EHLI, “The Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative.” The resulting firestorm ensured it was not implemented, but it was indicative of how far this insanity of wokeness had gone.
Words to be banned included “blind study.” The illogic was that blind “…perpetuates that disability is somehow abnormal or negative, furthering an ableist culture.”
I ask you, what the bejesus is “an ableist culture?” (My faux pas. The woke would have shamed me for “bejesus,” claiming it favored one religion over another.)
Another was “Beating a dead horse,” which “normalizes violence against animals.” Say what? Beating a dead horse creates an active image, but to most of us the image did not normalize violence, it sickened us. The Walking Dead, also known unto themselves as The Woke, sought to do our thinking for us and proclaim this old phrase evil incarnate.
And “Geronimo” to EHLI was a “caricature of the brave warrior, often during ‘macho’ pursuits.” Ew, yuck! “Macho pursuits.” How very sexist to the walking dead.
“Geronimo” was what I yelled when I earned my paratrooper wings – to invoke and respect, not caricature, because I hoped to become one day a man of such bravery and leadership.
Some people just want to feel offended, no matter what you say or do.
It was time for American voters to say, “DIE, DEI.” They did so. And the doors of the Silos of the Woke were opened and people were able to simply see other people as the silos that had held them captive crashed to the ground.
The strident woke seem to need to categorize their fellow Americans into convenient, segregated silos of the mind.
They created Good Silos like the ones for BIPOC people, another for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer people, yet another for those with advanced degrees in ethereal social welfare and revisionist history subjects that can exist only in academe.
The Bad Silos were for people who believe Israel has a right to exist in its ancestral homeland, that the Supreme Court exists to protect the Constitution as written and amended, and for those who believe that every person has a right to their opinion.
In the real world, we don't have silos. We work together at the factory, in the CPA office, in the military, or as teachers, firemen, or cops. We have a drink together after we are off duty. You come to my house for a Memorial Day picnic, and I pick your kids up from school.
Americans don’t need the woke silos. We never did. We understand creating these convenient silos to display our differences we are is nothing but a *cultural* form of political gerrymandering. The woke sought to slice and dice us, to differentiate and separate Americans, one from another.
The woke even penetrated the United States military with its nonsense of making certain we saw each other as different from each other.
No! That is not what wins wars and binds men and women to each other for life, long after their military service is done. I depend on you to keep me alive. You depend on me to keep you alive. Neither of us give a damn if they other is, black, white or polka-dot.
How dare the DEI-loving woke seek to make us feel detached from each other when being on the same team is exactly what keeps us alive?
American political thought has oscillated between Jeffersonian democratic-republicanism and Hamiltonian federalism for more than 225 years. This is not the first time calcification of opinion at the trailing edges of the pendulum has made it difficult to find the center.
This time the extremes were particularly egregious. Maybe what is called for is a stronger response than normal to pull the country back to the center.
Those on the fringes of political thought will always be disappointed that the rest of the country doesn’t want their solutions. The founders of this republic seem to have anticipated this and placed their trust in the collective wisdom of the average person.
Time will tell. The pendulum silently swings. The center holds.
© JL Shaefer 2025
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Joe, a very articulate statement how we should hold promise of “swinging” back to centrist sanity.
Many thanks!
ONCE AGAIN GENERAL JOE HAS ARTICULATELY STATED WHAT MOST OF US KNOW AND FEEL. BRAVO!!!!