The main reason the Long March was so successful was that it was never fought against. This was as true of the original Maoist Long March as it was of the 1960’s Marxist strategy.
In the 1940s, the Nationalist regime in China was too busy fighting off the Japanese invasion to be able to crush the tiny group of Communists scarpering to the safety of remote Shaanxi. Worse, the Nationalists did nothing even when they knew their ranks were infiltrated by communist moles and saboteurs (contrary to Maoist propaganda, the Communists almost never fought the Japanese and often undermined the Nationalist defence).
Western elites were similarly useless against the Marxist Long March through the Institutions. As institution after institution succumbed to Long March white-anting, nobody did a damn thing. First they came for the academics…
Are the forces of reason and Western civilisation finally rallying?
We have allowed identity politics to shape policy, prioritised ideological purity over practical governance, and witnessed the fraying of the civil discourse essential for a functioning democracy. But there is a shift under way.
Across the West, a new era is beginning to emerge. It signals the decline of radical ideology and hopefully the return of more reasoned debate.
Falsifying the Andrew Breitbart dictum that ‘politics is downstream from culture’, the political victory of the second Trump administration is sending a shockwave of cultural change downstream. Witness, for instance, the euphoric greeting given to Donald Trump at the Super Bowl, compared with the chorus of boos directed at left-wing pop superstar Taylor Swift.
In Australia, the cultural seismic shift began with the political result of the ‘Voice’ referendum. Australians, realising that they could stand up to woke bullies at the ballot box, are increasingly, confidently and vocally, rejecting woke bullying on everything from transgenderism to ‘Welcome to Country’. The sight of open anti-Semitism, loudly abetted by the left, has viscerally shocked Australians.
It may well be that we have passed “peak woke” but the question remains: Where do we go from here? Australians are searching for leadership that prioritises substance over spectacle.
There is an appetite for genuine conversation, for the restoration of a public square where those with a difference of opinion are not dragged to account. It is where the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship has an important role to play.
This week more than 4000 people from across 100 nations will come together at ARC’s second global conference in London to reject the notion that Western civilisation is in inevitable decline.
Just as the defeat of the Voice referendum hinged on a very concrete idea – whether Australians wanted to endorse racial separatism in the Constitution – the rally against the Long March left requires more than abstract, academic hand-waving. It has to talk to ordinary people about things that matter to them.
The international debate about screen time versus playtime for children, which gained momentum following the 2023 ARC conference in London, is a prime example of how raising real issues can lead to necessary conversations. Similarly, the Sydney ARC conference opened a critical discussion about whether universal childcare is the best economic and cultural policy for Australia.
Supposed conservatism – in fact, sensible centrism, only driven ‘to the right’ by the elites’ dramatic lurch to the far left – has often had a problem engaging women. Women tend to be object-oriented thinkers: airy debates about identity might be superficially appealing, but come for their children and the ‘tiger mother’ comes out.
The growing disillusionment among many Western voters, particularly women who have turned against radical gender ideology, is not driven by ideology but by a deep concern for fairness, truth, and the wellbeing of their families.
Especially their sons. Misandrist femcels like Clementine Ford might see that nature gifted them a male child, but most women care as deeply about their sons as their daughters. They’re seeing what an increasingly shitty deal boys have been given by the elites and they’re not happy about it.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the crisis facing young men. Jordan Peterson has convincingly shown us how a generation of boys and young men are struggling – falling behind in education, disengaging from the workforce, and experiencing record levels of depression and despair. The response from too many institutions has been to ignore or dismiss their struggles or, worse, to frame masculinity itself as a problem. This is not sustainable for any society […]
We must restore the credibility of our institutions, re-establish the principles of open and honest debate, and build a society that values truth, responsibility, and personal agency.
One question that has to be asked is: have some institutions been so thoroughly white-anted that they’re only fit for the wrecking ball? Are our universities and education departments, and our media, beyond redemption?
Well, independent media like The Good Oil are building a new and better media. The move to build new and better universities is just beginning. That these new institutions are over the target can be gauged by the screeching fury from the old institutions.
We’re winning. Now is not the time to give up.
