James S. Robbins - Erasing America: Losing Our Future by Destroying Our Past

Copyright 2018 by James S. Robbins

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.

Regnery is a registered trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation

Cover design by John Caruso

Cataloging-in-Publication data on file with the Library of Congress

ISBN 978-1-62157-816-1

ebook ISBN 978-1-62157-839-0

Published in the United States by

Regnery Publishing

A Division of Salem Media Group

300 New Jersey Ave NW

Washington, DC 20001

www.Regnery.com

Books are available in quantity for promotional or premium use. For information on discounts and terms, please visit our website: www.Regnery.com.

To E.L.R.

A merica, this is how civil wars start.

Since Erasing America was first published, the worst-case scenarios for our countrys future have become daily news headlines. It is now clearer than ever that the Lefts objective is not just to tear down our countrys history but to destroy our constitutional republic itself.

The progressive program against America is no secret. Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who came to this country as a war refugee and lived what some would consider the American dream, besmirched her oath of office by calling for dismantling the U.S. economy and political order, which she calls a system of oppression. When progressives say they want to destroy the American system, they mean it.

The attacks on American history and memory now stretch from Columbus to the Founding Fathers to the present day. As the assaults have expanded in scope, they have become increasingly irrational, unhinged, and violent. The summer of 2020 saw a spasm of iconoclasm, felling monuments to presidents, explorers, abolitionists, entertainers, religious leaders, and even Portlands iconic Elk statue. CNN labeled Mount Rushmore a symbol of white supremacy, while the Democratic National Committee called it racist. And Columbus, Ohio, in a fit of self-hatred, pulled down a statue to its namesake.

The American narrative of hope and progress has been replaced by the racially divisive 1619 Project of the New York Times , which views American history as a story of systemic racism. This factually challenged program is being hardwired into schools to infect new generations of youth with its false, pessimistic, anti-American message. Educators and the media now routinely echo the slogan that the United States was built on slavery, which is not only bogus but originated with nineteenth-century defenders of human bondage.

Defund the Police became a rallying cry after the George Floyd killing, but the idea is highly unpopular; an ABC News poll showed 64 percent of Americans oppose it.

Seattles CHOP (Capitol Hill Organized Protest) became the epitome of the radical trend. Mayor Jenny Durkan likened CHOP to a block party that could become a summer of love, while the Associated Press depicted a grumpy President Trump fuming over the creation of this festive zone. But CHOP, a graffiti-marred, cop-free commune of funky free spirits patrolled by armed socialist militias, was precisely the vision of future America that played to Trumps law and order message. Mayor Durkan became a real-life stereotype of the accommodating liberal who allows progressives to run rampant at the expense of intimidated residents who just want life to return to normal. Even a spate of assaults, rapes, and shootings did not motivate Seattle to clean up this mess. But things changed radically when protesters turned up at Mayor Durkans residencethat was the end of CHOP.

Karma came knocking for other liberals too. ESPN sportswriter Chris Martin Palmer tweeted, Burn it all down when mobs began torching buildings in Minneapolis. But when a similar mob showed up in front of his building after destroying

These increased tensions came during the lockdown response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which will be remembered as the worst public health policy decision in history. Yet the same officials who made it a crime to congregate in small groups without masks thought it was perfectly acceptable for people to crowd together in mass demonstrationsprovided they werent Trump rallies. Meanwhile Democrats exploited the Chinese virus to open the 2020 election to widespread mail-in ballot fraud.

Freedom of expression is under continued attack. In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance, President Trump said at his July 3 speech at Mount Rushmore. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished.

Newspaper editors have been purged for the heresy of publishing ideas on their opinion pages that did not adhere to the progressive orthodoxy. Saying all lives matter is no longer a Judeo-Christian truismor, at worst, a difference of opinion from selective liberalismbut a firing offense. Conservatives on social media are deplatformed, and cancel culture ensures that no ideas that trigger leftist snowflakes enter the public forum without nasty retribution. Movies, TV shows, books, and songs are being edited, censored, or expunged to satisfy the new woke puritanism.

Words are redefined in Orwellian style. Talk of patriotism and national unity is denounced as divisive. Those who preach equality are called racist. Those who defend freedom of worship are termed bigots. California seeks to strike equal protection language from its constitution because it allegedly unjustly discriminates. And lily-white radicals feel entitled to call black conservatives and police officers every demeaning racial slur in the book in the name of social justice. When conservative African American comedian Terrence K. Williams posted some of the racist hate mail he received on Facebook, his account was suspended.

The education establishment is in continued decline. Colleges and universities that used to value freedom of thought and inquiry no longer welcome students with open minds. Schools loudly champion diversity provided it does not include diversity of opinion. Academic freedom is solely for professors who are progressive; dissenters have a hard time getting hired or getting tenure, and entire disciplines (especially in the humanities) are turned against them. Schools increasingly provide racially segregated student activities to somehow combat racism. And radical leftist student activists prattle on about the need for safe spaces when the most dangerous thing a student can do on a campus is wear a MAGA hat. Any student who did would risk being physically assaultedand then blamed for incitement.

Sports have been needlessly and ruthlessly politicized. The NFL, NBA, NASCAR, and other professional leagues have fully These days it takes more courage to stand for The Star-Spangled Banner than to kneel.

Likewise, big business and corporations that profit from American freedom have shown no willingness to defend America and its traditions. When Corporate America is not actively erasing name brands on the absurd grounds that they are racist (Aunt Jemima? Uncle Ben? Mrs. Butterworth?) or refusing to sell controversial products (like Redskins football apparel or police-themed toys), they try to position themselves as the friends of every progressive cause with cash donations and fawning ad campaigns. Still, the virtue-signaling messages from Corporate America are confusing. Quaker Oats cancelled Aunt Jemima but retained its old white man logo. And Land OLakes butter banished its iconic Native American maiden from their packagingdrawn by Ojibwe artist Patrick DesJarlait in the 1950s to foster a sense of Indian pridebut kept her lands.