Washington -- There have been an abundance of essays of late about how we are to wage revolution in our comfortable society. All have been written by Woke Folk, I suspect. You would not expect such essays in praise of revolution from the Boy Scouts of America, much less from the Girl Scouts of America, particularly when the Girl Scouts are engaged in selling their famous cookies.
As I read these studious and hortatory accounts of how we are to marshal "the power to fundamentally rearrange society or power" -- that is how one of these essayists describes the revolution to be waged in, say, the Bronx -- my mind wanders. What does the author of this particular work of cerebration look like? Is the person in question wearing Lederhosen and wearing a funny hat? What has he, she or it accomplished in their relatively brief life? When did they last cut the lawn at Mother's suburban home or wash the car? Have any of them trained for a marathon? What about their military records? Have any of them served in a war, and whose side were they on?
As they gather to wage revolution in these United States -- or, as they prefer to say, "fundamentally rearrange society or power" in these United States -- who is going to pay for it? Now, some of the Woke Folk are obviously middle-aged, though they do not like to think about it. They are, as a learned professor of sociology wrote recently, adults who do not much like being adults. They have been engaged -- for years -- in the infantilization of America. You saw an example of the infantilization of America the other day when the Super Bowl was broadcast on television. What will happen to them when the adults move back in? For instance, when the people who elected Glenn Youngkin for governor of Virginia gain positions on their local school boards and reclaim their children from schools where many obviously are now being propagandized? There was an election last autumn in Virginia, and I think it will be seen as a precursor of elections this coming autumn. Change is in the air, and the change will be significant -- even, dare I say it, revolutionary.
The Woke Folk and their allies among the Black Lives Matter crowd who speak so highly of revolution might want to think things over a little more thoroughly before donning their camos. Revolutions rarely come out the way they are planned. They begin with sonorous and often witless slogans, and they end with public executions and prisons chock-full of yesteryear's idealists. Lenin was not a nice man. Hitler was not a nice man. I know that Fidel Castro is remembered today as a kind of Renaissance man, especially in Hollywood where Mao Zedong is remembered also as a Renaissance man and a pretty good cook. For that matter, I believe that Ho Chi Minh also is seen by Hollywood as an avuncular figure who loved dogs, especially when they were freshly sauteed in a light wine sauce.
A couple of weeks ago, I read the most amazing story about Joseph Stalin. Yes, I said Stalin, the last Butcher of Crimea. Did you know that Stalin was a regular bibliophile? Yes, I read it in, of all places, The Wall Street Journal. The Journal even featured a supine picture of Uncle Joe lying flat on his back in bed next to a book. I believe it was "Gone with the Wind." The picture was taken obviously before the Woke Folk blacklisted "Gone with the Wind" for some sort of racial transgressions -- and please excuse me. Make that whitelisted. At any rate, Uncle Joe loved books but not "Mein Kampf." That is where he drew the line.
As I say, I think this autumn is going to see a vast unraveling of the revolutionary spirit in the land. Just as Americans have their limits with wearing masks, they have their limits with revolution. The people who have been booming revolution will be quieting down. Maybe some will become Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. Maybe some will vote for Donald Trump. Today's revolutionaries are likely tomorrow's conformists.