How Progressives Won

Adding to the general confusion to be expected in a political rout is how questions are framed.  Establishment Republicans tend to put it this way: How did we lose?  Contrast the question with this essay's title.  I hope the reader will see what I see.
Briefly, and painting with a broad brush, the reason Progressives [1]  won is by virtue of the fact that they have been engaged in an unrelenting battle against liberty and capitalism for almost a century and a half.  Along the way they have systematically co-opted public education, unions, most permanent government bureaucracies, news media and entertainment.  The mighty Institutional Left is now a fait accompli.  It owns America's dominant narratives, and its message is so insidiously pervasive that it has shaped the beliefs, premises and assumptions of allies and opponents alike.  It has created a national orthodoxy, principally exemplified by the laws of political correctness, and persons or groups who would challenge it deserve all the hatred that heretics are heir to. One cannot grow to maturity without learning the signals a society sends to itself.

So when Republicans and, sadly, many conservatives, frame questions they proceed unconsciously from leftist memes.  When they ask how they lost, it seems to me, they are conceding to the presumption that Republicans are so rife with shortcomings and fault that losing could only be a function of their own natural culpability.  How can a party take a firm stand on anything if, subconsciously, they buy into the notion that their position must be flawed?  If one begins to argue from his opponent's premises he cannot possibly win.  This self-doubting (sometimes bordering on self-loathing, or at least self-contempt) is much on display in the post-election hunt for witches and scapegoats.  Most prominent is the hand-wringing over minority policies.

The Grahams and the McCains would have us believe that Republicans lost votes to Hispanics because of conservatives' principled stand of immigration policy.  Right or wrong hardly matters (Hannity has "evolved"...) when political power and popularity are at stake.  They have bought (without thinking) the Left's meme.  In fact, Hispanics vote for Democrat big-government rather than against Republican policy. [2]  Similarly blacks historically have supported Democrats for the same reasons.  If the Right sacrifices principle for political expediency they will lose on two fronts.  They will be corrupted in practice of abandoning principle, thereby bringing contempt upon themselves from friends and enemies alike.  And it will not help them politically. 

The conservative vision of America may already be irretrievably lost; the tipping point of state-fueled dependency and the accumulated power of Marxist orthodoxy may have been reached and passed. If the Right has any chance of regaining parity with the Left it will not be a short-term affair.  It will first have to gain control of the Republican party by deposing the "liberal-lite" establishment leadership. From there it will only be necessary systematically to dismantle the Institutional Left.   Daunting as that may be, I think there are shortcuts. [3]  While it is still possible (the First Amendment, though tattered seems still to be intact) conservatives must challenge and ultimately overtake the public narrative.  In other words they will have to become a powerful and competitive force in high profile media.

The success of Fox News and a few conservative newspapers (even blogs) would appear to indicate that there is potentially a robust market for the conservative message.  The entertainment industry recently was shocked by the unimagined success of De Souza's 2016.  Moreover, recent surveys suggest there's a weakness to exploit in state media; Gallup found that 60% of sampled Americans have little or no trust in MSM.  FNN aside, what's missing is a frankly polemical, proselytizing  conservative TV channel, syndicate or network. Glenn Beck comes to mind, but he's outside the major media; or perhaps the Breitbart team.  For donors with deep pockets it seems to me a better investment could not be found.  Until the Right competes in major media, it cannot win in whatever it undertakes - no matter what its policies.  Perpetually it will be criticized and demeaned by corrupt journolists neither tethered to fact nor bothered by the matter of integrity.  After a time the constant stream of unanswered calumnies melds into the national orthodoxy.

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1.  This political group has from its 19th Century beginnings been an American arm of Marxist thought and has given (and received) support to the Communist Party at home and abroad.  It still does, and now hardly bothers to conceal it; another sign of confidence in their hold on American power.
2.  Heather Mac Donald, an academic, makes the case that Hispanics are culturally biased toward big government here.
3.  "Shortcut" only in the sense that I think media competition is a quicker route than bringing change to K12 and academe or the entertainment industry.