A reader wrote me a year ago

…about so-called “woke racism” (a concept I frankly regard as rubbish). I never got around to reply till now. Here is our conversation:

My apologies, because a ridiculously long time ago, you wrote:

I hope all is well, I think this book captures a lot of your readers sentiments, I get frustrated because you will often say how someone like me is creating a moral equivalence, and maybe there’s some of that, which could be as simple to understand as its hard to leave something you’ve been associated with for a long time (The Republican Party), but then there’s people like me who will concede the point that the current GOP is worse, but that doesn’t mean that what the elites in the Democratic party are doing isn’t terrible to. 

Nobody says the Dems are perfect.  But the clear fact is that the GOP is now the gravest domestic terror threat facing the United States since the Confederacy, while the Dems are (as the late conservative pundit PJ O’Rourke accurately said) “wrong within normal parameters”.  It simply is not the case that the “Both Sides Moral Equivalence” argument has the slightest basis in reality.  The difficulty conservative Christians now face is that, having done so much to enable and excuse the MAGA Cult of traitors and terrorists, they cannot take full ownership of what they have done, so they go on downplaying and excusing the GOP (and themselves) while the MAGA cult of traitors and terrorists continues to press for the destruction of our democracy by violence.

Here’s my viewpoint on it, the elite left has decided to win on issues of Sex- Abortion, Gay marriage, Trans issues, and forego what the civil rights issues that matter to a lot of people. 

This is simply rubbish.  The reality is that the Dems have chosen to side with the majority of Americans, who think that people should be let alone.  Conservative Christians may not like this (and I, by the way, hold the Church’s view on all sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage).  But what conservative Christians have long ago abandoned is the Church’s teaching that Christian morals are supposed to be the fruit of grace, not imposed by force, fear, blood, and iron on people who do not hold the faith.  This is why conservative Christians are now embracing fascism and the attempt to destroy our democracy.  They know in their hearts that they cannot impose on the majority of Americans their whittled-down, truncated and cramped moral vision which even *they* do not believe or practice. And I do not mean by that merely their truncated sexual ethic that adores a sleaze like Trump while  blathering about abortion and homosexuality, though I do include that since that is why they bent over to defend and excuse Herschel Walker for pressuring his girlfriend to abort his baby.

I include, even more than that, their rejection of nearly the entirety of the rest of Catholic social teaching. It is why they hate this Pope’s living guts: because he is a constant reminder of the fact that they hold nearly all the Church’s moral and social teaching in contempt and only care about the unborn as human shields for their violence, racism, cruelty, and greed.  If they were serious about defending human life, they would relate the unborn to, not pit them against, all those forms of human life they praise Trump for sexually assaulting, hail DeSantis for kidnapping, long to kill on death row, and eagerly exploit in their pursuit of Mammon.

The reality is that even when they are right, the MAGA cult is wrong.  They talk a good game about abortion, but the fact is all that matters to them is power and money:

That is why they don’t care that Trump raised abortion rates 8% and they don’t care that they killed a million Americans with their antivax selfishness and stupidity.  Meanwhile, because Dems attack demand and not supply, they consistently lower abortion rates, bringing them to their lowest rate under Obama/Biden.  As for all the Pelvic Obsessions of the GOP, it’s all just scapegoating.  LGBT are convenient targets for hatred by conservative Christians.  They idea of treating them like human beings with human dignity doesn’t enter into it and gays got the message long ago from them: God hates you and rejects you.  So much for evangelism.  It’s all culture war from these people.

That doesn’t mean I think the GOP has any answers for those issues either, but the important work of caring for the poor, for the marginalized is clearly not a point that either party cares about right now. 

Again, this is simply rubbish.  Again and again, the Dems have shown themselves serious about trying to help the poor.  And again and again the GOP has been spiteful, cruel and greedy.  The contrast between DeSantis spitefully kidnapping refugees in Texas and the help the surprised Libs in Martha’s Vineyard gave them is an object lesson, as is Biden’s help for Florida even when the GOP not only pissed away $12 Million for their sadistic stunt that could have gone for hurricane relief, but refused to support hurricane relief in Congress.  He’s saved millions of lives from COVID, sought debt relief for millions drowning in debt, passed infrastructure legislation, etc.

What I’m trying to say is the Left (obviously not someone like you) but the elite Left (Media, Acadamia) they would much rather prioritize winning Sex issues than Social justice issues, and I don’t even think its close. 

Again, this is simply not true.  The Right generates constant Panics du Jour about Pelvic crap because it sells, just as they generate constant Panic du Jour about race because it sells.

I watched the Dave Chappelle piece,( which I found offensive) but behind the vulgar jokes was this very point, Da Baby the rapper makes a terrible gay joke on stage, and the world ends, but he literally killed someone in a Walmart, and no one knew or cared, its because Big Tech, Media, Universitys don’t care abut making the life of the poor better, they want to win the culture war, and so I just don’t have any use for either party, and frankly they both just upset me, so I’ve become an independent, maybe that makes me a quitter, but it felt like the only sane thing to do,

The simple fact is that there is only one party with a prayer of defeating the gravest domestic terror threat since the Civil War.  That party is the Dems and there simply is no basis at all for the claim that the GOP and the Dems are anything like moral equivalents.  Dems are Normals who seek to get along and who have a variety of reasonable views of how to order our common life.  The GOP is led by a criminal and traitor who has violated the espionage act, tried to overturn an election with violence, stirred up terrorist violence, and whose entire party (except for Cheney, Kinzinger, and a puny handful of outcasts) is committed to doing it all again the second they get a chance.  It’s all hands on deck to defeat this menace and he who is not against them is for them.

The reason I enjoy engaging with you is because I do see someone in you who puts his faith first, which I try to do as well, and fail regularly,

Thank you.  I hope you do not take my passion as rejection.  There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since you wrote me and perhaps you have changed your views since then.  At any rate, let us pray for one another!