Tallahassee, Florida – I have told the story of watching 9-11 in real time and exclaiming to my friend watching with me that the towers were about to collapse. I had seen them shudder just a few minutes before the first tower came down. My friend, a fellow long-time political operative, had let me stay at her home while I was attending a meeting in Chicago. She did not see the shudder. Afterwards, we replayed a tape of the event. She crowed, “See Charlie, there never was a shudder.” I retorted that I must have felt it rather than seen it, adding that, “the buildings DID come down.” She scoffed that I always know some things before they happen and shop around for logical reasons why I knew them. “Now I know that even you don’t know how you know,” she laughed.
Could be…but I know something else right now. Leftist Democrats did not just lose an election this year: they lost the country. A huge paradigm shift has finally arrived. If they keep trying things from the same old playbook they have been using since Obama, they will continue to shed people. Good. Time to put the shrieking politics of destruction, resentment, and racism on the ash heap.
Oh, woke left activists and establishment media are still plying the same, old tricks. They have not figured out that once the curtain has been pulled back, all the flaming spouts of fire and smoking, thunderous commands do not intimidate any more. They only make them look ridiculous and open the curtains further for more people to see the fraud. Turns out the Wizard’s plan to give them a diploma instead of a brain did not turn out as well as they had hoped. The dark power of the woke left has been broken. Like Humpty Dumpty, all the horses and the men the woke ring can muster won’t be able to put it back together again.
Oh, there is plenty of fight left in the wokesters. The New Year began with a major Jihadist terrorist attack in New Orleans. The establishment press billed it as a vehicle plowing into a crowd. The first FBI spokesman said it was NOT a terror attack, despite the ISIS flag proudly attached to the vehicle the Jihadi drove into the crowd on Bourbon Street.
The Washington Post described Elon Musk’s efforts to expose massive rape gangs of young girls in England – and the police refusing to protect their own citizens – as helping “far-right” political figures. Helpful to know that the Washington Post considers opposition to child rape to be a far-right position. There is the usual use of words and phrases like “debunked” and “without evidence” and “conspiracy theorist” to describe, in news stories, things that are well-attested and true but that the woke activists who have seized newsrooms wish were not true – or at least for the folksies not to know. It does stir rage in the ever-dwindling number of readers and viewers who have not yet caught onto the gag, while comically red-pilling more of those low info holdouts each day. The woke brigades look like nothing so much as Napoleon’s Army’s disastrous retreat from Moscow in the War of 1812. His original invading of force of 615,000 men returned to France with only 110,000 surviving. The ongoing rout of the wokesters may well, before it is finished, make Napoleon’s disaster seem downright successful, by comparison. The power of darkness is broken. The Washington Post, which has used its motto, “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” as a mission statement rather than a warning will have to find a new means of trying to kill liberty.
While the power of darkness is broken, the battle continues – and should be expected to for some time. In fact, some of the most pitched, violent battles happen after the power of an opponent is broken. The unstoppable power of Nazi Germany was broken when it invaded Poland in 1939, but the greatest battles were ahead – and lasted for five and a half more years. Once a power is broken, victory can be squandered by complacency of the people oppressed, insufficient vigorous unity on fundamental principles, or quitting the battle before unconditional surrender has been obtained. In short, if we choose, we can make the world anew, with liberty and justice for all, under God. But we can’t do it without a sober commitment to the sustained blood, toil, tears, and sweat victory will require.
I have believed all my life that America’s vocation in this generation is to lead the world into a great renewal based on faith, family, and freedom, under God. We are not just called to go back to some “normal” that we remember or imagine. We are called to make the world anew, to be fit for the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart and the extended era of peace, prosperity and brotherhood that will follow.
We have been given a great gift: in two weeks, basic American liberties will no longer be under assault from our own government and, with any luck, we will begin the process of renewing “the consent of the governed” as the basis for all things in this country. That is not only bad news for the diminishing woke legions that plague us, but for all the bad actors in the world who have counted on us to remain in chaotic division. That means we face many challenges.
We can expect plenty more terror attacks. China and Iran, in particular, will focus them our way to try to get us off point. China will continue to make feints towards Taiwan, hoping and planning to conquer it. But China wants to dominate all of Asia, including Russia, Japan, and India – and Australia, for good measure. It will not stop plotting until the Chinese Communist Party is cast off as a lizard’s dead skin. Iran sought to set off the Islamic Armageddon with the Oct. 7 attack against Israel in 2023. What it has set in motion, instead, is the death knell of Islam, itself. But not before it reconstitutes itself in Western Europe for a bloody, last gasp. Heaven knows how long that will last. Western European leaders have still not gotten past inviting Islam in to rape their children, burn their monuments, and live off the largesse of the now oppressed and enslaved native citizens. Heaven knows Western Europe is ripe for conquest.
If we continue to be deterred by being called whatever-o-phobics for fighting atrocities by particular ethnic groups, we will fail. It is not our job to cover for them. It is their job to reform themselves or be deported or destroyed. The party must be over…and there is a lot of cleanup to be done. And yes, for the third time in a century and a half we will be called in to save Western Europe’s bacon. After this time, I want to hear no more sniffing from Europeans about how unsophisticated Americans are. When your “sophistication” brings you to the brink of destruction three times in 150 years, you badly need to rethink your life.
Financially, I am not sure what is going to happen. Donald Trump is pledged to policies that encourage growth and opportunity while cutting waste and bureaucracy – and unshackling the economy from the regulatory chains that have bound it ever tighter for so very long. That is good, but I worry that the damage wrought by the socialist economic illiterates is so great that we still are unlikely to fend off a massive global economic depression. Investing in wood stoves, outhouses and hand-cranked water pumps may still be the best hedge against depression we have.
Above all, we must think anew and act anew if we are to make the world anew. It is good that ordinary people have become more full-throated in condemning and ridiculing the woke assault against our culture. But you do not treat allies in disagreement the same way you treat genuine enemies. I was disturbed when Trump went full savage mode against Texas Congressman Chip Roy for Roy’s disagreement on the continuing resolution fight. I was disturbed when many conservatives went full on wanting to banish Vivek Ramaswamy for his stupid comments during the H1B debates. I like Elon Musk fighting wokism in Europe now, but I am not impressed that he so casually dropped Nigel Farage over a disagreement about Tommy Robinson. In each of these cases, I happen to agree with the side that prevailed, but if we can’t have serious disagreements without savaging each other, we will collapse into chaos soon enough. There are several solid leaders now, but no man is the titan to whom all else must kneel. Similarly, no man in the coalition is entitled to have a snit and threaten to blow everything up if things are not done his way. That is not principle; it is just self-will run amok. Trump has earned substantial deference as leader – and GOP officials should give it, but he is not entitled to unexamined requital of his every whim. He needs to take legitimate criticism better – and fellow officials need to follow his lead better even while making their concerns known.
In campaigns I ran, I was often brutal in my candor with candidates behind the scenes. I would not have been giving them honest counsel if I had done otherwise. But when the decision was made, if it went against me, I did everything in my power to genuinely make it work. We have to learn how to act as a healthy organization with our allies while being uncompromising with those who are enemies of our culture, of western civilization, itself, and the God who spawned it.
Our Lady of America made clear that we were to be fitted for the task before us by the purity of our lives and of our intentions. The reality is that no nation which treats the execution of a million babies a year is anything close to pure. Beyond that, we are all going to be truly horrified when the depth and breadth of pedophilia in this country is fully revealed. It is commonplace among elites – and it makes England’s official offenses look almost innocuous. In the American version, there is a great deal of torture and murder involved. It is truly satanic. You’ll be stunned when you hear some of the names involved. We are not fit to lead any great moral crusade until we have put an end to all that.
On abortion, I want to hear much less from pro-life leaders about what laws leaders must enact and much more compelling witness to the humanity of the unborn. You cannot end a great evil that is intertwined with the culture by decree. You must change hearts. As those hearts change, then you can enact laws that reflect the new commitment. The first thing we must do is evangelize ourselves. I do not want this year to be the year where great new laws are passed against abortion; I want this to be the year that people around the country wake up to the horror of what we have made routine – and resolve to let it happen never again.
In his travels around America giving presentations on his masterwork, Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville often said in his speeches that, “America is not good because she is great. She is great because she is good. And when she ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”
In this seminal year of 2025, my fondest wish is to, “Make America Good Again.” If we do, working as God’s hands and feet, the world will follow, however bumpy the road might be.
*********
We are planning to have a National Conference again this summer. Most likely it will be in Kansas in July. Our conference in 2021 was such a joy and success that we are in a celebratory mood to do it again. I’ll keep you informed as more information becomes available.
If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.
Find me on Twitter at @JohnstonPilgrim
The Corps of Renewal and Charity (CORAC)
18208 Preston Rd., Ste. D9-552
Dallas, Texas 75252
0 Comments