40% of Gen Z Identifies as LBGT... Gee, What Might Cause That?

 I was shocked not long ago when I read a piece on the Newsweek website. The headline read “Nearly 40 Percent of U.S. Gen Zs, 30 Percent of Young Christians Identify as LGBTQ, Poll Shows”. That, aside from Joe Biden providing free crack pipes to help address racial inequality, is the most absurd thing I may have ever read. Not so much for the data itself per se, but rather, an illustration of exactly how malleable (and lost) young Americans are.

Whatever the natural percentage of LGBT etc. people in the United States is, it’s sure in hell not 40%. It’s probably closer to low single digits. Whatever it actually is, somehow with the left’s championing the of the rainbow, magically 40% of young people identify with it… not tolerate it, not say no problem with it, not even say, good for them, but against the tide of tens of thousands of years of human history, are now, or at least “identify” as, LBGT etc. That tells you a lot about the state of America today.

That so many young adults are so confused about sexual attraction, one of the most basic and important elements of life, one that most people never even have to question because it’s largely written in our genes, tells you quite a bit about how absurd America has become.

Guaranteed you won’t find this absurdity in nations where people struggle for food, water, shelter and freedom. Guaranteed you won’t find this absurdity in nations where war or terrorism or narco violence is an everyday concern. But you do here, because the United States had done such a spectacular – albeit imperfect – job of meeting the basic needs of life and providing unprecedented prosperity for most Americans that we have 40 million or more young people who have the luxury of navel gazing themselves out of the most basic of biological truths. And just to be clear, these aren’t children, they’re young adults born between 1984 & 2002, or between 20 & 38 years old.

How exactly does that happen? The first prerequisite is fulfillment of life’s basic needs. While we hear stories of poverty and desperation daily in the media, the reality is that most Americans do not struggle to attain the basic needs of life, food, water, shelter, and based on the birthrates of the poorest Americans, companionship. While there are no doubt exceptions to that – as there always are about virtually everything – the reality is that even the poor in the United States live better than the average European.

Beyond those there are myriad opportunities for folly, and in America there is a great deal of that. Much of it is driven by the media / academia / high tech cabal that passes for the intelligentsia in America and is increasingly abetted by big business.

My favorite quote of all time is Voltaire who said “Perfect is the enemy of the good.” Twenty First Century America is that quote incarnate. Rather than reinforcing the basic principles that laid the foundation for American success, things like Christianity, limited government, individual liberty & responsibility, freedom and capitalism, today the intelligentsia cabal spend their time attacking those things in the name of “doing better” or “diversity” or “inclusion”. Online and off they showcase everything in opposition to those values. And it’s never enough to welcome “marginalized” groups into the narrative, rather the culture that built America and the 70% of America that is still white must be demolished: Whites are racist. Capitalism rewards the rich at the expense of the poor. Women earn $.77 to a man’s $1.00. The Founding Fathers were racists and frontier settlers too. Systemic racism keeps minorities in poverty. Republicans hate blacks, immigrants, the poor and the elderly. America was founded to protect slavery, the flag is a symbol of racism and the Pledge of Allegiance is indoctrination into the cult. And of course Aunt Jemima was a symbol of racism and Dr. Seuss books too. Virtually anything traditional in American history is in the crosshairs.

The list of complaints never stops as the victim classes continue to grow, to the point that – no doubt taking their cue from Senator Pocahontas – a third of white students lied about being part of a minority group to improve their chances of acceptance into or gaining financial aid for college!

It is this swamp of equity, “anti-racism”, inclusion and infinite pronouns that today’s young people have grown up . From fake news and safe spaces to woke Madison Avenue and endless Kardashians it’s no wonder they’re confused. With proto CRT movements evolving everywhere from schools and the Pentagon to the Boy Scouts and corporate boardrooms, questioning pretty much everything about life seems almost normal. Gone from sight are “toxic” masculinity, “feminine” beauty, nuclear families and much of what defined America for more than two centuries. In their place are messages that men can get pregnant, hard work and math are racist and human activity is destroying the planet.

While these anti-American and anti-science messages have taken off recently, utterly devoid of common sense as they might be, the vapid culture they dominate today has been in the making for decades, going back to participation trophies, gay scout masters, unisex dorms and welfare programs that ballooned broken families.

And so today we find ourselves in a place where almost half of America’s young people question something almost as fundamental as gravity. They look in the mirror and are not sure who is looking back at them… a boy, a girl or somehow someone in between. That is neither normal nor healthy, for the individuals or society. But of course we’re not allowed to say that… because it’s nature, everyone is different and everyone has the right to decide who they want to be. While ostensibly that is true, in practice just because something happens in nature doesn’t make it normal. Siamese twins happen in nature as do serial killers, but neither is what we would consider normal or desirable.

For years young people have been getting the message in the media and in schools that there are no objective truths, that everything is up for debate, from free speech and capitalism to which gender they are. For ideas, such debates make sense and can help strengthen convictions or prompt evolution, which is the whole point. For biology, sexual attraction and the sense of self, for almost everyone such debates are absurd and introduce unnecessary confusion where none really exists.

The world is a complex place with literally millions of stimuli impacting us every day. Handling the intricacies of daily life as a young person is a challenge in the best of circumstances. Our foundations of biology and puberty and sexual attraction both add to those challenges and help us deal with them. From desire and anticipation to risk and rejection, at the critical years of adolescence few things are more important than having a firm grip on one’s sense of self and attraction. It’s into this maelstrom of youth that the left has introduced a malignant, unnecessary confusion that has 40% of America’s young people unsure about exactly who they are. When you don’t know who’s looking back at you in the morning it’s hard to deal with the challenges of life, nevermind persevere and overcome them. That confusion will have extraordinary consequences for these young people and for society, and none of them will be good.

A Lack of Identity politics...Exactly why the GOP can't seem to attract minorities and immigrants...

The GOP establishment has spent a great deal of effort over the last decade pushing for amnesty under the guise of “comprehensive immigration reform”. This is of course because they are scared of the fact that minorities are going to become a majority in the US over the next 40 years and they don’t want to be left out in the cold. They have what I call a “Fear of a Black Planet… or at least of a minority majority country…”. And according to some numbers cited recently by Phyllis Schlafly, they have good reason to fear.

Of course the establishments’ solution to the problem is to acquiesce to the demands of the left and essentially give amnesty to the 20 million people who came here illegally. Honestly though… who can blame Boehner, McConnell and their friends? It’s hard to compete with “No human is illegal” signs and heartbreaking stories of kids brought to America at the age of 5 and at 25 they have no legal status. They don’t want to be seen as “heartless” or get tagged as racists as the press is wont to label them, so they simply give in and make the same mistake Ronald Reagan did in 1986.

Frankly, the immigration debate is the GOP’s problem in a nutshell… The GOP has a communication problem - and an identity problem too. They have a hard time distilling their messages down to a bumper sticker. Every day they face a plethora of bumper sticker issues which they typically fail to properly address. Calls for an increase in the minimum wage are heralded by stickers proclaiming “A living wage is a moral value”. Each new school year is inaugurated with teachers striking in one city or another carrying signs broadcasting the false equivalency of opposition to education spending increases with a hatred of children. Then there are the Facebook shares of posters with quips like “Keep your laws off my body” or “Stop the War on Women”.

It’s often difficult to respond to these issues (and many more) because the rebuttals to these debates are typically too complex to fit on a bumper sticker or in a network sound bite. The GOP’s feckless attempts at responding to these issues often result in them being involved in a political version of a school yard skirmish where the response is “No I’m not!” rather than explaining a nuanced opposition to the particular issue at hand.

As an example, the argument against increasing the minimum wage is based on an understanding that doing so hurts far more people than it helps. This is particularly true in the case of teens and younger workers and those with little experience or skills. In order to hire an employee at a minimum wage of $10, an employee must provide an employer with work that brings at least $10 in value to the company. If they can’t the owner is not running a business but a charity. This is exactly why virtually every time the minimum wage is increased, unemployment among the young and unskilled (particularly minorities) increases. At the same time doing so always increases the potential for outsourcing and mechanization and we’re beginning to see that everywhere, even in the burger industry.

That kind of a rebuttal simply can’t be distilled down into a pithy sentence or sound bite. The result is that in the face of such a challenge, the GOP establishment more often than not simply chooses to go along to get along. The GOP is so worried about being painted as racists or as the party that hates the poor that they forget to talk about what they actually supposed to stand for. They get caught up in defending themselves against being women haters or immigrant haters that they forget to stand up for individual freedom or the rule of law.

The GOP’s problem isn’t immigrants don’t like what they are saying… which is true, the GOP’s problem is that they are saying the wrong things.  And this is where the identity problem comes in.  With “Compassionate Conservatism” and “comprehensive immigration reform” the GOP is simply remaking itself into the Democrat Lite party. It’s no wonder that immigrants and minorities choose not to support them. Who wants generic crackers or cola when they can have Ritz or Coke instead?

As Schlafly points out, immigrants and minorities don’t support the GOP on a range of issues from small government to gun rights and others in between. But it’s not because there’s something wrong in their DNA. It’s because there’s something wrong with the GOP. On a wide range of issues from immigration to education to government spending, the GOP has simply lost their identity and have become a party that stands for nothing extraordinary and has no message. In the last two presidential elections Americans actually chose a socialist over the milquetoast offerings of the GOP. On the biggest stage in the world in a bitter fight for the most powerful position on the planet the GOP was unable to convince 50% of Americans not to vote for the socialist! It’s not because the minorities and immigrants voted for the socialist… which they did. It’s because the GOP failed to give Americans of all stripes a reason to vote for them. When your bumper sticker could essentially say “Not quite as socialist as the other guy” it should come as no surprise that people don’t rally to your cause.

The lesson for the GOP is not how to play a better game of bumper sticker politics, but rather to begin articulating fundamental ideas that will inspire people to join their crusade. Ronald Reagan promised to eliminate the Departments of Energy and Education. Unfortunately he failed to do so, but everyone knew where he stood on big government. Contrast that with the GOP of 2014, which has just signed off on a $1 trillion farm bill that sends 80% of the dollars to food stamps, subsidizes Big Agriculture and taxes such things as home heating oil and Christmas trees. Does that make you think of a party wedded to the idea of limited government, market economics and low taxes? Probably not. And the GOP is confused why they can’t attract minorities and immigrants? Maybe they need to stop worrying about the demographic makeup of the voters and start looking in the mirror for their identity.