I have to admit that I have taken a kind of perverse enjoyment in the left's pain since Trump became POTUS. The left has enjoyed our conservative discomfiture as they have dominated the culture war for most of my lifetime. The only time the right every pushed back against them was during Reagan's eight years.
Republicans tend to relish the role of loyal, but outnumbered opposition. Reagan's proud Americanism bothered them and they screamed the whole time he was President. Other than that, even though they didn't like the Bushes, the Dems knew they were Cabal puppets. George Herbert Walker Bush and George W. Bush didn't make any significant advances to rolling back the left's gains in the culture war. Trump is the first president in my life who has really had the potential to take the initiative and retake the cultural ground lost since Kennedy.
Latter-day Saint author and conservative icon Cleon Skousen wrote in his book, The Naked Communist, 45 points or goals for a communist take over in America. In January of 1963, a congressman named A.S. Herlong had the 45 goals read into the Congressional Record. They included Soviet-era goals like extolling the virtues of unilateral nuclear disarmament by the West, promoting the UN, recognition of China, etc. The cultural goals are striking in that we now see them from the back-end of their implementation, when the goals have very nearly been attained. These include infiltration of the mainstream media and education establishments, publishing, Hollywood, television, and the art world. Other goals included extolling immorality, vice, and pornography, infiltration of churches, and glorifying indecent art and entertainment.
It is in these latter goals that we see the intentional coruption of our culture. The intent was to rot the timbers in the foundation of American culture. One of the specific goals was to purposefully replace beautiful art and replace it with ugly abstractions without meaning or aesthetic beauty. It is that goal that comes to mind today as I write.
You may have seen some of Latter-day Saint conservative artist Jon McNaughton's paintings. His work often highlights poignant social messages in presentations of surrealistic realism. I'm not an art critic, but McNaughton has clearly studied the masters of his craft, but his messages are clearly Christian and conservative, which annoys the leftist art critics to no end. One of the first works I ever saw by him portrayed the "forgotten man" sitting dejectedly on a bench outside the White House surrounded by president and historical figures, with Obama treading the Constitution under foot. Painted during Obama's presideny, you could hear the woke left screaming "Reeeeeeeeeeee!"
Then came Trump.
Since Trump became President, McNaughton's work has become more prominent. Trump has become the subject of numerous pieces of McNaughton's body of work. A recent one titled "Legacy of Hope" adapted a famous picture of Trump in the Oval Office, surrounded by Christian evangelists praying and laying hands on him. McNaughton reworked the iconic photograph to have Trump surrounded by historical figures including Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Cue the SJW screams. One art critic on Patheos described McNaughton as the "Thomas Kincade of Christian Nationalism" and called the painting a "feverish fantasy ripped from the sweaty dreams of a delerious zealot." I love it.
The wicked left has a glass jaw. They can dish it out but they can't take it. McNaughton's paintings represent how most Americans truly feel. In the culture war, his work represents a counterpunch. Even the pricing of his paintings is a statment against the elites. For too long, the left has controlled the discussion and we have listened patiently and tolerantly to their inane babble. Now we are reasserting our control and, like spoiled teenagers, they resent the return of parental authority.
They have told us for years that art is supposed to make you feel something. Even feeling outrage was a sign that you were being moved by good art. Thirty years ago, some artist was featured at a museum in the city where I lived whose art infuriated patriots. All this particular work consisted of was a petition on a desk, a pen, two roped stanchions, and an American flag on the floor. The viewer was invited to participate in "free speech" by stepping onto the flag, in front of the desk, between the stanchions to sign a petition to uphold the First Amendment. The American Legion was outraged and they actually came and stole the flag to protect it. They were fined by a local judge. Next, some of their members came and laid across the path on the floor, keeping the flag on top of them to keep it off the floor. To sign the petition, the visitor would have to step on the men who held up the flag. It is that kind of controversy we have been told comprises good art. If that's the case, the outrage of the left marks McNaughton's paintings as masterpieces.
Notes:
https://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/watchwomanonthewall/2011/04/the-45-communist-goals-as-read-into-the-congressional-record-1963.html
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