I have two young daughters.
Laney is the oldest - she’s about to turn five. Laney is wonderful, wild and super creative. She’s always singing, making, drawing and imagining. She never stops. For the most part, it’s her world and we’re just living in it.
And for her two year old sister, Isla… that’s kind of true.
This is the life of a middle child. They’re born into a world of friendship and competition. They watch, mimic, learn and eventually… subvert.
Isla has already mastered the system.
Laney asks for a cookie and gets one.
Isla: “I want one too.”
The cycle repeats.
Until… Isla doesn’t get what she wants.
First comes the fit. Then the stealing. If that fails, she provokes Laney until big sister lashes out — then suddenly Isla’s the victim.
Laney gets in trouble.
Isla gets the cookie.
Plan perfected.
Why am I torturing you with boomer story hour about my kids?…
Because this dynamic is exactly what’s been playing out forever between the American Left and Right. It’s at an all time high and we’re in a danger that we don’t see.
Let’s get into it.
I’ll paint with a finer brush in the future but, for now, a sketch of some concepts will have to do.
You could say that the modern American Left was born on third base.
Why?
Because The Left doesn’t know how to build.
As James Lindsay says:
They only know infiltration, co-optation and subversion.
They wait for conservatives to build… then infiltrate, subvert and, often, go on a GTA style destructive joyride until they wreck their stolen, candy coated, institution.
“Move over idiot, I’m driving.”
Pick an example…
Harvard… wrecked.
Corporate HR Departments… wrecked.
Bud Light… wrecked. (until Shane Gillis)
This didn’t start in 2020.
The game plan goes back to the 1920’s with Antonio Gramsci - an Italian post-Marxist sitting in prison, writing papers critiquing classical Marxism. His critique? Marx was thinking too small. Marx had focused on seizing economic power. Gramsci argued that true dominance came from controlling cultural power — through the institutions that shape a society.
He noted 5 pillars that produce culture in a society.
Family. Religion. Media. Law. Education.
Later, Paolo Freire, a Brazilian Critical Pedagogist, comes along in the sixties and edits Gramsci saying that Education is not its own pillar but the “mediating force” between the other pillars. Meaning - if you control Education, you influence the rest. (Freire wrecked Brazilian education with his Marxian ideas btw. They still haven’t recovered. Oh, and his book “The Pedagogy of The Oppressed” is one of the top cited book in all of AMERICAN academics. Let that sink in.)
Anyway…
Gramsci’s strategy became known as the “Long March Through the Institutions.”
He said it would take 100 years.
… check the math.
Yep.
So…
That’s been the strategy.
Now…
Here’s the tactic that we’re in danger of playing into now.
Isla’s secret weapon.
Reaction through provocation.
If infiltration was the long game, provocation is the short game.
In the 1960s, Saul Alinsky published Rules for Radicals, a tactical handbook for activists. That playbook has been updated for the 2020s in the form of Beautiful Trouble, a digital toolbox of Leftist tactics.
A north star principle?
Corner your opponent into reacting—and then define the reaction as proof of your narrative.
Think of the CRT racebaiters in 2020/21.
Everything was “racist.”
It was exhausting and ridiculous.
It was supposed to be.
Because there’s only two easy responses.
Deny.
“Hmm, that’s exactly what a racist would say.”
Give in.
“Oh, punctuality is racist? You got me! I’m a racist. I like to be on time.”
Cooked. Owned. You confessed. Case closed. Narrative validated with receipts.
It’s a lose-lose scenario for you.
Unless you understand the dynamic.
Drag Queen Story Hour? Same play.
Give in and stay silent — they win.
React and punch a DQ outside a library in Dallas.
They win.
Because…
The Left has the narrative pen of culture.
They spin up mad lib style narratives, then provoke responses from the Right. Those events fill in the blanks and validate the narrative.
We’ve just witnessed the highest-stakes provocation yet: the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
The temptation now — especially among young, angry, disillusioned men— is to take the bait. Figures like Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens, and now Milo are ready to channel that rage and turn some of Charlie’s followers into avengers. Online, it feels like the temperature is spiking. If you’re touching grass, you know it’s not that bad. Honestly the biggest thing spiking right now is church attendance.
But it only takes one algo-blinded, cocky, MAGA Zoomer or Fox New dad to escalate the cycle. (shoutout to the MAGA Zoomers and Fox News dad’s btw. No shade.)
And if that happens? The Left gets exactly what it wants:
“See, we told you. Violent, fascist, white-supremacist Christian nationalists must be stopped.”
Escalation continues.
Ok. So. Now what?
While a small, honest part of me is sympathetic… the “This Is War”, “Hold My Beer”, No-More-Mr-Niceguy kind of attitude fueling the Right and Christian’s right now will not go well unless we move forward with sobriety, discernment and God ordered discipline.
We need action that is — Measured, Bold, Prayerful, Peaceful and Prophetic.
Intentional Response.
Not Baited Reaction.
This is a “first things first” opportunity.
Don’t lay down.
Don’t tear down.
Build.
Maybe think of it as a Petersonian “Clean Your Room” moment.
Build up your faith.
Build and lead your family.
Build your church.
Let the substance of those realities echo in the influence you have in your relationships, at work and in civil life.
Just don’t take the bait.
(There’s a John Bevere “Bait of Satan” joke in there somewhere but I can’t find it.)
Don’t let the conservative anger mongers on the internet co-opt your righteous indignation.
Power, love and a sound mind — that’s the Spirit that Christ gives us and that’s what we have the opportunity to move forward in.
It’s a bit cheese but imo, Russell Johnson’s “Our Revenge Is Revival” — is kinda gas.
So, pay attention.
Name the dynamic.
Help break your friends out of the reaction trap.
Build the right things, the right way, in the right order.
And stay out of Beautiful Trouble
Reesedanger