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Mike Huckabee is the host of the “Mike Huckabee Today” show on TBN and a former governor of Arkansas. Follow Mike Huckabee on @GovMikeHuckabee.
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“What we got here is failure to communicate.”
That famous line uttered by Strother Martin as the captain in the classic film “Cool Hand Luke” could well be the theme for dealing with the followers of the so-called progressive movement. The very term “progressive” is stunningly misleading as those who embrace progressivism are anything but moving America toward progress. America was once on a path forward to the age of the Jetsons, but these academically plump but intellectually skinny screamers would be content to take us back to the age of the Flintstones.
What they say is almost always the opposite of what they really mean. They say they are for “diversity,” but what they really want is a uniformity to a far-left worldview that rejects traditional Judeo-Christian values for a world like that in the time of the Old Testament Judges, when “every man did what was right in his own eyes.”
It’s a culture built on the ever-changing and completely elusive standard of what one “FEELS, THINKS, or BELIEVES.” Facts are of less importance than “storytelling,” which is the centerpiece of Critical Race Theory. One’s personal “feelings” as experienced in one’s own “story” becomes more important than accuracy and objective reality.
A progressive says what they want —and what we should strive for — is tolerance, but that’s not at all true. The most intolerant people in our country are those who demand that we accept without question or discussion a wacky world in which there are 57 genders that can be identified as easily and effortlessly as selecting an ice cream flavor at Baskin Robbins and in which we get to pick our own pronouns — but if one should identify as a Bible-believing Christian regarding sexuality and marriage, that person should not just be pitied but put out of business and banned from society. That is tolerance?
One reason I understand the nonsense of how the progressive movement uses terms that are the actual opposite of what they state is because I grew up in the South. We learn early as Southerners that what a person says isn’t always what they actually mean. Folks from Vermont or Michigan don’t understand this, and it can lead to some embarrassing or even dangerous moments.
For example, if a Southerner says he’s going to “fix you a Coke,” he doesn’t mean that the bottle is broken or that it’s even a Coca-Cola. It means he will simply fetch you a soft drink, though it might be a Dr. Pepper, an RC Cola, or a Nehi belly-washing Big Orange! And if a Southern woman begins or ends a sentence with the three words, “Bless Your Heart,” it does NOT mean what you think it does! It means you’re about to be disemboweled by a sharp knife, figuratively speaking. And should a Southern woman raise her eyebrows and ask, “What did you say?” She is NOT asking you to repeat your last statement. She is asking if you’re good with Jesus because you’re about to meet Him.
Progressives are not interested in free speech. They only tolerate speech that affirms their feelings. They may say “social justice,” but there is nothing social or just about destroying someone’s business with firebombs or looting a store and running off with sneakers and a flatscreen TV. They may demand that rich people pay their “fair share,” but what they truly mean is that people who worked long and hard and made good investment decisions should hand over their earnings to people who get up at noon and watch Netflix from their parents’ basements.
