Go Ahead and Keep Arguing About Charlie Kirk
How The Elite Divide & Conquer Us Using Political Correctness
On Monday, I published an article condemning right-wing political correctness. I’m certain the article was either ignored or rejected by those on the right. However, in that article, I intimated that left-wing political correctness can also be abused and often has been.
This follow-up article, I suspect, will make no one very happy as I will take on both left and right-wing political correctness. I hope readers will take a moment, however, and reflect. Could it be that the political elites of this country encourage and, in fact, promote political correctness from both wings to divide and conquer? Are the billionaires and social elite pitting us against each other and laughing all the way to the bank?
See if I can make the case. If I do, then we have been played and duped by those who want us at each other’s throats.
“The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country—and we haven’t seen them since. Instead, we have had an elite whose principal function has been to divide the masses, so that while they fight each other, the privileged remain secure.”
Gore Vidal, Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace, 2002
Culture Wars Serve the Interest of the Elites
Both the left and the right today try to enforce political correctness. On the left, it takes the form of speech codes, taboos around identity, and the cancellation of those who violate shifting standards of inclusion. On the right, it appears as patriotic loyalty tests, book bans, anti-LBGTQ+ tropes, and anti-transgender laws designed to silence criticism of the church or the nation. The surface conflict seems absolute: two camps locked in endless war over words, symbols, and rituals.
But is it? Is that what this is all about?
Take a step back and look at the bigger picture; the picture changes and comes into better focus. Political correctness on both sides—whether progressive or conservative—functions less as a battle for truth than as a strategy of control. The real beneficiaries are not the activists who are screaming at each other, but the ruling elites who quietly profit while the public is divided against itself and distracted.
It is a distraction game, and we have all fallen for it.
Cultural outrage is the cheapest political currency available. It inflames passions, captures headlines, and consumes airtime without costing the elite a dime. When people are busy fighting over pronouns or patriotic pledges, they are not fighting over wages, corporate monopolies, or the bipartisan corruption that defines American governance.
Free thought and honest debate are dangerous to those in power, and they strive to reduce the honest flow of ideas. If people think for themselves, they might notice how their labor is exploited, how wealth concentrates at the top, and how both political parties serve corporate donors more faithfully than they serve their voters. Elites encourage conformity, tribal loyalty, and cultural outrage, and profit from it.
It has worked for them for a very long time. If we can step back from our prefabricated cultural outrage, we might see that we are victims of a simple formula: divide and conquer.
Here are a series of case studies in the art of conquer and divide, and how easy it is to get caught up in the ruse.
Case Study 1: The Anti-Woke Machine
Take the rise of the current “anti-woke” industry. Conservative billionaires like Charles Koch and the DeVos family pour millions into think tanks, PACs, and media outlets devoted to fighting “wokeness.” State legislatures propose bills banning discussions of gender identity or systemic racism in classrooms. Media personalities like Tucker Carlson frame every controversy as a battle against the “woke mob.” Charlie Kirk used anti-wokeness as a marketing strategy.
But step back and ask: why are billionaires so obsessed with pronouns in universities or Drag Queen Story Hour? Do they genuinely care? I think they don’t. What they care about is redirecting widespread anger toward each other, and not toward them. Instead of workers noticing that corporations are outsourcing jobs, crushing unions, or automating labor, they are told to panic about a professor using “Latinx.” Instead of rural voters asking why their hospitals are closing and their towns hollowing out, they’re urged to fight about rainbow flags in Target.
The outrage works. It keeps voters angry at symbols rather than at systems. Meanwhile, the billionaires who fund the culture war continue to extract wealth unopposed.
Case Study 2: Corporate Wokeness
The left’s version of political correctness also serves elites. Corporations now often embrace the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in performative ways that don’t truly change the culture. Entire industries of consultants and trainers profit from advising employees on the words to use and the sensitivity to observe. At first glance, this looks progressive. But look closer, and you see the scam.
Talking about pronouns in HR manuals costs corporations nothing. Paying a DEI consultant is far less expensive than raising wages, recognizing unions, or reducing excessive executive pay. When Amazon changes its logo for Pride Month but crushes workers organizing in its warehouses, it is practicing political correctness as corporate cover. “Wokeness” becomes not a challenge to power, but a shield for it.
This is what the critic and political science professor Adolph Reed calls “left-neoliberalism”: politics obsessed with identity symbols while leaving economic structures intact. By channeling discontent into speech policing rather than economic justice, corporate wokeness protects the very hierarchies it claims to challenge. As a result, nothing changes, and inequality persists and even increases.
Case Study 3: Book Bans and Patriotism
On the right, political correctness often takes the form of censorship. School districts across the country are banning books like Maus (a graphic novel about the Holocaust) and Gender Queer (a memoir about sexuality). Florida, under Governor Ron DeSantis, has turned curriculum wars into political theater, purging discussions of race and queer history under the guise of “protecting children.”
We need to learn to ask the right question: who benefits from such a distraction? While parents rage at school board meetings about “indoctrination,” the same politicians quietly pass tax cuts for developers, weaken labor laws, and funnel public money into private education. The cultural battle keeps the base distracted while economic policy continues to serve the elite.
This is not new. The Sedition Act of 1798 criminalized dissent against the government in the name of patriotism. During World War I, labor organizers were jailed for criticizing the draft. In every era, political correctness on the right has meant punishing speech that threatens elite power. Today’s book bans are simply the latest version.
Case Study 4: Disney vs. DeSantis
Perhaps the most recent and absurd example is the feud between Disney and Governor DeSantis. Disney, a corporation worth hundreds of billions of dollars, briefly criticized Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. DeSantis pounced, framing himself as a warrior against “woke corporations.” The result was months of headlines, endless debates, and a flood of political donations to both sides.
It was all political theater.
Notice what didn’t change: Disney still enjoys vast tax privileges, still exploits cheap labor, and still sells a sanitized version of American mythology to the masses. The feud was theater, not substance. Both DeSantis and Disney achieved their objectives: DeSantis gained national attention for his presidential ambitions, and Disney had the opportunity to polish its progressive image while continuing its business as usual. The culture war was a stage play for the public, while the backstage deals went untouched.
Add to this Disney’s recent suspension of Jimmy Kimmel under pressure from the Trump FCC, and you see through the veneer of so-called progressive corporations. As soon as Disney’s stock began to tank, they agreed to bring Kimmel back to ABC. Their only criterion is their bottom line, not any commitment to progressive ideals.
Case Study 5: The ESG Investing Wars
On Wall Street, a battle has erupted over environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing. Progressives celebrate ESG funds as “socially responsible,” pushing corporations to consider diversity, sustainability, and social justice in their decisions. Conservatives denounce ESG as “woke capitalism,” with Republican-led states like Texas and Florida banning investment funds that use ESG criteria.
At first glance, it appears to be a clash of worldviews. In reality, it’s political theater. ESG is not a revolution—it’s a marketing scheme. Fossil fuel giants, such as ExxonMobil, still appear in ESG funds. Banks that finance oil pipelines score well on “social responsibility” because they hold boardroom seminars on diversity. Meanwhile, Republican leaders grandstand against ESG while quietly accepting donations from the very firms they denounce.
The result? Outrage for the masses, profits for the elite. Ordinary people are told to rage about whether their retirement savings are “woke” or “anti-woke,” while Wall Street continues to skim profits off both sides. ESG is not a challenge to corporate power—it is a branding exercise. And the backlash is not a challenge to capitalism—it is another distraction. Mission accomplished!
The Philosophy of Distraction and Division
What unites all these examples is the same strategy: divide the public, distract from power, and enforce conformity from below. Above all, do not make changes to threaten the inequitable economic structure that impoverishes over half of all Americans. Keep them pitted against each other as we quietly acquire massive amounts of wealth at their expense.
The British philosopher John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty (1859), warned against silencing dissent: “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that… if he does not so much as know what [the opposite reasons] are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.”
Mill’s point is devastating for elites. If citizens actually debated openly—if they compared notes across left and right—they might realize their common enemy isn’t each other. It’s the entrenched powers above them: the billionaire class, the corporate monopolies, and their enslaved politicians. That’s why both sides are trained to silence opponents rather than debate in any real way, to punish rather than persuade. The less people talk across divides, the less likely they are to notice their shared exploitation.
The Alternative: Courage Over Conformity
The alternative to political correctness is not cruelty, bigotry, or nihilism; indeed, it is not more political conformity. The alternative is courage, the courage to live with the discomfort of opposing ideas, to listen to views you despise, to tolerate differences not because it feels good but because it is necessary for liberty. And to ask deep questions of the economic elite.
A culture of courage and resilience, not censorship, is what makes democracy possible. When citizens stop being fragile about words, they can focus on the realities that matter: wages, housing, healthcare, war, and corruption. When they stop canceling each other, they can start challenging the people who actually hold power, and that is what they fear the most.
We need to stop taking their bait!
Culture wars are a magician’s trick. It is the elite’s sleight of hand. The left shouts about microaggressions, the right shouts about book bans, and the public rages at itself while the elite laugh all the way to the bank. Political correctness is their favorite weapon: cheap, effective, endlessly distracting, and quite entertaining.
The way out is not to pick a side in the political correctness wars, but to refuse the bait altogether. To insist on free debate, thick skin, and pluralism. To recognize that the real battle is not over words but over power.
There is a significant portion of the country who have recognized the distraction game and has checked out. They are the largest voting bloc in the nation: the non-voting eligible voters. The largest group in the last election was not those who voted for Trump or Harris; it was those who stayed home because they knew neither party was really working for them. They weren’t buying the politically correct message from either party. They knew it was bull-shit.
These folks already know what the activists seem oblivious to: culture wars are a distraction and a waste of time because they have nothing to do with improving anyone’s economic bottom line, nor the nation’s. What if the rest of us understood that? What if we set aside our swords of political correctness and turned toward the elite, starting to ask some tough questions?
Once citizens stop patrolling each other’s speech and start confronting the structures above them, the elite will finally face what they fear most: a united people who see through the illusion and manipulation.
Noam Chomsky said it very well in Understanding Power, 2002:
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum… That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
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