Like most other midterm elections, this year’s vote will be a referendum on the performance of President Biden.
But it will also be a referendum of the Democrats’ embrace of the “Brave New World.”
When Aldous Huxley published his dystopian novel in 1932, the world was convulsed in worldwide depression, the rise of authoritarian regimes in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and the emergence of racial purity movements in America, Europe and Japan.
In Huxley’s “Brave New World,” citizens were engineered through artificial wombs, the masses were indoctrinated from childhood about their rightful place in society, the family unit was destroyed so that individuals were better controlled by the state, and the people were constantly barraged by distracting and meaningless popular entertainment and fed a tranquilizer called Soma.
It is not hard to see the connection between Huxley vision and the views of the progressive left. They embrace critical race theory, discount the value of the two-parent family, promote the mindless values of a vapid Hollywood, and want everybody to get better access to marijuana.
And of course, they demand that the government not only protect the right to abortion, but that it pays for abortion, especially for the lower classes.
A decade before Huxley wrote his novel, Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, an organization dedicated to stopping the exponential growth of Catholic children that had overwhelmed America’s shores, through family planning, birth control and abortion.
Sanger’s vision of population control became the law of the land when the Supreme Court legislated from the bench and found that the right to privacy included the right to abortion.
If press reports are to be believed, Roe v. Wade might be overturned by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. And now the Democrats are promising to make abortion the No. 1 issue of the campaign.
This is no surprise. The Democrats have long been the pro-abortion party, and for the elite progressives who now run the party, there is no more important issue than making sure that population growth is limited, especially among working class Americans.
But what plays in the salons of Hollywood, New York City and Washington, D.C., does not play as well in other parts of the country.
For example, in San Antonio, where Kyle Sinclair is running against Joaquin Castro in the 20th District in Texas, abortion politics are not so clear. Sinclair, who is Anglo, is making a spirited run in the majority Hispanic district against the Harvard-educated Castro, who embraces the Democratic brave new world with every ounce of his progressive being.
Internal polling shows Sinclair to be within the margin of error, and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) just endorsed the underdog.
Most Hispanic voters, like voters everywhere, are not absolutist on abortion. But they certainly aren’t comfortable with the current Democratic position of abortion on demand up to the moment of birth.
As Sinclair told me over the weekend, they are also not comfortable with the brave new world as promoted by Castro’s progressive friends. They like Sinclair’s Christian values, even if he doesn’t have a Hispanic last name.
And in San Antonio, they are especially concerned about crime, where they have had the highest murder rate in 27 years.
Biden’s performance on the economy, on crime, on securing the border and on a host of other policy issues has been abysmal. But this election won’t just be the typical report card on the president.
The progressive embrace of the brave new world will also be on the ballot. For voters who are not quite ready to ditch 2,000 years of family values, this will be the time to send a message to left-wing politicians like Castro and the media that works to keep them in office: We aren’t going where you want to take us.
Feehery is a partner at EFB Advocacy and blogs at www.thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.)