This blog post is based on a very informative video I stumbled upon on the New Discourses website, episode 149. In their own words, this podcast presents social, political, and cultural conversations "in the spirit of free inquiry, free speech, and free association". I felt they tackled this particular subject in an honest and straightforward manner, and I think it is worthy, and that important, to share with you.
This is a subject that every American should be aware of, and as I researched it, I realized that I have lived it and have been a witness to the devastation that the Long March Through the Institutions has caused my nation. If you are unfamiliar with this term, let me tell you how it has become embedded in our culture, just during my life-time. But first, we need to take a look it its origins which begin with the famous quote by the 19th-century German philosopher Karl Marx, founder and primary theorist of Marxism, who viewed religion as "the soul of soulless conditions" and "the opium of the people".
Marx suggested that religion is a reflection of the social conditions and struggles of people, stating that it serves as "the sigh of the oppressed creature" and is a form of self-consciousness for those who have lost their way in a harsh world. He believed that once society is transformed, the need for the concept of God would diminish. And that was the goal of Marxism, and brings us to the radical strategy of the "Long March Through the Institutions" that explains the current deterioration of our American society.
The term was coined by a German socialist student activist Rudi Dutschke around 1967 to describe his strategy of creating radical change from within the established cultural institutions of family, religion, education, media, and law; with a special emphasis on education. [NOTE: In response, Christians have identified seven areas of society -- family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government -- that believers aim to influence to help establish God's Kingdom on earth, and which would be an answer to Marxism]. Rudi Dutschke was an admirer of not only Marxism, but Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966. But Zedong's "march" largely referred to the Chinese military's march through each of its provinces to establish his sociopolitical movement and rid him of his political enemies.
But Rudi Dutschke's ideology became centralized around the idea of "revolution"; but not in the standard definition of rebellion, revolt, overt seizure of power, or regime change; but rather in the understanding that Marxism would have to "bore" from within. What does that mean? It means that if you hope to change the American culture, you need to do a "soft revolution" by focusing on education. They learned their lesson in 1968 because America's street radicalism through protests and marches failed. The American public didn't accept it. So, instead of adopting the cultural revolution style of Mao Zedong, strategy shifted to taking over education at all levels and focusing on universities. The radical activists of the 1960s became part of a new political movement known as the New Left, who used the energy off the Vietnam War to campaign for change and reform of social issues. Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, the Weather Underground, and the Black Panthers were all activists in this new movement, whose ideology included Communism, Black Nationalism, Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Imperialism, and Anti-War.
So how did we get from there to our current situation? When the radical protests and agitation didn't work, the Marxists switched to a more subtle strategy. They would work to get into universities as professors and eventually take over departments; and then get into the media, and dispense propaganda; and then take over the legal profession through critical legal studies, critical race theory, and appointments of judges that practiced their ideology. They knew it would be a generational project to produce professionals that could change the cultures of the institutions from within.
It's a very simple and stealthy agenda. You go into any institution or profession, and you take your ideology with you and change the culture from the inside. It happens through conversations by the water cooler. It happens when you take your ideology into the HR Department. It happens when you agitate for changes in the work force. It happens when you can begin to take over educational departments. And it happens when you have successfully infiltrated schools -- It happens when you promote your ideology hour by hour, week by week, year by year, and generation by generation. If you get colleges, you can get teachers, then you can get students, and then you get the future.
The Marxists learned from the Nazis, who offered summer camps as part of their infiltration into cultures and countries they wanted to conquer. The parents innocently welcomed these camps, celebrating that their kids would learn to build fires, shoot guns, and enjoy the outdoors. But the kids came back indoctrinated in Nazism. The kids would either turn their parents toward this new ideology or turn their parents in; they would transform them or destroy them.
But now you don't have to send your kids to summer camp. You just send them off to college, trusting that they are receiving an education to gain their own slice of the American ideal. And because we didn't provide an adequate overwatch on the media institution, our kids get their indoctrination from TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, or X. And because the legal institution has been infiltrated, we have seen our changing laws give us abortion, gender ideology, and now an increasing nudge towards Sharia Law.
I have been a witness to all this in my life. As a daughter of a WWII veteran, I remember the first attempts of the radical Marxist/Socialist/Communist ideology in the late 60's, followed by the attempts to indoctrinate me as a college student in my government class in the early 70's. Then came Roe v. Wade, same-sex marriage, and gender ideation ... all designed to transform our culture; or destroy it.
It has taken three generations to accomplish The Long March Through The Institutions. We have lived through it, and it captured the media (along with its subdomain, social media), the press, the political machines, all the left-leaning bureaucracy, and the legal system through woke judges. Family and Religion are the only two institutions still trying to hold the line. But we are seeing Marxism infiltrating the Church through a social gospel that has corrupted Protestants. The cultural indoctrination of Marxist ideology has infiltrated Christian ethics by applying it to social problems like poverty, labor rights, and racial justice, hoping to improve society through the corrupted Biblical doctrines of charity and justice. We can see these attempts in woke ideologies expressed through Liberation Theology, rainbow flags on churches, and racial and justice activism, for example. Thank the Lord, that Bible-believing [and teaching] churches and Home/House Churches have resisted these movements. It has proven difficult to infiltrate or destroy them.
But I must warn you that the Long March Through the Institutions didn't stop with the Marxist and other left-leaning institutions. It marched into right-standing institutions as well; places where we think we can be safe and protected. But the woke right is just a continuation of the March Through the Institutions. Right-leaning ideology presents itself in terms of redressing [rectify, remedy, or reforming] the undesirable Marxist/Leftist ideologies of identity politics, victimhood, and mindsets. The attempt to reform and correct Marxism in our culture results in the movement of Christian Nationalism, confusion about Israel and the Jews, Zionism, etc. These counter ideologies are fed to America through the institution of the media and the press (including podcasts, Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram and other outlets).
A problem arises when we understand that the Long March Through the Institutions didn't stop with the left-leaning institutions. When the Marxists realized they couldn't turn all the American population into left-leaning socialists or communists, they could still use them to prove they (Marxists) were right ... "Look at all the racists, fascists, and nazis on the Right". And then you get White Privilege, and the idea that the existence of a straight, white Christian male = bad. We also get the 1619 Project that re-examines American history by placing slavery and [the coercion of] an ongoing legacy at the center of the national narrative, proposing a speculative account marking the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia in 1619 as a foundational moment in US history. This theory is then used as a point of conflict among the generations and races.
It seems to me that the New Left is using agitation and propaganda to push into every class in society to cause friction, unrest, and division. When they can cause discord and hate between every class in our society -- from the super rich, to the new rich, to the middle class, the working class, and the poor -- they can capture it all; your family, your church, and even your Bible. The goal is to reform you, or destroy you and our clear rule of law, self-government, and individual rights and freedoms. If these American concepts seem like they're hanging by a thread, then put on your Armor of God and fight for them! The Long March Through the Institutions is almost complete, and it's only us and Jesus standing between them and victory. They must not gain another generation!
Matthew 7:16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
.
