Over the last decade or so, I’ve lost interest in debating my Progressive friends on most everything. I’ll torment them when the opportunity arises or subtly mock them by appearing to go along with their latest crackpottery, but I avoid getting into anything resembling a serious debate with them. There’s simply no point. I’d have more luck debating an astrologer.

The astrologer, at least, understands that their thing is bullshit. People into the black arts willingly admit to being into magic and they never pretend otherwise. Some astrologers, I suppose, come close to making claims to science, but they never hide the magical bits at the core. Instead, they believe the stars determine our fate in some magical way that can be discovered. It’s kooky, but they don’t pretend it is real science and it is basically harmless.

Hang around Lefty for any length of time and you inevitably bump up against what can only be labeled as magical thinking. There’s an old gag in engineering where you have a flow chart describing all the inputs pointing to a box labeled “something magical happens” which then leads to the desired output. The modern Progressive orthodoxy is shot through with some version of this, usually dressed up with “studies” that read like astrological charts.

I’ve visited this topic in the past, but it seems like a good time to catalog the various forms of magic floating around the Cult. As the load bearing walls of the ruling class show signs of distress, magical thinking is breaking out all over so keeping up on the latest spells and incantations is probably a good idea. That and it allows me to let my hair down and say horrible things about Progressives.

And I’ve started drinking earlier than usual.

The most obvious example of magical thinking is gun control. The Cult is out shaking their staffs at the heavens now, demanding special ceremonies to make the guns stop shooting people. The way to do that, they claim, is to go hassle some white guys in the suburbs who like to hunt and shoot paper targets. Somehow, that’s going to stop Farouk and Jamal from shooting up their neighborhood.

The thing about gun control is that ultimately it is based on the belief that shaping a piece of metal or plastic in a certain way imbues it with magical powers. The “studies” they wave about claim that the mere presence of a gun shaped object causes otherwise sane people to commit suicide, shoot their old lady, rob a liquor store and now, go on Jihad at the local municipal building.

Magic Shape Theory is just one facet of the Progressive amulet. The guy holding the amulet right now is the world’s greatest example of Magic Negro Theory. Back in 2008, the Cult of Modern Liberalism assured us that the sins of the past could be washed from the soul of the nation by putting a black guy in charge. Even though he spoke mostly in gibberish and had yet to show he could run anything more complicated than his yap, he was our savior.

Sadly, we did not have a Pontius Pilate handy (or a Sirhan Sirhan) so we got Barak the Magic Negro who promised:

“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.”

There’s political rhetoric and then there are incantations and prophesies. Promising two cars in every garage and a chicken in every pot is standard political rhetoric. Promising to alter physical reality is the sort of thing people claiming to be warlocks say just before they are carried off to the asylum or, preferably, thrown off a cliff. Not only did the people voting for this ninny believe he was magic; Obama believed he was magic.

The most famous form of magic floating around today is Magic Dirt Theory. Put that phrase in a google machine and out comes 496,000 references. In the whole wide web, that’s not a lot, relatively speaking, but it is not a little either. The fact that the phrase alone could enter the mainstream so easily makes clear it is not just a throwaway line. It’s a real thing, at least in the minds of the believers.

For the unaware, Magic Dirt Theory claims that the soil alters behavior. Place a bunch of Bantus in Paris and they magically transform into Frenchmen. Round up residents of your typical inner city, set them up in suburbia and they become the Cleavers, just without all the honky-ism and white privilege. They will quit gang-banging, get jobs, pay taxes and join the Rotary Club.

In the ongoing crisis, it’s tempting to think that belief in magic is new or just a last gasp, but magic has always been a central part of the Cult of Modern Liberalism. Decades ago, moonbats were convinced that if they affixed a Darwin Fish to their Subaru, it would turn the vehicle’s occupants into scientists. Back in the day, the surest way to spot the innumerate was to look for the Darwin Fish.

At the time, people who should have known better dismissed it as mere signaling. The people displaying these things were letting us know they were in the cult of secular humanism. Remember that one? People used to wear shirts claiming they were secular humanists.

Anyway, that’s exactly the point of a magic talisman. It is a signal to the evil spirits that the wearer is protected by strong juju. Instead of warding off Satan, the Darwin Fish people were using magic symbols to ward off Christians.

Today, the hip and groovy thing to do is to let everyone know you love Gaia by carrying grimy canvas sacks with you to the grocery store. The people doing this believe the grimy sacks create a force field around them repelling deniers who want to kill Mother Earth with their lawnmower. If enough believers carry the grimy sacks with them, Mother Earth will be protected from the bad men.

You can’t have a decent cult without a collection of abracadabra words, the incantations that expose the evil doers in your ranks, give strength to the faithful and diminish the power of the enemies. In modern America, there’s no word more potent than “racist” and its use has the power to slay dragons. Theodore Dalrymple wrote a nice column on how even non-believers can use the power of the R-word to destroy the wicked.

Anti-racism has become the philosopher’s stone of the Cult of Modern Liberalism. It’s not just a weapon, used to melt the faces off of enemies like the Arc in Raiders. The faithful truly believe that once they purge society of racism, the skies will open up and bliss will rain down on mankind, bringing about the eschaton. This is no different from the Puritans believing their purpose in life was to rid their communities of sin and sinners.

One way to purge the world of sinners is through the magic of diversity. Filling up your neighborhood with people not like you is the one sure way bring about the eschaton. If you doubt this, well, you’re probably related to Hitler. Everyone believes diversity is good, because science! and because it is. It just is and if you disagree, well, maybe you should find somewhere else to live.

Before we had the wonderfulness of diversity, we had tolerance, which was this thing that drove away the people the tolerant simply could not tolerate. Similarly, diversity is this thing where everyone is welcome to celebrate their culture, unless they are white and from a culture that has something to celebrate. Diversity promises to magically lift us all to the heavens by pulling the roof down on Western Civilization.

But who doesn’t believe in magic?