Nearly five years ago, one of the first Bubbler posts I wrote was called “Celebrate similarity.”
Because we don’t really teach US history anymore, fewer and fewer people understand this. But the United States was founded on a set of principles that attracted a diverse set of people from all around the globe – all of whom were united by one core idea: Freedom.
They came to build a better life. Hard to say whether the desire to escape tyranny and oppression was greater than the desire to find hope and opportunity, but of course it was both.
No matter what religion, skin color, physical characteristics, gender, sexuality, means, abilities, savings amount, possessions, family size, or experience, they all came because they knew it was the best (if not only) place on earth for them to pursue their happiness… their dream.
They came because they knew that they stood the best chance of applying whatever skills or smarts they had to start their own business or be successful within someone else’s. They knew that Americans were kind and giving, and that the capitalist system would reward them if they worked with discipline and applied themselves.
Sure, it wasn’t a guarantee. There would be failures. There always are. But there would also be the safety net of community and family. The safety net of second chances. Fortunes can change quickly and unexpectedly, and they were surrounded by people who also understood the risks… and rewards.
That didn’t all like the same music or the same food. They didn’t share the same accents. The parents had different philosophies for raising children. There were different biases and stereotypes, to be sure.
But the one thing that united everyone, the thing that made us all similar, was our love for America and the promise it held.
Hell, it even articulated the freedom to pursue happiness right there in our Declaration of Independence.
Celebrate Diversity
The Republican Party – with the worst marketing department in the history of marketing departments – has embraced the left’s divisive “Celebrate diversity” slogan and stood back (if not joined) while an entire diversity and inclusivity industry popped up and took over our Fortune 500 companies.
There’s nothing intuitively sensical or productive about “celebrate diversity.” You can’t unite people around their differences. And it’s especially doomed to fail if you try and unite them around irrelevant and meaningless physical and provincial differences.
A company is not going to be better off by forcing people of different races, religions, sexual orientations, gender, or points of origin to work together. Nor will they be worse off.
They will be better when they hire the most creative, talented, hungry, and experienced people within their disciplines to come together, united by the problems they are trying to solve and the challenges they are facing.
Diversity and inclusion (DEI) serves only three purposes – to keep us divided, to keep us conscious of irrelevant differences, and to keep DEI professionals employed.
The Campaign
Conservatives need to embrace the slogan “Celebrate Similarity.” They need to bumper sticker the hell out of it. Yard signs for everyone. Candidates everywhere should be talking about it. Conservative companies should start hiring for it.
Yes, leftists are going to call it a dog-whistle for whites. But that’s why it needs to be explained with great repetition: because it is exactly the opposite.
It was actually what brought together people from all over the globe and united us.
Freedom. Opportunity. Pursuit of happiness. Those are our similarities, and they need to be celebrated.
Celebrating diversity is a significant detriment that prevents us from progressing and building and ever-unified society. It promises to keep us divided. It says so right there in the slogan.
Like everything the left touches, it’s going to require guts because the fear of cancellation will be real and palpable. But if enough people embrace what it was that brought us together and made us an exceptional nation to start with, we can be unified again.
We can find the dreams and ideas we all share and use them to bring us all back together again.
Say it with me: Celebrate Similarity.
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