By Judd Garrett – June 8, 2023
In the Hans Christian Andersen’s fable, The Emperor’s New Clothes, there is an Emperor who loves to wear lavish clothing and parade around town showing them off. One day, two swindlers come to town and offer to weave the Emperor an exquisite new suit. They tell the Emperor that the suit will be so special that it will be invisible to people who are stupid or incompetent. As the swindlers pretend to weave his new clothes, the emperor and government officials visit their shop to check on their progress, and as they see that the looms are weaving nothing, they all pretend otherwise to avoid being thought a fool.
When the weavers finally announce that the Emperor’s new suit is finished, they pretend to dress him in the new clothes, and the Emperor sets off in a procession before the whole city, completely naked but believing that he is fully clothed in the most extravagant garments. The people of the city go along with this pretense for fear of appearing inept or stupid if they didn’t. Finally, a little boy, upon seeing the naked Emperor, burst out in laughter and says, “the Emperor has no clothes”. The people then realize that they had been fooled, but the Emperor continued in the procession, walking more proudly than ever, completely naked, displaying clothes that do not exist.
The townspeople in the fable were not only expected to pretend that the Emperor was not naked, they were also expected to act as if he was actually wearing the most beautiful garments. Out of fear, the people affirmed the delusion of the Emperor, and his delusion became their delusion. They were expected to celebrate his delusion. That’s how it works. And this is what we are witnessing today in America and in the West. With the rise of “woke culture”, Western society is not becoming more enlightened, we are becoming more delusional.
And that is what we are fighting against, the delusions of the woke culture, especially from the trans-movement. Not only do they demand that we say that a man is a woman, we must celebrate men who claim to be women. Like the Emperor, we must applaud their delusions. In 2015, Caitlyn Jenner won ESPN’s and Glamour Magazine’s Woman of the Year award when “she” had not even been a woman for an entire year. Lia Thomas was nominated for Female Athlete of the Year in the same year “she” used the inherent advantages of the man’s body “she” was born into to beat biological women by record margins in NCAA swimming events. In March, Monroe Lace, a man who claims to be a woman, won the Miss San Francisco beauty pageant, and will now compete in the 2023 Miss California pageant. We must applaud their delusions, and if we don’t, if we speak the truth, we will be called ignorant, bigots, haters, transphobes, etc. Like the townspeople in the fable, we must go along with their delusions, or risk being called a fool. That is why so many otherwise sane people in our society, wave pride flags, use preferred pronouns, and repeat the non-sensical mantras like “men can have babies”.
If you ever wondered how Hitler was allowed to do what he did in Germany in the 1930’s, just look at what the woke mob is doing to America, today. Every German citizen, back then, was not evil. In fact, most were not. Only a small minority of the Germans were evil. Yet, most of the good people in Germany turned a blind eye to the evil around them, not because they were evil, but because they were scared, they feared for their lives. Why did the townspeople pretend that the Emperor was wearing exquisite garments when he was actually naked? They feared a reprisal against them if they did not validate the Emperor’s delusion. The German citizens knew if they stood up against the Nazi regime, they would be slaughtered. So, they chose to turn a blind eye to the evil to save their lives.
In Loudoun County, Virginia, Scott Smith, the father of a young girl who had been raped in her school’s bathroom by a boy who claimed to be a girl, is facing prison time, because he had the courage to show up at a school board meeting and demand justice for his daughter. When one of the school board members mocked him during his speech, he became angry and called her a nasty name. He was subsequently arrested, dragged out of the meeting in handcuffs and is facing serious jail time. Nothing happened to the school board member. The authorities made it very clear – we are not allowed stand up against the transgender movement, even when transgendered people commit felony rape of a 15-year-old girl because if you do, they will figure out a way to throw you in jail.
Last week, Toronto Blue Jays pitcher, Anthony Bass learned this lesson, when he decided to use social media to call for a boycott of both Bud Light and Target for embracing of the transgender movement and the LGBTQ agenda both of which are in direct conflict with his Christian faith. After he received much backlash from the LGBTQ community and also from Major League Baseball, not one of his peers in the MLB stood up for him. Under pressure, Mr. Bass, subsequently, issued an apology for his Christian beliefs and affirmed the LGBTQ movement. In a recorded message, which resembles a hostage video, he said, “I recognize yesterday that I made a post that was hurtful to the Pride community, which includes friends of mine and close family members of mine, and I am truly sorry for that… and, as of right now, I am using the Blue Jays’ resources to better educate myself to make better decisions moving forward. The ballpark is for everybody. We include all fans at the ballpark and we want to welcome everybody.” “Better educate” actually means, indoctrinate.
The Toronto Blue Jays and Major-League Baseball forced Mr. Bass to choose between his Christian beliefs and his multi-million-dollar career. Mr. Bass chose his multi-million-dollar career. We can blame him all we want for making that choice, but in a free society, no one should ever be forced to decide between their career and their religious beliefs. But sadly, this is where we are at in this country. It was obvious that Anthony Bass’ apology was spoken out of fear. So, he turned a blind eye to what he knows is wrong to save his livelihood. And this is how it works. It is very hard to stand on principle when you’re forced to stand alone. No one defended him because they feared the same backlash he was receiving, Anthony Bass was isolated, forced to stand alone, and he caved.
How many of us would give up our careers, give up our livelihoods, give up our ability to support our families to defend our beliefs? I don’t know. This is occurring on almost every front, whether it is climate change, domestic terrorism, white supremacy, and even Covid. If anyone has the temerity to question the validity or existence of any of these invisible threats and false narratives, they run the risk of being labelled by society as ignorant, incompetent, bigoted, transphobic, science-denier, and then cancelled from their lives.
We are not allowed to have a debate anymore. People with opposing views are not allowed to voice their opinions. We saw this all through Covid. Anyone who did not align themselves with the government sponsored narrative, were censored, were ostracized, were cancelled. People even wished that dissenters would die. Late night talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, said on air to his audience, that people who choose not get vaccinated, should not be allowed to get medical treatment for any of their ailments. He made a very clear statement, that many on the left still hold, if you don’t do as your told, the medical community should allow you to die. That was not some wacko extremist in the dark recesses of the Internet. That was a prominent talk show host on network television, and his audience loudly applauded his warped mentality.
And his warped mentality is actually playing itself out in America. Recently, a dying 14-year-old girl, Yulia Hicks, was denied the kidney transplant she needs to live by Duke University Hospital in North Carolina because she was not vaccinated for Covid. Duke University Hospital officials told her family that the Covid vaccine is “not a requirement, it’s [a] recommendation, but she cannot get the transplant without the vaccine.” And thus, we entered George Orwell’s world of “double speak”. ‘Getting the vaccine is not a requirement to live, but we are going to let you die if you don’t get it’. Think about how evil that mentality is – If you do not agree with us, we will let you to die. And then we scratch our heads and wonder how the Nazis took control of Germany in the 1930s.
Some people will argue that what happened in Germany could never happen here in America. But if we went back in time 100 years ago to Germany, and told the German people that in less than 10 years, you are going to overwhelmingly elect a dictator who is going to commit one of the worst genocide’s in the history of the world against German citizens, and most Germans are going to turn a blind eye to it, they would all say, that cannot happen here in Germany. But it did. So, the people who believe this could never happen in America, look around, it already is. The Emperor is naked, we must stop pretending that he isn’t.
Judd Garrett is a graduate from Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.