The Post-War Consensus: How We Defeated the Nazis and Lost Our Souls

“Everything you’ve been told is a lie.” Well, ok, that’s probably true for the most part. Our institutions – our political leaders, educational systems, and mainstream media – have definitely lost the trust and respect of the people. But note: Even if the major narratives we have been handed are lies, that does not automatically mean the opposite of those narratives is the truth.

As we have seen one so-called conspiracy theory after another come true, it’s easy to ask, “What else have they been lying about?” It’s easy to feel like everything is propaganda. But Christians are always called to exercise discernment, and this discernment is necessary not only in dealing with mainstream sources, but also when dealing with “alternative” sources.

In recent weeks, an internet controversy has broken out over Churchill, Hitler, World War II, and its aftermath. The standard narrative tells us Hitler was one of the biggest villains in history, Churchill was a hero, and the good guys won. But a recent Tucker Carlson podcast shows that some people are willing to question, and even challenge, that received view.

I will not try to adjudicate the history here. Several very able historians rushed to Churchill’s defense, including Victor Davis Hanson, Miles Smith, and Andrew Roberts. Conservative criticisms of Churchill are actually nothing new since Churchill was undoubtedly a “man of the state” – the welfare state and the warfare state. Calling him the 20th century’s “man of the century” is not necessarily an unqualified compliment, given how dominated the whole century was by statists. But what is new with those on the dissident right is re-evaluating Churchill vis-à-vis Hitler, and calling Churchill the “real villain” of World War II the way Daryl Cooper did on Carlson’s podcast. Earlier conservative critics of Churchill kept his moral flaws in perspective over against those of other World War II leaders.

Another new development is seeking to blame the post-war consensus (also known as modernity or modern liberalism or progressivism) on Churchill, as if the West’s capitulation to globalism and multi-culturalism could be blamed on him. But that’s a rather strange charge, given that Churchill loved the British Empire and was more of a colonialist than a multi-culturalist. Churchill affirmed the traditional social order, believed firmly in the superiority of British culture (which he was altruistically willing to share with other people groups), and was definitely not an egalitarian. Churchill was a staunch critic of Islam. Churchill would no doubt be horrified at what modern Britain has become. Churchill was many things, but a George Bush-style neo-con was not one of them.

That being said, the post-war consensus is a reality and however we arrived at this consensus, it is a problem. A big problem. If we are going to armchair-quarterback the situation after World War II, I would point out that the post-war consensus was by no means inevitable. In the aftermath of the war, triumphant Western nations could have chosen to reclaim the legacy of Christendom and rebuild a Christian civilization, as their fathers had done generations before. It was possible, had there been the will, desire, and vision. Instead the powers-that-be chose to create a secular, egalitarian, globalist “new world order” – the essence of the “post-war consensus.” The elites thought this was the best way to prevent another Hitler, another Nazi regime, from arising and wreaking havoc: Dissolve all religious, familial, and national identities in an acid of globalism and then people won’t fight because they won’t have anything worth fighting for. Weaken their loves, cancel their natural affections, dilute their religious convictions, and peace will follow. Or so the thinking went. Topple the strong gods and enshrine the weak gods, as R. R. Reno has put it. Replace patriarchy with feminism, colonialism with diversity, and patriotism with consumerism, and nationalism with globalism.

In the West, the post-war consensus meant that masculinity, dogmatic certainty, patriotism, and family values would come to be associated with Nazism. In the East, when Japan’s Emperor surrendered, he offered to make Christian faith the official religion of his nation. The offer was declined because by the 1940s the Christian faith of most Americans was so insipid and privatized that a nebulous doctrine of “religious freedom” was prioritized over actually discipling a nation as the Great Commission requires. In the post-war environment, Christian faith would have to be totally privatized.

The post-war consensus was a social construction of our elites. It was a miscalculation based on a fundamental misunderstanding of who we are as humans. The US was poised for economic explosion after the war no matter what, so the post-war consensus cannot take credit for the economic prosperity the “Boomer” generation enjoyed. It’s not like the post-war consensus invented markets; industrialization and technology were going to keep developing, and America was going to be an economic superpower regardless of what else happened. But the post-war consensus did radically accelerate the secularization of the West — and this has become a form of slow-motion civilizational suicide. Unfortunately, most of the church was not in a good position to effectively stand up to it and instead got carried along by it. That’s largely how we got to where we are today, with many realizing too late what has been taken from them. Practically and ideologically, progressive elites today have far more in common with the 19th and 20th century tyrannies than, say, paleo-cons or traditional Christians do, even though the mainstream media narrative will try to tell you the opposite.

The post-war consensus did not arrive all at once, of course. And much of it came in initially through the back channels of managerialism and bureaucracy — basically what many today would call “the deep state.” Remember, Eisenhower was warning about the dangers of the “military industrial complex” at his farewell speech in 1961, so not everyone was in on the conspiracy to the same degree. Of course, that warning went unheeded. The military industrial complex was a key piece in the globalization process.

The globalism of the post-war consensus treats every individual, regardless of sex or nationality, as an interchangeable cog in an industrialized and technologized machine. The result is radical dehumanization. Why do we see so much self-loathing in the Western world today? Why do so many whites hate their whiteness? Why do so many men despise their masculinity? Why are so many Western nations ashamed of their nation’s heritage? Why do we now live in a post-family civilization, with collapsing marriage rates and birth rates? The post-war consensus has created these forms of self-hate by design. The post-war consensus has made Western nations borderless, soulless, faceless. It accelerated feminism, the sexual revolution, and the breakdown of the family. It produced the immigration crisis we are now witnessing. After almost 80 years of growth, the poisonous fruit of the post-war consensus is finally catching up with us. The common people will reap what the elites have sown. May God have mercy.