Vandergriff analysis of “Let Loud Hosannas Ring!” by William S. Lind, Traditional Right 3 August 2025

Lind's piece is a timely rallying cry. If Democrats nominate Harris or her ilk, it's game over for them, and happy days indeed for those who value traditional strengths.

Vandergriff analysis:

In reading Bill Lind's latest piece on the Traditional Right blog, I find myself nodding along with much of what he lays out, especially his tying of cultural Marxism's decline to averting widespread Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) here at home.

As someone who's spent years dissecting how militaries and societies adapt—or fail to—in the face of evolving threats, I see Lind's argument as a sharp extension of our shared thinking on 4GW, which we both trace back to those early discussions in the Marine Corps Gazette and beyond. But let me break it down step by step, drawing on the core principles of 4GW to assess where he's spot on and where there might be some blind spots.

First off, Lind's celebration of Kamala Harris as a potential 2028 Democratic nominee is classic Lind—irreverent and pointed. He paints her as the embodiment of cultural Marxism, that toxic brew of PC, DEI, and wokeness that's been force-fed to institutions for too long. I agree: if the Democrats double down on that, it's electoral suicide.

Trump's real genius, as Lind highlights, wasn't just criticizing it but wielding executive power to dismantle it, showing the world it's a paper tiger. This defiance has ripple effects, emboldening schools, businesses, and everyday folks to push back.

In 4GW terms, this is about legitimacy—the state's moral authority crumbling when it imposes alien ideologies on its people. Lind's novel Victoria nails this: a federal government obsessed with enforcing cultural Marxism erodes the social contract, fragmenting society into non-state actors who wage asymmetric war against the center.

By killing "woke," Trump has rerouted us off that cliff, preserving the state's monopoly on force without the backlash that breeds insurgents, militias, or decentralized resistance networks.

But here's where I drill deeper into the 4GW angle. Fourth Generation Warfare isn't just about guerrillas in far-off lands; it's the blurring of lines between war, politics, and culture, where the battlefield is the human mind and societal cohesion. Lind and I have long argued that 4GW emerges when states lose touch with their cultural roots, allowing non-state entities—be they ideological groups, gangs, or even online movements—to fill the void.

In William S. Lind’s fiction novel Victoria, it's cultural imposition that sparks the breakdown, much like how the Roman Empire's overreach invited barbarian incursions. Trump's assault on cultural Marxism restores a sense of cultural sovereignty, making 4GW less likely because the "heartland," as Lind calls it, no longer feels besieged. People don't rebel when they see the state as a defender, not an oppressor.

This aligns with maneuver warfare principles: outflank the enemy (cultural Marxists) by disrupting their OODA loop, forcing them into reactive, predictable moves like nominating unelectable candidates.

That said, Lind's warning about a looming debt crisis is the wildcard, and it's where his analysis shines brightest for me. A mishandled financial meltdown could mirror the 1930s, scapegoating Trump like Hoover and swinging the pendulum back to a "woke" administration.

If that happens, we're right back on the 4GW expressway: a Democrat in the White House ramming DEI down throats, alienating vast swaths of the population, and inviting the kind of decentralized uprisings Lind depicts. The Heartland—whites, Asians, men, non-feminist women, straights, Christians, working families—won't tolerate it again.

In 4GW, this manifests as boycotts turning into blockades, online memes fueling real-world flash mobs, or worse, armed non-state groups challenging federal overreach. We've seen precursors in events like the Canadian trucker protests or January 6, where cultural grievances morph into kinetic action.

Avoiding that iceberg means handling the economy with the same boldness Trump showed against wokeness—perhaps through aggressive reforms that prioritize resilience over bailouts.

One quibble: Lind underplays how 4GW could still simmer even without a full cultural Marxist revival. Global factors like migration, tech disruptions, and foreign meddling (think China's influence ops) could stoke domestic fractures regardless of who's in office.

In my view, 4GW prevention requires not just defeating ideologies but reforming institutions—military, education, corporations—to foster adaptability and bottom-up initiative, much like the Auftragstaktik we pushed for in military doctrine.

Trump's course correction is a start, but sustaining it demands vigilance against complacency.

Overall, Lind's piece is a timely rallying cry. If Democrats nominate Harris or her ilk, it's game over for them, and happy days indeed for those who value traditional strengths. But let's not pop the champagne yet—staying off the 4GW path means navigating economic storms with the same defiance that buried wokeness.

Lind's got it right: the real victory is in making cultural Marxism as obsolete as corsets, ensuring the state endures without devouring its own.

Begin William S. Lind article:

"Loud hosannas did ring from Republican Households across the land when they opened their July 31 Wall Street Journal to read, “Former Vice President Kamala Harris said Wednesday she wouldn’t run for governor of California next year, leaving open the possibility of another presidential bid in 2028.” Lord, let it be so! Kamala Harris couldn’t bead Elmer Fudd running the the Flat Earth ticket. Should the Democrats be so stupid as to nominate her, champaign consumption would set a new record on election night (Democrats drink horse piss, otherwise known as light beer).

The imbecility of the Democratic Party selecting a candidate stuffed full of cultural Marxism, aka “PC,” DEI, “woke,” etc., points to what I think is President Trump’s greatest achievement to date. By not merely criticising but defying cultural Marxism and assaulting it with the full power of the Executive Branch, he has shown the public it is a clay god. Now, anyone can defy it, and schools, corporations and ordinary people are doing so. Candidates who embrace cultural Marxism as out of fashion as top hats and corsets.

A few weeks ago I was the guest of Pete Quinones’s podcast, where I argued that by killing “woke,” President Trump has moved the country off the path leading to widespread Fourth Generation war. Such a war is depicted in my novel Victoria (written under the nom de plume of Thomas Hobbes because it is an update of his 17th century book Leviathan). What broke the state in Victoria is a federal government that used all its power, regardless of which party was in office, to force cultural Marxism down every American’s throat. Assuming we stay on the new course President Trump has set, that danger has passed.

Is there any chance that events could put cultural Marxism back in the driver’s seat? I can only foresee one. The world, not just the U.S., is heading toward a massive debt and financial crisis. If it is mis-handled, it could bring a second Great Depression. If that happens on President Trump’s watch, the electorate would blame him, just as it blamed President Herbert Hoover is 1932 (the Depression was not his fault; the Federal Reserve Bank was the primary culprit). That in turn might put a “woke” Democrat in the White House, which would put the country back on the road to widespread 4GW. The Heartland will never return to having to fear cultural Marxism.

Assuming we avoid that iceberg, the Democrats will commit suicide if they nominate Harris or any other cultural Marxist. The Republicans’ winning slogan would be, “If you’re white or Asian, a man or non-feminist woman, straight, Christian, or work to support your family, a vote for a Democrat is a vote against yourself.”

So please, Democrats, nominate Kamala Harris or another from her mold. Happy days will be here again."

Notes:

Lind, William S. Victoria: A Novel of 4th Generation War. Kouvola, Finland: Castalia House, 2015.

Lind, William S., Keith Nightengale, John F. Schmitt, Joseph W. Sutton, and Gary I. Wilson. "The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation." Marine Corps Gazette 73, no. 10 (October 1989): 22–26.

Lind, William S. Maneuver Warfare Handbook. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985.

Boyd, John R. "A Discourse on Winning and Losing." Unpublished collection of briefings and essays, August 1987.

Condell, Bruce, and David T. Zabecki, eds. On the German Art of War: Truppenführung. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2001.

Friedman, Milton, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963.

United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2022.

Boutilier, Alex. "The Freedom Convoy: How a Protest Paralyzed Canada's Capital." CBC News, February 20, 2022.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/freedom-convoy-protest-ottawa-explainer-1.6354394.

William Lindhttps://www.traditionalright.com/traditionalright-blog/let-loud-hosannas-ring