Accompanying this incoming cultural wave, while at the same time abetting it, were the remnants of the American Marxist underground.

The primary vessel of this cultural tide became the national Democratic Party. What many observers thought they were seeing in the party of Jefferson, Jackson, Roosevelt and Truman was nothing more than "good, old-fashion liberalism" was, in growing reality, the statist philosophy of Engles, Marx, Trotsky and Lenin dusted off and decked out in the latest mod fashions.

Hollywood became the New Camelot for the leftist movement in America, a fortuitous conjunction of more glitz than substance, more wealth than brains.

Phantom Mainstream

It all came about incrementally, a pinch here, a dab there, until after five decades it had managed to characterize itself, in a colossal hoax, as "the American mainstream."

It's highly doubtful that the emerging American left was ever truly representative of the majority of Americans, who one would presume to constitute, almost by definition, the mainstream. But there's no doubt at all that the leftist tide – across the cultural spectrum – had become the most powerful and persuasive political movement in the United States.

To that extent, it was the undisputed winner, and its adherents were trumpeting that it was here to stay.

Uh-oh

Only tides don't work like that. Something happened.

The American people finally got a nose full of what the leftist-state culture is really about. They got sick and fed up with what was happening in their, and their children's, literature, films, music, television, celebrityhood, press, schools, colleges and families.

Their revulsion has become the powerful undercurrent that is turning back the once-rising tide of collectivist, anti-religion, anti-American culture. And Bush has become the principal catalytic agent, and chief beneficiary, of this sea change of culture.

This should have come as no big surprise. History, notably American history, is one continuous rising and falling of political philosophies, movements, parties and personalities.

Tides Within Tides

Yet it's not as simplistic as one flow, one ebb, either. Within each flow, within each ebb of a political tide, is a lesser countervailing force, pulling and tugging at the currently dominant tide, whether rising or falling.

Stand a few feet out on the beach where the surf breaks above the ankles and below the knees. What forces do you sense, regardless of whether it's approaching or departing high tide?

First, you feel your bare feet sinking, deeper and deeper into the sand as the water washes in, retreats back out again. It takes considerable struggling to retain your footing.

Standing Tall in Rough Water

That's how, but only partly how, political leaders feel as they constantly move about, trying to retain their balance in the swirl of politics. Those who cannot establish firm footings, with deep pilings of character, don't last long.

Now feel the two other forces at work: The surf rushes in, and even as it is doing so it is also rushing back out. What appear at first to be nothing but waves coming ashore are in fact an equivalent number of undercurrents laboring in the opposite direction.

When the incoming tide is of greater force than its undercurrents, then it's safe to say the tide is rising. When, in the fullness of time, the undercurrents become of greater strength than the incoming tide, then the ocean is ebbing toward low tide.

Catching the Tide

What this president has so artfully accomplished, with what seems to be an authentic natural skill, is to put himself in accord with the increasingly powerful undercurrents of conservatism that are at this very moment turning back the leftist tide.

Bush has had, and will continue to have, a defeat here, a victory there. As with oceanic tides, nothing in politics flows in a fixed linear course at a constant rate of speed. But he is now on the rising tide of conservatism, just as the leftists are once again on the losing tide going out.

This process took half a century to lift the American left as high as it got on its incoming tide. Bush's tide is one that will outlast his terms in office, but history will recognize him as having turned the tide that reestablishes mainstream America.

Steady As He Goes

Over the course of history that mainstream has shifted leftward, but not nearly so far as its architects wanted or would have the world believe. It is headed back now toward where it has been throughout most of American history – in the mostly conservative center.

Those impatient with Bush for not winning every battle in a day need to have a seat and calm down. Their flagellations of frustration only play into the hands of the leftist mass comm that would belittle each victory, falsify each loss.

George W. Bush is going to prevail because he is on the incoming tide and because, like the first American president, he has the courage and character to stand steady when others falter.

John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for NewsMax.com.

Read John Perry's columns here.

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