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Cultural Marxism and the Collapse of Standards From the Supreme Court to the Swimming Pool
Last week, two seemingly unrelated headlines exposed a more profound crisis in American life. One involved Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson; the other, swimmer William Thomas. Beneath both stories lies a shared ideological root: cultural Marxism.
In Newsweek, senior editor-at-large Josh Hammer published a pointed critique titled “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Is an Insult to the U.S. Supreme Court.”1 Hammer reminded readers that during the 2020 Democratic primary, a faltering Joe Biden made a promise to Rep. Jim Clyburn [D-SC] that his first Supreme Court nominee would be a Black woman.
Biden kept that promise, selecting Ketanji Brown Jackson [born 1970], a relatively unknown jurist at the time. During the confirmation hearings she however managed to make quite an infamous name of herself during an exchange with Senator Marsha Blackburn [R-TN].
Senator Marsha Blackburn: “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?”
Judge Jackson: “No, I can’t.”
Blackburn: “You can’t?”
Jackson: “Not in this context. I’m not a biologist.”
Hammer wrote:
“Serious nations do not elevate arguably unqualified individuals to positions of immense legal authority merely to satisfy ideological quotas.”
He went further:
“No one should be more insulted by this appalling embrace of DEI idiocy than Black women themselves,” since Jackson was chosen because she is a Black woman, yet could not even define what that means.
The second story concerns William Thomas, a male swimmer from Austin, Texas, and a graduate of Westlake High School - a powerhouse in Texas athletics, known for producing NFL greats such as Drew Brees, Nick Foles, and Justin Tucker. Thomas placed sixth in the Texas boys’ state swimming championships and went on to compete for the University of Pennsylvania men’s swim team from 2017 to 2020.
In 2019, Thomas began identifying as transgender and started hormone replacement therapy. After meeting NCAA guidelines, he joined the women’s swim team for the 2021-2022 season. Competing as Lia Thomas, he won the NCAA Division I national title in the 500-yard freestyle, igniting a nationwide debate about fairness in women’s sports.
One of his former teammates, Paula Scanlan, has since emerged as a leading critic of gender identity policies in sports and locker rooms. Scanlan testified before Congress, recounting the environment William ‘Lia’ Thomas created.
“We shared a locker room with someone who had male genitalia … and we were never consulted or given the opportunity to opt out. We were told that if we were uncomfortable, we should seek counseling.”
She described the situation as “mentally exhausting” and said any dissent was met with the threat of being labeled a “bigot or transphobe.”
Meanwhile, journalist Dan Zaksheske reported on X last week:
“UPenn has now apologized for allowing William Thomas to compete on the women’s swimming team. They will vacate all of Thomas’s ‘records’ and restore them to the women who rightfully earned them.”2 Let’s demand the NCAA do the same.
These two stories are not simply controversial; they are ideological. What connects them is the influence of cultural Marxism: a worldview that redefines truth, identity, and justice through the lens of power and group struggle.
Unlike classical Marxism, which focused on class conflict between the rich and poor, cultural Marxism applies the oppressor–oppressed narrative to race, gender, and sexuality. In this ideology, traditional norms, such as biological sex, merit-based achievement, the family, and religious faith, are viewed as tools of oppression to be dismantled.
In this view:
• The male-female binary is not a biological/natural reality, but rather an artificial social construct.
• Objective law is not just; it is a cover for systemic bias.
• Identity is not objectively fixed but subjectively self-declared, irrespective of physical reality.
Justice Jackson’s judicial philosophy reflects this shift. Rather than interpret the law as a neutral arbiter, she often uses it as a tool to advance “equity”, mirroring critical legal theories that reject objectivity in favor of “lived experience.”
Likewise, William Thomas’s eligibility was based not on biology but on the ideological claim that gender identity - not sex - determines competition category.
This revolution in thought did not begin overnight. In 1967, German radical Rudi Dutschke [1940-1979] spoke of “the long march through the institutions” - a phrase echoing the earlier ideas of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci [1891-1937], who argued that cultural dominance, not economic control, was the true path to revolution.
The Frankfurt School of Marxist scholars furthered Gramsci’s concept that the way to transform society is not through barricades, but through the infiltration of media, education, law, and the arts.
To succeed, cultural Marxism had to dismantle the foundations of civilization:
• Western tradition.
• The nuclear family.
• Biblical Christianity.
• Objective moral truth.
And so here we are: a Supreme Court justice unable to tell what a woman is, and a biological male standing atop a women’s podium.
These are not isolated events. They are symptoms of a broader unraveling, where ideology, competence by quotas, and justice by activism replace truth. We are not simply debating policy; we are discussing reality itself.
It is time for Americans to name the ideology behind this confusion and begin the difficult work of rebuilding the moral and cultural foundations that once made this nation strong.
The answer to the question raised in Psalm 11:3 - “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” should be: rebuild the foundations!
The hopeful prospect of rebuilding gives rise to elation and joy as Gideons and Rahabs are stepping into America’s public square.
David Lane
American Renewal Project
1. www.msn.com/en-us/news/news/content/ar-AA1HLUcd?ocid=sapphireappshare
2. x.com/RealDanZak/status/1940131967606899134
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