A rearguard action, at least in its idiomatic usage, describes efforts to prevent an inevitable outcome, even when it may be too late. Over the past few decades, this describes conservative efforts to maintain customs, culture & traditions against modern changes. Their enemy was socialism, specifically Marxism hiding in altruism and moralizing. The tactic was called “the long march through the institutions,” where people of that ideology inexorably took over all the controls of power, blocking access to participation by anyone who did not conform to their worldview. They were helped in their effort by the devastation that has slowly overtaken the middle class due to wealth concentration and globalism, making it impossible for young people to achieve the prosperity of their parents. The pathetic results of this conservative resistance is visible to everyone outside of the Amish.

However, times have changed; the worm has turned; there is a new rearguard action: attempts by wokesters to resist governmental changes that threaten their power, exemplified by Trump’s success against all forces, legal & illegal, arrayed against him. The mass of the population, mostly men, have finally responded to the woke overreach, and are reacting. Like a giant ship turning in the ocean, nothing can stop it until the bitter end. The woke old guard are screeching at the top of their lungs, extorting their followers to assassinate Trump, and calling anyone who supports him “NAZIs” to his “Hitler,” but they’re being crushed more and more every day. Hopefully, their rearguard action signifies a desperate, doomed effort to maintain the status quo from when they were in charge.