The viral commentary by Jon Stewart, in which he declares to conservatives, "You don't own it. You don't own patriotism. You don't own Christianity," is a work of rhetorical genius. It is delivered with the righteous anger of a prophet, and it has been hailed by progressives as a powerful moment of truth-telling. It is, in fact, something far more profound and far more dangerous. It is a perfect and concise sermon on the gospel of nominalism, the philosophical acid that has been slowly dissolving the foundations of the Western world for centuries.

The power of Stewart's argument lies in his central, and most chilling, declaration: "There is no real America." This is the key that unlocks the entire modern progressive worldview. This is not a political critique. It is a metaphysical claim. It is the assertion that our deepest shared realities are not, in fact, real. It is the belief that "America," "patriotism," and even "Christianity" are not objective things with a real, discoverable nature and history. They are merely empty names, hollow symbols that are defined only by the will of those who have the power to claim them.

This is the final, logical outcome of a freedom that sees the untethered will as the ultimate good. It is a freedom so absolute that it gives itself the power not just to choose its own actions, but to invent its own reality. This is a philosophy of pure deconstruction. The tactic is simple and devastatingly effective. First, you identify a group of people who claim to represent an ideal, in this case, conservatives who claim to be patriots and Christians. Second, you find an instance where they have failed to live up to that ideal perfectly, like the hypocrisy of some who espoused "Blue Lives Matter" but failed to support 9/11 first responders. Third, you use that failure to declare their entire claim to the ideal illegitimate. The final, crucial step is to declare that, because their claim is illegitimate, the ideal itself has no fixed or real meaning.

This is the great work of the modern progressive. He is not trying to be a better patriot or a better Christian. He is trying to prove that there is no such thing as "a patriot" or "a Christian." There are only warring tribes, and the words "patriotism" and "Christianity" are merely the decorative banners they carry into battle.

Why do Marxists and their modern heirs love this so much? Because this act of deconstruction is the necessary philosophical prelude to any revolution. Before you can build your new society, your "New Man," you must first convince the people that the old society and the old man are a fraud. You must dissolve all of the old loyalties -- to God, to country, to family -- by teaching that they are not real, that they are merely "social constructs" designed by an "oppressor" class to maintain its power. Mr. Stewart, in his elegant and passionate sermon, is performing this essential revolutionary work. He is attempting to sever the connection between the American people and their own history, their own faith, and their own identity.

He is not calling for a more honest and inclusive debate about what America should be. He is clearing the ground. He is taking the great and beautiful cathedral of Western civilization, a cathedral built by flawed and sinful men, yes, but a cathedral built in the pursuit of a true and noble ideal, and he is declaring it to be an empty and fraudulent ruin. He is not inviting you into a better church. He is inviting you into a world without a church at all -- a world where there is no sacred ground, no transcendent truth, and no law but the will of the strongest tribe. This is not a path to a more just America. It is the path to the "war of all against all." It is the gospel of nothingness.