by Ben Shapiro
As a matter of fact, whatever personal authoritarian tendencies Trump may have had were checked throughout his administration. Trump had certainly engaged in authoritarian rhetoric—he utilized violent language, he suggested weaponization of the legal system, he called for breaches of the Constitution. And nothing happened. His much-maligned attorneys general refused to violate the law. He didn’t fire special investigator Robert Mueller. His anger at the press translated mostly into increased ratings for his enemies; CNN’s Jim Acosta, who spent every waking minute proclaiming that he was endangered by Trump’s overheated talk, became a household name thanks to his grandstanding. At no point did Acosta fear arrest or even deplatforming. The shock of January 6 was that the guardrails collapsed for a brief moment in time after holding for years on end. And then the guardrails were re-erected, including by some of Trump’s erstwhile allies.
Now let’s turn to the other side of the aisle.
In the aftermath of January 6, America’s institutional powers swung into action on behalf of authoritarian measures.
Establishment media broadly promoted the idea of deplatforming mainstream conservatives and conservative outlets. CNN reported that the Capitol riot had “reignited a debate over America’s long-held defense of extremist speech.” Naturally, the media quoted “experts” like Wendy Seltzer, affiliate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, to the effect that free speech primarily benefited those who are white.20 Nikole Hannah-Jones, the serial social media prevaricator and Pulitzer Prize–winning purveyor of historical fiction about the inherent evils of America, quickly asked for a “reckoning” in the media.21 Max Boot suggested in the pages of The Washington Post that Fox News be removed from Comcast, or that the Federal Communications Commission be empowered to censor cable networks, stating, “Biden needs to reinvigorate the FCC. Or else the terrorism we saw on Jan. 6 may be only the beginning, rather than the end, of the plot against America.”22
This wasn’t just talk. Nearly every social media company in America promptly removed President Trump’s accounts, even while acknowledging that they could not justify that removal on the basis of their stated policies. Major corporations announced they would cut funding to any Republican who had challenged electoral votes, despite never having done so to Democrats.23 Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), who had supported challenging electors (without serious legal basis, it should be noted), had his publication contract pulled by Simon & Schuster.24 Harvard Kennedy School of Government dropped Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) from its senior advisory committee for making “public assertions about vote fraud in November’s presidential election that have no basis in evidence.”25 Godaddy.com kicked AR15.com, the biggest gun forum in the world, offline.26
The most dramatic and immediate reaction to the Capitol riot was the institutional move against Parler. Parler had been launched in August 2018 as an alternative to Twitter; conservatives had been complaining about Twitter’s opacity and discrimination against conservatives relative to leftists. Parler was the supposed free market solution. Then, in the aftermath of the riot, Apple’s app store removed Parler, as did the Google Play store. The excuse: supposedly, Parler users had coordinated with regard to the January 6 protests, and Parler had allowed inflammatory and threatening material to remain up. The final blow came when Amazon Web Services—a company that merely provides cloud-based web infrastructure for companies—canceled Parler altogether, taking it offline. AWS, Parler CEO John Matze wrote, “will be banning Parler until we give up free speech, institute broad and invasive policies like Twitter and Facebook and we become a surveillance platform by pursuing guilt of those who use Parler before innocence.”27
As it turned out, Facebook and Twitter had been used by Capitol protesters to coordinate as well. Neither company lost its cloud infrastructure. But leftist members of the media didn’t react to that hypocrisy by calling for Parler’s restoration—they reacted to it by calling for further censorship against Facebook and Twitter. Joe Scarborough of MSNBC—who throughout the 2016 race spent inordinate time pumping up Trump—ranted, “Those riots would not have happened but for Twitter, but for Facebook. . . . Facebook’s algorithms were set up to cause this sort of radicalism to explode. . . . Facebook and Twitter set up their business models in a way that would lead to the insurrection.”28 Other tech journalists mirrored that sentiment—a sentiment they had been pumping for years, hoping to shut down social media companies that distribute alternative sources of media.
Meanwhile, governmental actors talked of revenge—and of using the Capitol riots to achieve long-sought political goals. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) stated that Congress should put together a “media literacy” commission in order to “figure out how we rein in our media environment.”29 Representative Cori Bush (D-MO) called for every single member of Congress who “incited this domestic terror attack” to be removed from Congress.30 Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) averred at NBCNews.com that the only way to prevent another Capitol riot was the addition of Washington, D.C., as a state, a renewed Voting Rights Act (likely unconstitutional), and universal mail-in voting.31 As Joe Biden entered office on January 20, Representative James Clyburn (D-SC), who had compared Donald Trump to Hitler and Republicans to Nazis,32 said that Biden should simply act unilaterally via executive action to implement his agenda if Congress balked: “If they’re going to throw up roadblocks, go on without them. Use your executive authority if they refuse to cooperate . . . you can do big things and you can do great things. You can do things that are lasting.”33 It is worth noting that there is no clause of the Constitution whereby the president can simply implement his favored policies without congressional approval.
To sum up: on January 6, a group of radical extremist Trump supporters—right-wing authoritarians—stormed the US Capitol, where they were quickly put down. The institutions survived; the insurrectionists were roundly derided, disowned, and prosecuted.
Immediately thereafter, left-wing authoritarians took full advantage of the situation to press forward revolutionary aggression, top-down censorship, and anti-conventionalism targeting not just the rioters, but conservatives and individual rights more broadly. This perspective was mirrored across nearly every powerful institution in American society.
So, let us repeat the question.
If there is a serious threat to free speech, does it come chiefly from right-wing authoritarians? Or does it come from the left-wing authoritarians in media, big tech, and government?
If there is a threat to democratic institutions, does it come chiefly from right-wing authoritarians? Or does it come from the left-wing authoritarians in government, who broadly disdain the Constitution and believe in the implementation of their worldview from the top down?
If there is a threat to our most basic liberties, whom should we most fear: the dumbasses in clown suits invading the Capitol on January 6? Donald Trump, a man who talked like an authoritarian but did not actually govern as one? Or the monolithic leftists who dominate the top echelons of nearly every powerful institution in American society, and who frequently use their power to silence their opposition?
LIFE UNDER LEFT-WING SOCIAL AUTHORITARIANISM
Deep down, Americans know the answer to this question.
More than six in ten Americans say they fear saying what they think, including a majority of liberals, 64 percent of moderates, and fully 77 percent of conservatives. Only self-described “strong liberals” feel confident in saying what they believe these days.34 To be a left-wing authoritarian is to feel the certainty of anti-conventionalism, the passion for top-down censorship, the thrill of revolutionary aggression.
Tomorrow belongs to them.
For the rest of us, a society run by left-wing authoritarians is extraordinarily burdensome. It is to be surrounded by institutional hatred. If you are conservative—or merely non-leftist—in America, the hatred is palpable.
They hate you in academia. They hate you in the media. They hate you on
the sports field, in the movies, on Facebook and Twitter. Your boss hates you. Your colleagues hate you—or at least have been told they should.
They hate you because you think the wrong way.
Perhaps the problem is that you attend church regularly. Perhaps it’s that you want to run your business and be left alone. Perhaps it’s that you want to raise your children with traditional social values. It could be that you believe that men and women exist, or that the police are generally not racist, or that children deserve a mother and a father, or that hard work pays off, or that the American flag stands for freedom rather than oppression, or that unborn children should not be killed, or that people should be judged based on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
Maybe the problem is that you won’t post a black square on your Facebook page to symbolize your support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Maybe the problem is that you won’t kneel for the national anthem or cheer for those who kneel. Maybe it’s that you haven’t put your preferred pronouns in your Twitter profile, or hashtagged with the latest pride symbol for the latest cause, or used the proper emoji in your text messages.
Or maybe it’s just that you have friends, or family members, or even acquaintances who have violated any of the thicket of cultural regulations placed upon us by our supposed moral betters. Guilt by association is just as damning as guilt through action or inaction.
The reasons they hate you are legion. They change day to day. There’s no rhyme or reason or consistency to them. One day, you might be a ballyhooed champion of justice for standing up for gay rights or feminist ideals; the next day, you might be told that you have been banished to the cornfield for your refusal to acknowledge that a man calling himself a woman is not in fact a woman (Martina Navratilova or J. K. Rowling). One day, you might find yourself a hero of the intelligentsia for your cynicism about religion; the next, you might find yourself a villain for the great sin of suggesting that cancel culture breeds radicalization (Sam Harris or Steven Pinker). One day, you might be a well-respected opinion maker, considered de rigueur reading for your complex take on economics and sociology; the next, you might be considered a privileged white male worthy of excommunication (David Shor or Matthew Yglesias).
This is not a question of Democrat or Republican. Not one figure named above would identify as a Republican, let alone a conservative. There is only one thing in the end that unites the disparate figures deemed worthy of the gulag in our ongoing culture war: refusal. Like Herman Melville’s Bartleby, it is simple refusal that demands compulsion. The standards matter less than the simple message: you will comply, and you will like it.
The consequences for those who do not are quite real. As a prominent conservative, I always warn those who aren’t prepared for social, cultural, and familial blowback not to associate with me publicly. There are consequences for treating conservatives as human. That’s why every birthday, I’m amused but unsurprised to receive a bevy of kind wishes from liberals via text message—and none publicly in places like Twitter, where the mere recognition that a conservative was born of woman is enough to earn unending scorn.
Such situations are far from hypothetical. In June 2018, prominent Hollywood actor and producer Mark Duplass approached me about getting together—he was producing a film dealing with gun rights, and wanted to speak with someone on the Right to get a more accurate point of view. I thought that was shockingly decent of him, given Hollywood’s permanent and thoroughgoing determination to caricature conservative positions; I told him so, and suggested he come by the office for a discussion.
We ended up spending about an hour and a half together. As he left, I gave him the usual warning: don’t mention that we’ve met publicly, unless you’re prepared for the fallout.
He didn’t listen. In July, a couple of weeks later, he tweeted this shocking message: “Fellow liberals: If you are interested at all in ‘crossing the aisle’ you should consider following @benshapiro. I don’t agree with him on much but he’s a genuine person who once helped me for no other reason than to be nice. He doesn’t bend the truth. His intentions are good.”
The world fell in on poor Mark. After trending on Twitter publicly, and surely receiving a boatload of nasty notes privately, Mark quickly deleted his tweet, and then replaced it with a Maoist struggle session of hot-button social justice warrior thoughtvomit:
So that tweet was a disaster on many levels. I want to be clear that I in no way endorse hatred, racism, homophobia, xenophobia or any such form of intolerance. My goal has always been to spread unity, understanding and kindness. But I am going to make mistakes along the way. Sometimes I move too quickly when I get excited, or fail to do enough research, or I don’t communicate myself clearly. I’m really sorry. I now understand that I need to be more diligent and careful. I’m working on that. But, I do believe deeply in bi-partisan understanding and I will continue to do my best to promote peace and decency in this world right now. That said, I hear you. And I want to say thank you to those who reached out with constructive criticism. I have genuinely learned so much and wish everyone all the best.35
Well, almost everyone.
Honestly, I felt rather sorry for him. Duplass has to work in this town. And Hollywood is a one-party ideological dictatorship. That said, I did warn him. And cowardice is indeed a form of sin.
Naturally, Duplass’s craven apology to the world for having acknowledged that a conservative is indeed human brought cheers from the usual suspects (Vox’s Zack Beauchamp headlined, “Duplass was right to take back his praise”).36 Order had been restored; the binary moral universe ruled by the woke priestly caste had been maintained.
And it will be maintained.
Because Duplass isn’t alone. This sort of stuff happens all the time. Just about a year after the Duplass incident, I attended a rather tony political summit—perhaps the only real ritzy cocktail party I’ve ever gone to. One of the other attendees happened to be one of the more prominent left-wing podcasters in the country. After a few pleasantries, I suggested that perhaps we ought to do an election-year crossover podcast. “The numbers,” I said, “would be extraordinary. And I know my audience would love it. We’re always having on guests who disagree.”
“I’m sure your audience would be cool with it,” the podcaster answered. “But mine would murder me.”
He wasn’t wrong. Which is why when I meet prominent people, from conservative sports stars to libertarian tech magnates, from right-wing Hollywood creators to goodhearted liberals in the media world, I do so quietly. I’m not in the business of taking billions of dollars off the market capitalization of major corporations or getting studio heads fired simply by confirming with whom I lunch. Those who violate ideological quarantine risk being treated as lepers in this environment.
Now, I’m lucky. I speak my views for a living. But tens and tens of millions of people aren’t so lucky. For them, the consequences of speaking non-leftist views publicly in our absolutist time are grave. The authoritarian Left seeks to quell dissent. And they use every means at their disposal to do so.
Every day, I receive dozens of letters and calls from people asking how to navigate the minefield of American life. It’s easily the most common question I receive.
“My boss is forcing me into diversity training, in which I’m told that all white Americans are inherently racist. Should I speak up about it? I’m afraid I’ll be fired.”
“My professor says that anyone who refuses to use preferred pronouns is a bigot. What should I write on my final? I’m afraid he’ll grade me down.”
“My sister knows I voted for Republicans. Now she says she doesn’t want to talk to me. What do I do?”
The consequences of woke cultural authoritarianism are real, and they are devastating. They range from job loss to social ostracism. Americans live in fear of the moment when a personal enemy dredges up a Bad Old TweetTM or members of the media “resurface” an impolitic comment in a text message. And the
eyes and ears are everywhere. One simple tip from someone on Facebook to a pseudo-journalist activist can result in a worldwide scandal. Your boss cares what you say. So do your friends. Cross the social justice warriors, and you will be canceled. It’s not a matter of if. Only when.
The only safety from the mob is to become a part of the mob. Silence used to be possibility. Now silence is taken as resistance. Everyone must stand and applaud for Stalin—and he who sits down first is sent to the gulag.
So repeat. And believe.
Perhaps the most galling aspect of our culturally authoritarian moment is the blithe assurance whereby Americans are informed that they are exaggerating. There is no such thing as cancel culture, our woke rulers assure us, while busily hunting down our most embarrassing political faux pas. There’s nothing wrong, they say, with calling your boss to try to get you fired—after all, that’s the free market just working! Why are you whining about social media censorship, or about social ostracism? People have a right to tear you to shreds, to end your career, to malign your character! It’s all free speech!
In a certain sense, they’re not wrong: your boss does have a right to fire you; your friends and family do have a right to cut you off. None of that amounts to a violation of the First Amendment.
It simply amounts to the end of the republic.
Free speech and free exchange of ideas die when the attitude of philosophical tolerance withers. Government authoritarianism isn’t the only way to kill American freedom. Cultural authoritarianism works, too. It has always worked. Writing in 1831, the greatest observer of America and democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, summed up the threat of democratic despotism in terms that sound shockingly, eerily prescient: