CANADA—“A COUNTRY FILLED MOSTLY WITH WHITE PEOPLE”
The left uses accusations of racism as an effective political weapon against Trump supporters. They especially enjoy employing this smear against border hawks because immigration is Trump’s signature issue. Democrats insist they aren’t for open borders, and yet they slander anyone who supports border enforcement as a bigot.58
Race actually has nothing to do with border enforcement, which is the right and obligation of every sovereign government. But since Democrats have successfully demonized Republicans as racists with African Americans, they are using the same tactic with other minorities. Leftists know that illegal immigrants are potential beneficiaries of future amnesties, so alienating those future voters from Republicans is just good politics for them—no matter how despicable and destructive. Democratic politicians know the racism charge sticks. It has with their own constituents, as a recent SurveyMonkey online poll shows that a whopping 61 percent of Democrats believe Republicans are racist, bigoted, or sexist.59
Defining the very idea of border enforcement as racist is a major priority of the left. Democratic senator Chris Murphy blasted Republicans for favoring a wall with Mexico but not Canada—a “country filled mostly with white people.”60 The senator, however, must know that illegal crossings from Canada are a fraction of those from Mexico. Likewise, before she began denouncing Trump for running “concentration camps” on the border, AOC denied there was any border crisis at all, telling 60 Minutes there is “no question” that Trump is a racist, as “he manufactures crises like immigrants seeking legal refuge on our borders.”61 Senator Kamala Harris made the same claim.62 Senator Sherrod Brown said there are no divisions in the Republican Party because “they’ve followed [Trump’s] racist actions… like lemmings off the cliff.”63 Sunny Hostin, cohost of The View, asked if Republicans would “step up to the plate with Donald Trump” on his border wall, which she claimed he was using as a “dog whistle for racism.”64
In an attempt to make Trump associates permanent outcasts from society, a coalition of progressive groups called Restore Public Trust circulated a petition urging corporate CEOs to refuse to employ former members of the Trump administration. “The cruelty of the [separation] policy was matched only by the incompetence of its execution,” they wrote in an open letter.65
“EVERYONE LOOKS DIFFERENT BUT THINKS EXACTLY THE SAME”
The left’s attempt to punish, humiliate, and ostracize its opponents is particularly apparent in universities. Students at the Savannah College of Art and Design began a petition demanding the removal of the name of Savannah native Justice Clarence Thomas from one of the campus buildings, preposterously claiming he is “anti-woman.”66 Across the pond, Cambridge University rescinded its invitation for a visiting fellowship from Professor Jordan Peterson after students protested Peterson’s skepticism of white privilege and global warming, among various heresies.67 Laughably, they say Peterson isn’t welcome on their campus because they promote an “inclusive environment.” Only leftists could speak such Orwellian pap with a straight face. As the Spectator’s Toby Young observed, inclusiveness means an environment where “everyone looks different but thinks exactly the same.”68 Indeed, how can liberal academics think they are training young minds to think for themselves when they censor ideas not in lockstep with their own?
In this environment, it is surreal to see liberal professors and students pretend to promote open inquiry and tolerate dissenting opinion. Charlotte Townsend, a sophomore at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, says she’d heard the school had a tough political climate for conservatives, but she didn’t realize how bad it was until she experienced it herself. “I live in a world where many of my peers are too afraid to support conservatism in front of their friends,” she contends. Charlotte herself refuses to be censored and regularly engages in “battles,” but she doesn’t blame conservative friends who are afraid to join the fight. “The stigma against being a conservative on campus is a lot to handle,” she says. “I’ve been frustrated by how conservatives are treated here.”
Charlotte tells of three nasty encounters she’s had with campus liberals, both faculty and students. In one, strangers destroyed flyers she posted promoting a conservative workshop. In another, a female student told her that as a conservative she was “against” her own sex. Finally, she’s had professors who teach that conservatives have been corrupted by “rich, white men.”69 Isn’t it ironic that it is liberals who are always complaining about bullying and demanding safe spaces, while they bully and make spaces unsafe for conservatives?
Senator Ted Cruz took the dramatic step of opening an investigation into a Yale Law School policy that allegedly targets Christian groups. The policy provides that students who work for “discriminatory” organizations will not have access to certain funds, such as summer and post-graduate public interest fellowships and loan forgiveness for public interest careers. The affair began when the Yale Federalist Society invited an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian civil liberties law firm, to speak on campus, which triggered a campus gay organization called “Outlaws.” Denouncing ADF as a “hate group,” Outlaws demanded that the law school expand its nondiscrimination policy to Christian groups because of their position on gay rights, which of course they characterized as discrimination against gays. Shortly thereafter, Yale Law School dean Heather Gerken announced that the school would indeed expand its nondiscrimination policy, noting that nondiscrimination “based on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression is a key component of the Law School’s discrimination policy.”
Cruz then sent a letter to Gerken asserting, “[It] appears that the policy arose from unconstitutional animus and a specific discriminatory intent both to blacklist Christian organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom and to punish Yale students whose values or religious faith lead them to work there.” Senator Josh Hawley, a graduate of Yale Law School, sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr asking that the Justice Department closely monitor Yale and strip the school’s funding if its law school continues to “target religious students for special disfavor.”
Denying that they discriminate against Christians and insisting that the school “enthusiastically supports the efforts of Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, liberal, and conservative groups to hire our students,” Yale announced they would exempt religious organizations from their policy.70 Hawley subsequently wrote to Barr saying he’d need more details to confirm whether Yale’s statement was meaningful, noting that the initial policy change was a direct response to student protesters. Hawley asked Barr to closely monitor the school going forward.71
THE “OPPRESSION OLYMPICS”
The left’s intolerance and censorship have grown so severe that even some leftists are objecting. Atheist author Sam Harris announced he would delete his account from the crowdfunding site Patreon to protest the company’s banning of several content creators from its platform. The company claimed they’d targeted the accounts for violating service terms, but Harris insisted it was clearly due to political bias by leftists.72 Not long after, psychologist Jordan Peterson and comedian and podcaster Dave Rubin deleted their Patreon accounts as well, citing political censorship.73 Rubin called out “progressives” for abandoning the principles of tolerance and liberty, including religious liberty, arguing that much of the left is no longer progressive but regressive. “If you’re black, or female, or Muslim, or Hispanic, or a member of any other minority group,” Rubin declared, “you’re judged differently than the most evil of all things: a white, Christian male. The regressive left ranks minority groups in a pecking order to compete in a kind of ‘Oppression Olympics.’ Gold medal goes to the most offended.”
Rubin shared that though he is a married gay man, he strongly opposes the government forcing Christian bakers, photographers, and florists to act against their religious beliefs. He is pro-choice but opposes the government forcing Catholic nuns to violate their faith
and pay for abortion. “Today’s progressivism has become a faux-moral movement, hurling charges of racism, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia and a slew of other meaningless buzzwords at anyone they disagree with,” said Rubin. “… This isn’t the recipe for a free society, it’s a recipe for authoritarianism.”74 We’ll examine the authoritarianism of the left, which goes hand in hand with its intolerance, in the next chapter.
CHAPTER ELEVEN Leftist Authoritarianism: Assaults on the System
A LOGICAL LINE
The left’s authoritarian impulse goes hand in hand with its dogmatic ideology. Leftists are so certain their philosophy is the sole correct moral viewpoint that no other views are accorded the slightest respect. With this outlook, it doesn’t take much to rationalize the use of force to foist their beliefs on the entire country.
Take “climate change” for instance. Progressives claim there is a scientific consensus on man-made global warming—the science is settled. They manipulate facts, data, statistics, computer models, and surveys to support that conclusion, disseminate it with the fervor of Soviet propagandists, and label dissenters “climate deniers,” thus likening them to neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers. Though they claim to be the sentinels of science, which they’ve elevated to an idol, they bastardize the scientific method by declaring that their views are irreversibly established.
Their arrogance blinds them to the possibility of human error and reversals in so-called “settled science.” Just consider how the scientific experts tell us one year to avoid drinking coffee and promote it virtually as an elixir the next. They tell us for decades the proper food pyramid is etched in stone, then wake up one day and declare, “Never mind.” One day we can’t use enough sunscreen, then we’re told that overuse can cause vitamin D deficiency. Top authorities touted the enormous health benefits of drinking red wine, then pointed to new studies showing health risks in any alcohol consumption at all. There are countless other examples, from eggs, to red meats, to fatty foods in general, to the physical activities of walking and standing. Settled science just can’t make up its mind.1
As they indoctrinate and intimidate people into believing their “climate science,” leftists seek to impose rules so comprehensive and draconian that the full force of the federal government is needed to enforce compliance. Ultimately, only a consolidated world government is adequate for the task, but until that is more feasible, they concentrate their efforts on top-down federal controls. As previously discussed, the Green New Deal is a textbook example of their modus operandi—work the public into a frenzy about a supposed crisis, then demand that the government exert control over vast, new areas of our lives in exchange for saving us from ourselves.
There is a logical connection between the leftists’ absolute moral certainty on climate change, gender ideology, socialism, and other issues and their quest for absolute governmental power to effectuate remedial action—extremism begets extremism. It is no exaggeration to call it “absolute moral certainty,” because nothing short of that explains their intolerance of opposing views and their mania for suppressing the free speech and religious freedoms of dissenters—from college campuses, to federal funding of abortion, to the bullying of bakers and florists.
As we’ve seen, the left is particularly vicious in attacking women and minorities who stray from its ideological reservation. In a surreal twist, these dissidents are de facto stripped of their minority status. Since black conservatives reject the left’s patronizing approach to African-American issues, they are virtually cast out of their race by arrogant white leftists. Nary a leftist will defend the “Uncle Toms,” though their skin color remains the same hue it always was.
The leftists’ passion is not for minorities, women, or the downtrodden, but for their ideology, which seeks radical transformation of the existing order. Women, minorities, and the poor are convenient props, ripe for exploitation to advance their cause. Sometimes they are willing to be patient and play the long game, working for decades to achieve their goal, if necessary, such as their systematic infiltration of academia or the federal government’s control over public education. Other times, they operate with revolutionary fervor—manufacturing a crisis and moving with dizzying speed to force complete and immediate transformation.
They approach most issues with equal certainty and zeal. Theirs is the only legitimate position, so all opposition must be silenced in proceeding to the mandated, top-down solution. Often superficially appealing, their causes are always billed as urgent. Remember their passion for the homeless? Why do we hear so little from Democrats on the issue now, when homelessness is rising sharply in deep-blue states like California and in other major cities under Democratic control?2
How about healthcare? The Clintons started the modern drumbeat for socialized medicine by repeating the misleading statistic that there were 40 million medically uninsured Americans, who they falsely depicted as having no access to healthcare. They left unmentioned, of course, that it was governmental intermeddling that caused skyrocketing healthcare costs and associated problems in the first place. Obama eventually took the baton from the Clintons, with their failed healthcare proposal, and proceeded at warp speed to further socialize medicine through Obamacare with the thinly disguised goal of achieving a single-payer system as soon as practicable.
Abortion is another example. The left created a perceived crisis of back-alley abortions until the Supreme Court legislated federal abortion rights. Using clever semantics, abortion advocates pretended to be proponents of “choice” when politically expedient, but many have come out of the closet to support outright infanticide today, as we’ll discuss in a later chapter. Same with same-sex marriage—as we will discuss in chapter thirteen, after dozens of states banned same-sex marriage through state constitutional amendments, activists turned to the Supreme Court to mandate the recognition of same-sex marriage everywhere. In an instant, the American people were deprived of any say in the issue. And immediately thereafter, the left turned the heat up on their gender identity agenda. These are such front-burner issues today that others must take a back seat until the culture has been sufficiently bludgeoned into submission.
Political liberty diminishes when economic liberty shrinks—and the left understands that. Their drive to establish federal control over the economy necessitates a smaller sphere of personal freedom. With healthcare, for example, it would be impossible for the government to commandeer one-sixth of the economy without exercising enormous control over people’s everyday lives. The Medicare for All Act, as previously noted, would afford them that control, as it would abolish almost all private healthcare plans, including employer-based plans, and impose complete federal control over Americans’ healthcare.3
SWEATING THE SMALL STUFF
Leftists in local governments are every bit as authoritarian as those in federal government. They are forever trying to force their values on people and control their lifestyles, from what size sodas we can drink to the types of foods we eat. As one of a thousand examples, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced in March 2019 that “Meatless Monday,” a program serving only vegetarian menus, would be expanded to all New York City public schools beginning in the 2019–2020 school year. “Cutting back on meat a little will improve New Yorkers’ health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said de Blasio. “We’re expanding Meatless Mondays to all public schools to keep our lunch and planet green for generations to come.”4
You have to wonder if these progressives really believe their own bilge or are just intoxicated by the rush of virtue-signaling euphoria. Being forced to eat a vegetarian lunch on Mondays would not improve the health of a single student or have any effect whatsoever on the earth’s climate. The only impact it would have is to deny liberty to those affected. Apparently, the sanctimonious mayor learned nothing from his predecessor Michael Bloomberg’s boneheaded and unconstitutional crusade to limit sales of sugary drinks.5
One of the latest existential threats to society, app
arently, is the menace of plastic straws. California enacted a law that prohibits full-service restaurants from giving them to customers unless they request them. But the biggest offenders—fast-food restaurants—are exempt. Of course they are. Meanwhile Seattle, Washington, D.C., and other cities have outright banned the use of plastic straws, a move that was also proposed by Britain’s supposedly conservative former prime minister, Theresa May.6 This is painfully ridiculous. Once again, the law creates no actual benefit—the New York Post reports there is no serious research warranting these bans, and even the bans’ proponents admit they’re more about making a statement than reducing plastic usage.7 It’s also curious that plastic straws are now a worldwide threat, considering not long ago plastic bags were touted as an environmentally sensitive alternative to paper bags. It seems the bottom line is that both paper and plastic are bad, and the left will limit your access to both.
A SEDUCTIVE MORAL CAUSE OOZING WITH URGENCY
Conservatives often say the left is unpatriotic because of its constant harping against the United States as founded and its push to cede greater control to global entities. The leftist ideology is antithetical to our founding principles, at the core of which is liberty. There is no trace left today of the civil libertarianism leftists once claimed to champion. Yet they falsely paint conservatives as authoritarian, especially during the Trump presidency, despite realizing that conservatives favor smaller, less intrusive government and greater individual liberties. The left invokes abortion as an example of conservatives’ authoritarian tendencies, though that’s an Orwellian argument that overlooks the government’s proper, constitutional role to protect lives and our animating motivation of protecting the innocent unborn.
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