Safe Spaces and the Cult of Anti-Trump

Typical college dorm

A friend of mine is a student at a major public university. He has the misfortune of living in the residence halls (dorms). Recently, his RA left a note on his door and the door of every one of his neighbors asking questions like 'what's your favorite kind of music?' 'what's your favorite food', and the creme de la creme, 'what's your preferred gender pronoun?' As I've written endlessly about here and elsewhere, the universities are the breeding ground for the leftist lunacy that denies basic truths, beginning with denying that there are only two genders.


But it goes far beyond that. Here is a basic list of insane ideas taught at universities:

• Gender is a social construct. There are as many genders as there are people. Assuming that 'male' and 'female' are the only options makes you a bigoted oppressive shitlord.
• Safe spaces are essential. We must be protected from wrong opinions that might challenge our way of thinking and 'trigger' us.
• Speaking of wrong thinking, conservatives, and especially Trump and his deplorable supporters, are racists who should be silenced. They can be silenced using free speech.
• Free speech isn't free. While true on its face Leftists mean that free speech is offensive and the best way to silence public speech is to make it impossible for someone to speak publicly using something they call 'no-platforming'. 
• Men, while being a social construct, have special privileges that all other genders don't have. This is especially true of white men. 
• Trump is a fascist. By fascist they mean 'not leftist' because he has the insane idea that government isn't the solution to all problems.
• All social problems can be solved with more multiculturalism and fewer white people.

I just included this to trigger SJWs

The Cult of Anti-Trump opposes Trump because he is anti-political correctness...and because ultimately he objects to socialism. Make no mistake: if Ted Cruz had been the nominee, or John Kasich, the charge that Republicans are racist fascists would be leveled at conservatives with the same level of vitriol that Leftists level against the GOP and especially Trump supporters now.

While the presidential election is drawing near and it appears that Trump might win, the university year is just beginning. On college campuses now professors are proselytizing to students, spreading the anti-Gospel lies of socialism. While that is going on the student government associations and their state-wide partners are registering students to vote in 'non-partisan' voter registration campaigns while actively promoting Leftist ideas like the Israeli Disinvestment movement, Black Lives Matter, and free college for illegal immigrants. These are the future leaders of America, and the only way to stop them is to remove all federal funding from universities until they stop being Leftist seminaries (to borrow a phrase from Dennis Prager). 

What Are You Doing?

What are you doing to restore sanity in America? I wanted to ask 'what are you doing to elect Donald Trump President' but to be completely candid Trump is merely the vehicle for desperately needed change. If asked I'd venture that most Trump supporters are willing to give Mr Trump a shot at at least trying to fix the many ills our great nation faces yet would say if prompted that if Mr Trump doesn't fight for us then he'll be abandoned like any other politician. So, I ask again, what are you doing to restore sanity to America?

The stakes are enormous. America is still being targeted by terrorists. In November the FBI confirmed that terrorists are using the unsecured southern border to cross into the US. This is on top of record numbers of illegals coming across the border seeking work and the American lifestyle while enough of them bring criminal intent that it causes serious concern for law enforcement in many places in the border states.

The US national debt is, at the time of writing, $19.2 trillion and climbing. That's around $160,000 per person. The US federal deficit is $511 billion and climbing. Americans want both limited government and the handouts that only big government can provide. It's a cognitive dissonance on a massive scale, one that can only indicate the political and cultural sickness that undermines our social and political cohesion.

Then there's the US jobs report. In May only 38,000 jobs were added to the US economy, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But to go deeper, the signs of a troubling economy can't be ignored. Construction employment is sliding, as is both full time and temporary employment.

Courtesy of Bloomberg

Temporary employment is the stopgap for many people during economic downturns. Yet temporary employment is slowing down. The temporary sector is where many employees who have poor skills learn new skills. Employers can bring new people at low cost and low risk into their organizations. When things align properly the end result is a mutual win for both employer and employee, with the goal of permanent long term employment for both parties. Yet the jobs situation in that sector is declining, a truly ominous sign for an already stagnant economy. Again, what are you doing to restore sanity to the United States?

Courtesy of Bloomberg

Then there's the violence of campus activists. Milo Yiannopoulos is embarking on his Dangerous Faggot tour of American college and university campuses. His message? That college professors and administrators are lying to students, creating paranoid cultural Marxists, and otherwise undermining American democracy. Because Yiannopoulos has dared to say inflammatory things like 'feminism is cancer' near riots have broken out at most of his university stops. Protesters are a constant presence. Agitators always try to shut the event down, using the unAmerican tactic of 'no platforming.' Yiannopoulos's crime is being one of the New Conservatives and as such he is guilty of ThoughtCrime. Dissenting opinions are not tolerated on American campuses anymore.

The logic of this isn't reserved for college campuses, however. San Jose erupted into riots when Donald Trump dared to campaign in the city. American flags were burned, Mexican flags raised and waved, and 'protesters' declared California to be illegally occupied by the United States. Trump supporters were assaulted by protesters and the police were ordered to stand down by the mayor of San Jose. Supporting Trump is now a crime in some parts of America, with mob justice replacing the Rule of Law.

Trump can secure the presidency by campaigning to restore law and order. But the fundamental issue is that Americans must stand up for themselves and demand a return to sanity. Our society has cancer and only hard choices can save the body politic. So....what are you doing to restore sanity?

A Rundown of the Major Polls for Trump V Clinton

This blog will have multiple focuses in the coming months. While I plan to continue talking about concepts and happenings involving Cultural Marxists and what turns them on, I'll be trying to use my political science training for something useful. To that end I'll be doing frequent commentary on the state of the 2016 presidential election between Donald J Trump and Hillary R Clinton. To kick it off, here's a round up of the latest public opinion polls.

First, the Fox News poll: As of today, Trump leads by 3, though that's within the margin of error.





According to Rasmussen, Trump now holds a 42-37 lead over Clinton. At the start of the month Trum was leading with by a paltry 41-39.





Quinnipiac released a poll a week ago showing Clinton and Trump in a 'neck and neck' contest in the three critical swing states of Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. So goes Ohio, so goes the nation, as the saying goes (giving some credence to the thought that Kasich may be the VP, though I doubt it). No national numbers from Quinnipiac are available yet, but I'll keep an eye out for them.

Historically the polls tighten up after the conventions. Each nominee traditionally gets a bump in support after the conventions. Whether that happens this time or not is up in the air. There are far too many factors to consider, including Trump's willingness to fight a no-holds-barred cage match against Clinton.

I'll finish off for now on this thought: I've seen various numbers showing 44% of Sanders supporters being willing to vote for Trump against Clinton. I'm suspicious of that claim, though I do think maybe up to 25% will do so, which is still significant. Key factors that big named analysts don't seem to be factoring in include the increasing likelihood of a chaotic Democratic National Convention (a la the Nevada Convention) and Sanders continuing to be marginalized by the party establishment. If the DNC continues on the path that it presently walks then the potential for mass defections of Sanders supporters is very real.

This Little Republic

America is special. At a glance, the statistics don't reflect that. Presently there are about 322 million people. Americans are estimated to use 20% or more of the world's resources while only occupying only about 7% of the land mass. One in 20 people in the world is an American. In the grand scheme of things it would appear that America isn't that special. There are people in this country that desperately want you to believe that, too.

US GDP is $16.8 Trillion, with an average income of about $53,000. Our affluence is reflected in our cultural influence, as is seen in the impact of American popular culture. America's biggest export may well be popular culture, which has widespread influence. For better or worse, Beyonce is being listened to somewhere in Iran at the moment. Our artists and films are viewed and plagiarized the world over. Presently Metallica are preparing for a world tour. Last summer Lady Gaga toured Europe. Our popular culture has a huge influence everywhere in the world. No country can truly keep this export out despite their best efforts.  America has a huge influence in the world, which is itself not a profound statement to make, except that people often forget that America is in fact not just another country.

The best illustration of this is the tendency of the world to look to America to fix geopolitical problems wherever they occur. It's US forces that lead multilateral military campaigns against truly repressive regimes. It's the US that gets blamed when we choose not to intervene in terrible tragedies like Rwanda, or when our political leadership screws up by sending forces into places ill-prepared, as in Haiti. When tragedy strikes on a massive scale, be it an earthquake, volcanic eruption, or genocide, it's a safe bet that America will provide humanitarian aide. It's what we do.

People forget that all too frequently. America is exceptional. There is simply something different about us that separates us from our Canadian neighbors or European cousins. Americans used to be proud of that, too....until we weren't anymore. Whether it was the public turning against the war in Iraq or President Obama continuing to give faint praise to America and what we stand for, something has changed, and not for the better. You see it all around us. The only Americans that seem proud of America are conservatives. Progressives will continue to talk about America's failings, but conservatives will praise America as a place where anyone can change their lives, find opportunity, and even shake up the system. It's why so many people emigrate to America in the first place.

People wonder why Donald Trump is so popular. It's rather simple. First, he's actually masculine. The most masculine thing we've seen President Obama do is shoot a few hoops. Otherwise, President Obama comes off soft. In this day and age masculinity is under attack, as is the family itself. Donald Trump is masculine and that speaks volumes to people. We can argue about whether his masculinity is distorted or not, but regardless, he comes across as tough. Few would think President Obama is tough. Hell, I think Hillary Clinton is tougher than Obama.

Second, it's pretty clear that Donald Trump loves America. Where else could a real estate mogul turn into a TV and film star? Only in the United States. Trump honestly loves this country and, whether or not you agree with his methods, wants to take care of the biggest threats (as he sees them) to America. While I have no doubt that most of his competitors in the GOP field loved America as well, Trump absolutely does. It's why we've seen crossover appeal from people outside the conservative movement who've grown tired of the blame-America-first mentality that is increasingly part of the Progressive agenda. I know this for a fact because I used to be a Progressive and blaming America was something I did far more often than I realized. It makes me nauseous to think about.

Part of the rise of Trump is the social meltdown we're witnessing in some quarters, all part of the influence of the universities and their social justice agendas they allow to flourish in some departments. Trump is the backlash, which came in the form of a boisterous, humorous and angry person who wasn't going to sit by and let America get smeared anymore. Disagree with his approach if you want but don't doubt his love of America. Those forces coming out of universities are profoundly anti-American, with their Marxist ideologies and radical race-baiting agenda. Mark my words: if radical groups continue to push their weird unAmerican agenda you will see more moderates back Trump. Clinton hasn't stood up to these forces, and Obama has in some ways egged them on. Trump won't. He loves America too much for that.

Freedom of Speech

Original photo courtesy of the PSU Vanguard

I don't keep it a secret that I am still a student attending university. If you read my Twitter profile (Yes, follow me) you'll see that I'm a graduate student finishing a doctorate in public policy. I attend Portland State University, the site of two recent Trump rallies that turned into riots instigated by communists on the #RegressiveLeft. Everything I learned about the #RegressiveLeft was from my time as a social justice warrior.

One of the things I've learned is that the far left is hostile to freedom of speech.  This isn't a profound observation now but in my time in the far left I and my peers believed that we were stalwart defenders of free speech. Only the Right was hostile to speech, in our view, as evident by their opposition to pornography, video games and music they didn't like. Today opposition to those things is the sole province of the left, not the right, with maybe the exception of pornography. When I was a leftist I would've agreed with the idea that 'speech is free but it comes with consequences,' though I wasn't a supporter of no-platforming, which is itself not a new phenomenon.

There is a stock line that Leftists remember and recite without thinking: "freedom of speech only applies to the government." By this they mean that freedom of speech is only guaranteed against government censorship. This is of course absurd, as they love the Heckler's Veto. This is by definition a a redefinition of free speech because freedom of speech isn't only a value enshrined in the US Bill of Rights. No, freedom of speech is a cultural value that any democratic society requires to remain free. Yet many societies don't have free speech. One only has to look to what the leftists in Europe have done to see the effect of restricting free speech.

Power is not just in the hands of the state. There is a contextual side to power that these regressives purposefully overlook when they organize mobs to take over events and turn them into propagandizing sessions. In short, mobs have a lot of power and when mobs move to silence opposition they fail the most basic test of free speech. Freedom of speech includes the right to be heard. The purpose of free speech is to promote a dialogue. If you watch the video above you'll see heckler's using noise to silence those they disagree with at the PSU Trump rally in April.Some mocked the Trump supports with sarcastic 'I can't hear you' while banging on drums. It is only through the unhindered expression of unpopular ideas that our own ideas are challenged.

Of course, the typical Social Justice Warrior doesn't want their ideas challenged. As I've written about endlessly here, they are authoritarians (scroll through the articles to see what I've said on that subject). At its core, contemporary Leftism is a utopian movement and to achieve this utopia, like past attempts, they will stop at nothing. Even their own claimed non-violent views are malleable, as can be seen at the recent Trump rallies in California, where Trump supporters were assaulted by Sanders supporters.

This from the Catholic Herald sums up the authoritarian nature of the #RegressiveLeft beautifully:

The generic name for the well-organized leftist gangs is “antifas,” short for anti-fascists—an Orwellian irony if ever there was one, seeing that the antifas’ tactics are thoroughly fascist. When anti-Islamization groups such as PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West) hold peaceful rallies or candle-lit “evening strolls,” they are often met by much larger gangs of antifa thugs intent on shutting them down and shutting them up. If they’re lucky, the peaceful protesters are protected by the police, and, if they’re not lucky, they get beaten up.

At Portland State during the first attempt at a Students for Trump meeting, the campus police refused to show up, leaving the small group of pro-Trump supporters at the hands of the mob. Thankfully that didn't turn violent, unlike the second attempt at a meeting. The media and leftists say that Trump and others bear responsibility for violence at his rallies, which is utter nonsense. This view was beautifully destroyed by Robert Spencer, noted educator on Islam who is often targeted by the Left because he dares tell the truth about that 'religion of peace.' What the Left, especially younger Leftists, fails to grasp is that people are accountable for their actions. If someone is 'triggered' by speech into doing something violent the guilty party is the person who engaged in violent behavior, not the speaker. Rarely can someone be legally held to account for speech because the nature of action is that an actor has to make the decision to engage in behavior. Disagreeable speech cannot be used to justify violence regardless of what is said because in the end we are all responsible for our actions.

As an aside I can guarantee everyone reading this: if Ted Cruz were the front runner there would be a similar reaction to him. Why? Because the Left does not want the left-wing establishment governance of America challenged. That is the truth. A front running Ted Cruz would be met with violence for his opposition to gay marriage, transgendered bathroom access, or any number of other positions. Trump is the front runner and likely nominee and as such is the target of the Left despite his general moderate positions on most policy issues.

When violence is a hallmark of a political movement that movement is authoritarian by definition. Whether it was the Bolsheviks in Russia, the Nazis in Germany, or the myriad movements in South America against foreign occupation, these movements all have in common an outcome of authoritarian dictatorship. I doubt this will play out in the US and UK in a similar manner simply because culturally these forces are so far outside the mainstream that they are already being soundly rejected by the population. But it is a cautionary note that in this we may see similarities from other regressive movements from history.

The Future is Alt-Right.....

I know the title is provocative and many who read it will assume that I'm an alt-right blogger. I'm not. I'm a moderate Catholic in the United States who does not in any way identify with the alt-right. However, I am savvy enough to read the signs of our times and those signs point to a future in the West that is either Islamic or alt-right. Some might think that I'd be more concerned about a quasi-social democracy springing up in the US but I don't believe that to be likely in the least because the Regressive Left is all but done; they still hold a great deal of power but the resistance against the authoritarianism of social justice warriors guarantees that.

First, what is the alt-right? I'm not going to spend a great deal of time defining the alt-right because others have done a very good job of doing so and being reasonably fair in their assessment. For those interested, see GotNews definition or Sargon of Akkad's piece on the alt-right. For those who like a simplistic definition the one from Wikipedia does an okay job, though I think the concept of the alt-right is far more complicated and more international than they give credit for:










For starters, I became interested in the alt-right as a political phenomenon because I'm a political scientist and the birth of any new political movement is academically interesting. But I first heard about what could be called the alt-right not in American politics but in European politics. The European variation is evidence that the west my be moving in the direction of a new, populist, and possibly authoritarian direction as a result of internationalist policies that include the erasing of borders, the harboring of immigrants, and the labeling anyone who takes issue with the behavior of Muslim migrants as Islamophobic. This despite many Muslims in Britain, Belgium and Germany bragging openly that those countries will be under Sharia law by mid-century. In Germany this has taken the form of a new segregation in some quarters, with train cars being assigned to men and women exclusively in at least one case. The cases of Rotherham and the New Years attacks across Europe that lead to many cases of sexual assault conducted by Muslims across Europe create fertile conditions for the rise of 'far right' political parties, as in the results of the recent Austrian elections. In the UK, moderates and conservatives have been trickling out of the Tory party for UKIP, a party focused on Britain leaving the EU and halting migration.

There has been an obvious rise in far right political parties in Europe since the advent of the Great Recession. At the time much of the success of these parties was blamed on the various currency and employment crises. John Oliver did a bit about this and reiterated this line on his national broadcast. Yet a driving force for the rise of these parties was the influx of immigrants from non-European countries. To be nakedly and brutally honest, these immigrants were largely Muslims from authoritarian countries with hideously illiberal cultures. Combined with an economic downturn and incompetent political response, an environment was created that has traditionally allowed 'far right' parties to emerge.

Maybe I'm speaking in generalities so here are a few concrete examples. In Hungary Jobbik has risen to power amidst rising immigration and economic stagnation. Like virtually every other 'radical right' party, Jobbik calls for national sovereignty and self determination. The European models are often if not always strikingly anti-EU, and strongly in favor of halting immigration. Jobbik's official website cite the demographic decline of Europe and the official remedy through limitless immigration as the source of increased tensions in Europe. "'"We urge the government to take immediate action, zero tolerance is needed and the overly liberal immigration system must be limited." pointed out Z. Kárpát Dániel. Jobbik wants to know how much of Hungarian taxpayers' money is spent on the maintenance of the non-restricted or semi-restricted refugee camps, on their health care services as well as what security risks Hungarian citizens are subjected to."

Hungary is the poster child for right wing race-based politics but other places, including Greece, have become prominent in far-right politics with the rise of Golden Dawn. The party gets labeled as 'Neo Nazi,' which may be fair given the obsession with Nazi imagery and 1930s Greek rightist nationalism. To their credit, Golden Dawn leadership openly calls for a return to military dictatorship in Greece instead of masking their intentions in some kind of call to traditionalism.

What's this have to do with the US alt-right? Honestly, not much. Social Justice Warriors have mindlessly repeated the charge that Donald Trump is an alt-right candidate, partially because the alt-right supports him despite his generally moderate position on most issues. His most closely-aligned positions are calls for restricting access to the US for Muslims (even an outright ban) and the building of the Great Wall of Trump. This, however, is a far cry from traditional extreme rightist positions. Trump is called a nationalist despite his pro-America rhetoric being in-line with previous Republican presidents who spoke about the greatness of America. Perhaps his rhetoric seems out of place because the current administration rarely engages in American exceptionalism.

The American alt-right is a hodgepodge of anti-Semites, intellectual racists (those racists who claim scientific legitimacy in racism), as well as more extreme anti-feminists such as Men's Rights Activists and other groups opposed to the radical agenda of the extreme feminist left. One extreme, it seems, breeds another. This is why I repeatedly say that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are very, very similar candidates, as both are populists that appeal to voters outside the traditional mainstream of American politics.

It is this rising tide of populism that concerns me. I do think the future will be, at least briefly, alt-right....especially if Donald Trump is kept out of the White House using weird electoral tricks like the recent alliance between Ted Cruz and John Kasich. The next demagogue, either right or left, will be a far different beast than either Trump or Sanders. To quote a great piece from the American Thinker, Aristotle warned about the dangers of democracy and how, inevitably, they fell into despotism at the hands of a demagogue. ""Democracies, says Aristotle, tend to be pulled in one direction: toward a vilification of everything involving merit, hierarchy, inequality, proportion, and worth. For Aristotle, this type of democratic "energy" actually begins at birth: "People are prone to think that the fact of their all being equally free-born means that they are all absolutely equal."" Quoting Aristotle directly is this warning about private property: "In democracies the rich should be spared. Not only should their estates be safe from the threat of redistribution: the produce of the estates should be equally secure; and the practice of sharing it out, which has insensibly developed under some constitutions, should not be allowed." Both Trump and Sanders have targeted property through higher taxation based on class. 

But the appeal of populism always tends in this direction. The populist must appeal to the rational self interest of each voter to get their support. Thus we see, in every election, every presidential candidate promising to cut taxes for the middle class. Obama did it, Clinton did it, Trump and Sanders promise the same thing, as does Hilary Clinton. Many armchair pundits, mostly on Youtube, have posited the idea that we are undergoing a political realignment in the west between authority and libertarianism, instead of between Left and Right. Their observation typically revolves around the resistance movement rising against feminism and the religion of social justice. Yet this is simplistic in that it doesn't account for the ability of the populist to lay claims on both sides. Thus we see the weird reports of Sanders supporters being willing to vote for Trump when Sanders inevitably concedes to Clinton. I'm not sure I believe that myself but then again many of the same people I know who previously backed Ron Paul now back Sanders.

I believe the West to move in the direction of the alt-right for two principle reasons: first, the utter and total failure of the governments of Europe and the United States to respond to increasing calls by their citizens to deal with immigration and refugee crises. Many of these governments brag about their official feminist positions and could all be painted as social justice warriors if one were not feeling charitable. The failure to respond combined with economic stagnation shows the failure of left wing economics opens the policy window for the rise of right wing organizations.

The second reason I think the future may belong to the alt-right is the continued decentralization of media, including social media, as well as the rise of right wing blogs, vlogs, and their associated social movements. The means of communication is now decentralized to the point that few can control it, though Twitter has tried by implementing their Orwellian-named 'Trust and Safety Council' comprised exclusively of left wing groups including radical feminist organizations, which has already been charged with censoring conservative voices.

If the future belongs to the alt-right then the western Left has itself to blame. My evidence for this will be the subject of my next piece. The subject will be why freedom of speech isn't simply a government prohibition but also a cultural value that democracy itself rests on. I attend Portland State University, which was the site of two recent Students for Trump rallies that members of the Regressive Left shut down in a defiant act of authoritarian censorship, all the while claiming that no one's free speech rights were being infringed. I'll explain why that view is not only wrong but dangerous for the health of a free society.

Emergency Culture and the Left

When your alma mater makes international news for violent
illiberal values you know you're in trouble.

Perhaps you've noticed that we live in a state of perpetual crisis. In the US it's a fixed part of our experience: after 9/11 we were in a constant state of vigilance against Islamic terrorism. In the Cold War it was a constant culture of emergency because of the threat of communism. Today our cultural emergencies are numerous, to which the left has added to crisis of 'rape culture' on college campuses as well as the shocking idea that some students at these same colleges in fact support Donald Trump (oh the horror). In comparison to the Cold War these 'emergencies' are trifling at best, or at worst non-existent.

My best example of this are the now two student radical protests against the Portland State University Students for Trump. I'm a grad student at PSU and I know from experience that the student radicals at my university don't care that they do not represent students. They believe themselves to be the revolutionary vanguard in the purest Marxist sense. The student newspaper ran the headline in all-caps "SUPPORT FOR TRUMP POLARIZES CAMPUS CLIMATE," which is nonsense because the vast majority of students just don't care about the political opinions of other students. The students who crashed the Students for Trump rally declared it an emergency to motivate their members and those students who sympathize with them (ie, the easily triggered) that there is a problem with white supremacists being on campus. The underlying assumptions are revealing too: that Trump supporters are white supremacists, the idea that it's okay to silence those students you disagree with because they say things that offend some identity-based group, and that freedom of speech only applies to the government.

In a state of emergency the government will curtail liberty. In the context of an earthquake, riot, invasion, plague or any horrible event you can think of it makes total sense for the government to temporarily use methods that in a democracy would otherwise never be accepted. But when talking about individual action and social justice warriors in particular this is a much more murky issue. I've been told many, many times in relation to the PSU Students for Trump fiasco that freedom of speech only applies to the government and that when you support hate speech you should expect consequences. Freedom of speech is a cultural value essential to a functional democracy that the population must respect, for without that the government will not respect freedom of speech. A democracy cannot function when the response to 'offensive' speech is censorship by the population, especially in the form of mob justice.

The emergency culture permits egregious violations of civil liberties. The best example is the warrantless wiretapping that began in the Bush administration and continued (and was expanded) under the Obama administration. Social justice warriors have either directly taken advantage of this climate or stumbled into this phenomenon through creating a climate of fear and perceived emergency by using classrooms and social media to suggest that there are institutionalized racist, sexist, and transphobic systems of oppression that cannot be proven yet are widely accepted in SJW circles as an article of faith. These founding religious myths of the social justice movement are believed with the fervor and certitude that Christians recite and believe the Apostles Creed, or perhaps a little closer to the truth, with the same obdurate fortitude that Islamists believe the most violent parts of the Qu'ran.

These myths, when combined with the air of emergency, combine to create a toxic environment that is hostile to liberty. Authoritarian movements ALWAYS have foundational myths. For the communists in Russia it was the proletarian struggle and the dialectic of history. The Nazis had bizarre racial theories about the 'Aryan' race. Social justice warriors have institutionalized systems of oppression that target women, people of color, and those who live the LGBTQ lifestyle. This toxic soup is a real threat to the culture of democracy in the US, for without a vibrant love of democracy and liberal values a liberal republican democracy cannot survive. It isn't enough for the state to respect our critical liberties, as we've seen the Congress, the Courts, and the President disrespect liberties. The people, regardless of political loyalties, must respect first the values that make a culture of democracy possible.

Threatening to End Friendships Over Political Opinions

Back in the 2004 election cycle I remember the proto-SJW media machine Air America Radio reporting that somewhere in the South a guy had the misfortune of driving with a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on his car. The locals took umbrage with his poor choice in candidates and shot at him. The left-wing online media went nuts but little came from it.

The 2004 election was the grossest one I remember. Bush was called Hitler by the Left, Kerry effeminate by the Right, and the election was The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime. The 2008 election was also The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime, as was 2012, though the fascist terminology wasn't thrown around much. Now, in the Current Year, Trump is called Hitler by the Left, the Right calls Sanders a Communist, and Clinton is a criminal. Little changes, it seems. For the record I don't have a candidate in the election and haven't any idea how I'll vote in the fall. I'm an independent and a moderate, which makes this election really depressing for voters like me.

Regardless, a good friend of mine whose friendship I value today told me that she, for the sake of keeping our friendship, wouldn't talk about the Democratic Primaries with me. My crime? Repeating statistics and reporting that Sanders has no chance of winning the election. I'd link a piece to Nate Silver's work but go find it for yourself if you want to know the truth. Again, I have no dog in this race though I do reject the 'Trump is Hitler' or 'Trump is a racist' or 'Trump is the most evil thing EVAR' propaganda because I've looked into his positions and find them fairly moderate, save for his boneheaded rhetoric.

I distinctly recall a conversation I had in my undergraduate program with a conservative classmate of mine. The topic was religion in politics and how the Left were largely atheistic. His retort? Politics is the religion of the Left. At the time I disagreed but now understand him to be correct. To be sure, no SJW has an alter in their home with political symbols on it where they make sacrifices to Sanders or whatever. But the political is held in the same esteem as religion is by most people. Political opinions are taken as a matter of faith, a practice which is irrational to say the least. Obama isn't God, nor was Reagan and neither should be treated as such. Political opinions should always be subject to scrutiny. When held as an article of faith, political opinions become sacrosanct and cannot be challenged.

Analyzing political contests is a favorite past time of mine. I'm a political scientist and a PHD-ABD in an interdisciplinary field that includes political science. I've studied American political and governmental systems, including the electoral process. I'm confident that Sanders has no path to victory. I understand basic statistics and numbers. But this isn't about facts. This is about emotion. The friend of mine in question is an SJW and self-declared feminist. As has been reported endlessly in the anti-feminist, pro-egalitarian, pro-traditional liberal resistance movement, the mindset of the Social Justice Warrior is hostile to facts and relies heavily on emotion to make sense of the world. Facts contrary to the narrative elicit a hostile reaction. See the reaction to Ben Shapiro and Milo Yiannopoluos talks at colleges across the US for evidence.

Now, to be fair, my friend isn't likely to go to a protest to silence people she disagrees with. What worries me is that I have to censor myself in my belief that Bernie Sanders is just as dangerous as people say Trump is. I'd go into details about my opinions of Sanders but I'll save them for later in case he pulls off some kind of Hail Mary kind of miracle come back against Clinton. I detest self censorship, especially when an otherwise reasonable opinion (dislike of a political candidate) can't be expressed for fear of eliciting an irrational emotional response. This is what you have to do with Social Justice Warriors on every issue it seems.

Thankfully, the Democratic primaries will be finished soon enough. Sanders may take his campaign to the convention but it'll be symbolic. Hopefully at that point I'll be able to express opinions based in both observation and data without fear of reprisal. I've come to hate the presidential election season, and this is one good reason.  

A Confession

During my time in the collectivist #RegressiveLeft I fully bought into Democratic Socialism. I believed, like many do today, that the government shouldn't make my shoes, build my car, own farms and that kind of thing but was fully willing to accept government redistribution of wealth programs. For example, I supported authoritarian measures like limiting individual income as well as having some rather degenerate opinions on obscenity and other things that normal people might bristle at.

In 2008 I voted for Barack Obama. I did it again in 2012. Now I find the idea of voting for a Democrat repulsive because the party has been completely captured by the Regressive Left. The feminists and the Social Justice Warriors are in control of the Democratic party, despite all of the president's words about not coddling college students. If you need any further proof of this you need only to look at how Clinton and Sanders trip over themselves to be more in line with Black Lives Matter despite BLM being built on an insidious lie.

In those days I would've believed the BLM lie. I would've been a full-throated Sanders supporter. Many of my friends bristle when I compare Sanders to Trump. To be perfectly honest I am far more concerned about Sanders and his demagoguery than I am with Donald Trump and his brutish language and policy proposals. Sanders clearly represents the worst bullying tendencies of the Regressive Left, as is evident by his demonization of the wealthy and conservatives.

Democrats have been publicly opposed to the wealthy for a long time. Sanders takes a different approach, suggesting that a return to a 90% upper tax rate would be appropriate. Obviously this is a fantasy proposal but what most don't understand is that it is tyrannical. I still support a progressive tax rate to some degree though not nearly to the degree I had in the past. Placing full weight of the tax system on the wealthiest Americans is tyrannical when that rate becomes oppressive. I see little difference between this and the jizya that non-Muslims are forced to pay in Islamic societies. Both rely on a threat of real violence to enforce.

I had at one point in my life supported a functional limit on wealth. A 90% tax rate is a functional income limit. In effect, the state takes the wealth earned by individuals and seizes it to give to those who have nothing. To a degree government does this when there is some form of social safety net. The difference now is that Sanders justifies it through the use of a distorted concept of social justice that pits 'Americans' against the wealthy elite. Traditionally presidential candidates wax poetic about the American dream and the ability of any person to join the wealthy with hard work and smart decision making.

When I was a Social Justice Warrior I internalized the victim narrative that is required to believe that the wealthy elite are not Americans – that the wealthy elite are not human. I would relish stories from progressive outlets like US Uncut, Air America, MSNBC and the rest that showed the crimes of the Koch brothers or demonized Ronald Reagan or suggested that Dick Cheney was some demonic villain. Part of living in the world of the Regressive Left is to shut off the part of the brain responsible for critical thinking. Ideology shuts down the process of dialogue by destroying the ability of people to critically think.

If this political season requires anything it is the ability of voters and the media to think critically. When Donald Trump is smeared by the media using rhetoric that is eerily similar to that of Bernie Sanders you know that critical thinking is missing in the debate today. What is needed now is a return to critical thinking and an abandonment of ideology. The US and the West broadly is poised for a new kind of political realignment, one that pits authoritarians against libertarians. The old Left/Right dominance of politics may be dead for the foreseeable future. The politics of authoritarianism relies on the abandonment of critical thinking. It's how a figure like Trump can be turned into Hitler without actually examining his political positions. The best criticisms of Trump come from the political Right, which see him as a moderate. If you only listen to the mainstream media without investigating him you'll think he is an arch-conservative. Ideology preys on our inability or lack of desire to investigate the truth for ourselves. I know this from experience.