My favorite political event in the US is the No Kings protest. Sure, my sense of dignity doubts that people would actually dress up as chickens, bananas, Hamas fighters, or all of the above, to carry signs that say “Fight Facism”. It’s all a tad unreal. The bottom line, however, is that I immensely enjoy this spectacle of educated white middle class professionals showing their disdain for the “fascist” US president while displaying room temperature IQ levels in public.
Take this lady. She sure knows what she’s talking about when she’s asked how she’s defining “facism”, though she fails to pronounce the word on her poster correctly: “Fascism is the breakdown of society”. And what is she fighting for? “I’m fighting for how I feel” [whiny voice] “… can’t you hear it in my voice?”.
I also enjoyed this guy spitefully resisting the definition of fascism. Or the legions of Prada glasses on wrinkled noses thinking of Trump as a “selfish narcissist” (sic) who certainly doesn’t want to give shelter to and feed in the immigrants whose “right to food and shelter” the protesters have just loudly demanded.
But hey, here comes a real Catch-22 question: “Who do you think is more dangerous to America: radical Islamists or Trump supporters?”. No Kings-Liberals, particularly gay ones, feel safer around shouts of Allahu Akhbar than passing a guy in the street wearing a MAGA hat.
It all seems that the telltale sign for no sense of humor, street smartness, or common sense—never mind the ability to define the concepts one is denouncing—is being a liberal in the US today, if the recent protests, joined by “millions” of right-side-of-history Trump-haters are any sign. I have nothing against people who don’t reflect much on what they say and think. It is their right to proclaim their views just like anybody. It is the ones who think they are above the “plebs”, who believe they represent the good, the right, the wholesome type of human being while everyone not sharing in their hate belongs, at best, to a lower species, and, at worst, should just be killed I have a special place in my heart for.
No Kings-Liberals feel safer around shouts of Allahu Akhbar than passing a guy in the street wearing a MAGA hat.
And yet, left-wing racism and white patronage, cloaked in “care” for black Americans, is the most salient item on the left-liberal cognitive dissonance (or shall we say ethical dissonance) bingo card. One of the more unhinged interviews from the protests was with another elderly white lady, holding up a sign of a simple self-drawn crown crossed out in red, making sure everyone understands she is “against kings”. She was interviewed by podcaster Nate Friedman:
Nate: “Seems there is a lack of diversity here. It’s mostly just people who look like you and me”.
Left-wing lady: “It is not for black people, for people of color, to get out on the street. They are at risk when they do that. If anybody’s gonna get arrested here, it’s gonna be a black person … it is not safe for them and they don’t need to participate, so we need to walk in their name”.
Nate: “Have you been voting blue [Democrat] most of your life?”
Lady: “I voted blue in the womb”.
Just to make sure you catch the drift, buddy. Huh. Let’s see what some black Americans think of this. Instagram poster @freerangepolitics for example, observes:
“We’ve seen a few No Kings protests here in Maryland, and just like the last couple of attempts at this, these protests have been almost entirely attended by white progressive activists. And the question is coming up: why aren’t black people participating? These activists need to come up with an excuse. The answer can’t possibly be that black people are a little frustrated with how they have been weaponized into a political system. The answer can’t possibly be that it is becoming more and more clear that the Democrat party is far more concerned about illegal immigrants than the black community. Can’t be any of those things. It has to be that we are all cowering in our homes, just deathly afraid that a police officer is going to get us, so you know what, Karen, thank you very much, while you are out there marching and putting your life on the line for our cause, I will be supporting you the best I possibly can”.
And @blackcarddeclined says:
“If black people want to fight for something, we know how to do that … believing that black people can’t stand up for themselves, is one of the most racist ideas. Google ‘White Savior Complex'”.
I also enjoy the “emigration liberals” among the No Kingsers. “We are moving to Canada!”, they announce. They think of Canada as a liberal paradise. Indeed, it is a liberal paradise where you’re offered assisted suicide for back pain—which you might want to get in a country where everything looks, tastes, and feels bland. Very practical!
I could go on for hours watching these interviews with the self-proclaimed Good People who applaud the killing of a husband and father because they disagree with him on “trans rights”. But there is a deeply sinister aspect to this movement, that is arguably more unsettling than its stupidity. The missionary complex that accompanies the ethos of these entitled and pathological do-gooders usually comes with a perfect ignorance of true evil.
The missionary complex that accompanies the ethos of these pathological do-gooders usually comes with a perfect ignorance of true evil.
Because, yes, there is an increasingly unsettling element in the MAGA movement that would indeed deserve the scorn of the nation for its denunciations, its divisiveness, its historical revisionism. It is populated by the Tuckers, Nick Fuenteses, Candaces, Matt Gaetzes, and Marjorie Taylor Greens of the US Right. It is populated by Holocaust-denying Jew haters who make a living out of telling lies. But alas, Taylor Greene is the new darling of CNN. Why? Because she hates Trump just as much as the liberal establishment does. Add Mamdani, who is currently being built up as Trump’s adversary and the possible Democrat presidential candidate, which will at the same time help cast him as the opponent of whoever may be Trump’s successor—J. D. Vance or Marco Rubio, as it seems for the moment. And the horseshoe theory is no longer just a theory.
The truth is that since the 1930s, when communists and fascists fought for hegemony over the working class, but shared great parts of each other’s ideological paradigms, there has not been such a convergence between the far left and the far right in the West. Today, they meet in the middle. If a radical socialist anti-Zionist is voted into the New York City mayor’s office by liberal Brooklynites who otherwise enjoy Fred Armisen and matcha lattes—and make no mistake: it is the anti-Zionism that got Mamdani into office, not the “free buses” — and Tucker gets his fair share of ex-Democrat viewers who basically disagree with everything he says except the “Israel Lobby” bits, it is time to worry a little about the political force that might be brewing in this witches’ potion.
In fact, the convergence is stronger now because both radical wings, who now meet in the middle, have become unapologetically antisemitic/anti-Zionist. And this almost exhausts their self-understanding. In the 1930s, the hatred of Jewry in the left was at least limited to Leninists and Stalinists. This limit no longer holds.
But never mind the inhabitants of Fantasy Island who have drifted into a kind of existential cynicism without quite recognizing it. The reason their spite and hatred are directed at Donald Trump rather than at the nihilism of the far more divisive Tucker Carlson is that they themselves have long since surrendered to the same life-defying moral desolation.
