Donald Trump’s campaign trail pronouncements have raised legitimate concerns about his penchant for authoritarian tendencies. But David Harsanyi reminds Federalist readers that Trump isn’t the only one who should worry American voters.
At Vox the other day, Amanda Taub took an entire chilling deep dive into the rise of “authoritarianism” without once mentioning the socialist Left. Yet, using the benchmarks of authoritarianism—strong centralized power and limited political freedoms—we can just as easily describe the modern Democratic Party’s agenda as we can Trumpism. Almost every policy position of the contemporary Left relies on some form of state coercion, mostly through Washington. It’s only relativism that blinds people to this fact.
After offering its distorted view of conservatism, for example, the Vox piece contends: “Democrats, by contrast, have positioned themselves as the party of civil rights, equality, and social progress …”
Social progress? Guess what? Authoritarians can be legitimately concerned about the condition of people. They can worry about income equality and “social progress” (ask Woodrow Wilson or FDR) and they can be popular with the citizenry (ask Mussolini and Putin.) In the book “Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America,” for instance, John Patrick Diggins writes (emphasis mine):
In general, and with some variation in emphasis, both the Republican and Democratic administrations accepted these assumptions: that Mussolini was generating economic and social progress; that although a dictator he enjoyed the overwhelming support of the people.
Democrats refuse to accept that this is not only a debate about what “progress” looks like (which is often subjective) but whether how you achieve “progress” matters. This is why progressives aren’t offended when the state forces the Little Sisters of the Poor to buy birth control or a virtual mob descends on a pizza shop that fails to adhere to the Left’s moral directives or a president demands “economic patriotism” from citizens. These events please liberals in much the same way Trump’s agenda will please others.
