The Big Answer

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The Amazon blurb asks that How far are Americans willing to go to force each other to fall in line?

According to the establishment media, the intelligentsia, and our political chattering class, the greatest threat to American freedom lies in right-wing authoritarianism. We’ve heard that some 75 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump represent the rise of American fascism; that conservatives have allowed authoritarianism to bloom in their midst, creating a grave danger for the republic.

But what if the true authoritarian threat to America doesn’t come from the political right, but from the supposedly anti-fascist left? [See Leftist Fascism.]

Elites see nationalists and populists as people who are—and deserve to be—life's losers, the bumpkins and hillbillies in the flyover country the elites reject as unmentionables—the 75 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump

There are certainly totalitarians on the political Right. But statistically, they represent a fringe movement with little institutional clout. The authoritarian left, meanwhile, is ascendant in nearly every area of American life. A small number of leftists—college-educated, coastal, and uncompromising—have not just taken over the Democratic Party but our corporations, our universities, our scientific establishment, our cultural institutions. And they have used their newfound power to silence their opposition.

Everyone who opposes Leftists must be destroyed (NSC=not submitting or conforming)

The authoritarian Left is aggressively insistent that everyone must conform to its values, demanding submission and conformity. The dogmatic Left is obsessed with putting people in categories and changing human nature. Everyone who opposes it must be destroyed.

The authoritarian Left is aggressively insistent that everyone must conform to its values, demanding submission and conformity—Everyone who opposes them must be destroyed

Ben Shapiro looks at everything from pop culture to the Frankfurt school, social media to the Founding Fathers, to explain the origins of our turn to tyranny, and why so many seem blind to it.

Why is this country turning to socialist tyranny, as if we'd learned nothing from Hitler's tyranny? (And as the leftists dump freedom, rights, and our Constitution, leftists are hoping no one notices)

More than a catalog of bad actors and intemperate acts, The Authoritarian Moment: How the Left Weaponized America's Institutions Against Dissent lays bare the intolerance and rigidity creeping into all American ideology – and prescribes the solution to ending the authoritarianism that threatens our future.

Rebublicans felt that Trump had merely taken bullets otherwise aimed at them. And they weren't totally wrong. The political slings and arrows were aimed at them

Shapiro says "Rebublicans felt that Trump had merely taken bullets otherwise aimed at them. And they weren't totally wrong. The political slings and arrows were aimed at them. Trump just made an easier, more convenient, and more justifiable target. The media wasn’t the only institution committed to the narrative that all conservatives—or at least the ones who hadn't flipped and joined the Lincoln Project [whose purpose was to prevent the reelection of Donald Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election], earning Strange New Respect™’—were vicious racists, know-nothing xenophobes, bigoted idiots. Nearly every major American institution was committed to the same idea."

Shapiro says "Conservatives felt the left-wing authoritarianism. They understood it on a gut level. And they hated it. They felt the top-down censorship from social media, which deemed their speech “hate speech” and their worldview “harassment.” They felt the anti-conventionalism from Hollywood, which painted conservatives as the great threat to a more beautiful, tolerant, and diverse country, and from their bosses, who declared their fealty to tolerant, liberal ideals while not-so-subtly threatening to fire dissenters, and from their friends and family, who told them in no uncertain terms that they were not welcome at the table."

Shapiro says "Conservatives were to be treated as outsiders. Anyone who voted for Trump was to be banned from polite society, to be treated as a gangrenous limb. Better to lop them off from the body politic than allow their poison to fester. In fact, it wasn’t enough merely to silence conservatives who didn’t actively oppose Trump. Silence, as the nonsensical woke slogan went, was violence. Conservatives had to be outed. Even those who might not feel themselves sympathetic to Trump had to be outed."

"In the aftermath of Jan. 6, obviously you saw, for example, Parler being taken offline by Amazon Web Services, purportedly neutral service provider. And you saw the entire Democratic Party decide, apparently, that every conservative was complicit in Jan. 6. You saw open calls for quashing First Amendment freedoms. You saw open attempt to cudgel corporations into dissociating from conservatives and Republicans.

2021 storming of the United States Capitol

"And it was apparent to me that if we are talking about the true authoritarian threat in the country, it’s not from several hundred idiots and criminals who did something on Jan. 6, the real threat to the country is in the institutional takeover of nearly every major institution.

"We’ve seen that played out over the course of the last year in particular in extraordinary ways, ranging from the reaction of institutions to the full-scale riots last summer . . . I think that people on the left, by and large, don’t think that about people on the right. They tend to think that people on the right are evil, theocratic monsters who spend their days in church plotting how to destroy other people’s lives and who are selfish and nasty and love guns." (Source: Ben Shapiro’s Advice for Resisting America’s ‘Authoritarian Moment’, ‘Authoritarian Moment’, Rob Bluey, Daily Signal)

Cross the social justice warriors, and you will be canceled — Cancel Culture: The Latest Attack on Free Speech and Due Process.

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men"—Edward R. Murrow

This is how a liberal debates—never with ideas, always with feelings

She just heard him say something that disagreed with her politically correct beliefs

The thought police jumped right out of Orwell's 1984 novel and into the liberal narrative's PC censorship agenda

The NY Post wisely published the following: "And yet, buried in authoritarianism is always one deep flaw: its insecurity. If authoritarians had broad and deep support, they wouldn’t require compulsion. The dirty secret of our woke authoritarians is that they are the minority!

"You are the majority.

"It’s not that everybody hates you. It’s that millions of Americans are afraid to say that they agree with you.

"We have been silenced.

"And now is the time for the silence to be broken by one simple, powerful word, a word that has meant freedom since the beginning of time: No." (Source: America’s silent majority must fight liberals killing freedom of speech, Ben Shapiro, NY Post)

Leftist radicals and activists have used their newfound power to silence their opposition

You will never again think another conservative thought—you will instead join the ranks of the mindless leftist conformists, believing only liberal narrative propaganda like critical race theory

"A small number of leftists—college-educated, coastal, and uncompromising—have not just taken over the Democratic Party but our corporations, our universities, our scientific establishment, our cultural institutions. And they have used their newfound power to silence their opposition." (Source: The Authoritarian Moment : How the Left Weaponized America's Institutions Against Dissent, Ben Shapiro, Daly City)

If the leftists really thought they were right, they'd debate the Right and prove it for all to see. But the leftists instead choose to silence their opposition—they know they'd lose debates

If the leftists really thought they were right, they'd debate the Right and prove it for all to see. But the leftists instead choose to silence their opposition—they know they'd lose debates because the leftist principles like political correctness, victimization, identity politics, the lying and naive 1619 Project, and the leftist agenda generally are all logically and morally flawed, which is why the majority of our citizens reject them. This is why they must force this ugly racist, socialist bull pucky on students, media, and academics by threats of cancelation and ostracism. It doesn't make us believe. It makes tens of millions of Americans pretend to believe. This situation is what FASCISM is like, NOT democracy. See Leftist Fascism and Democracy—an American Delusion.

The first appearance of modern totalitarianism in the Western world wasn't in Italy or Germany. It was in the United States of America in the early 1900s under the "progressive" Woodrow Wilson. Political prisoners by the thousands were harassed, beaten. spied upon, and thrown in jail simply for expressing private opinions. Wilson had thousands of thugs beat dissidents into submission—what the current Antifa thugs do whenever they get the chance. Ahhh—Progressivism in action!

Democratic socialists argue that capitalism is inherently incompatible with the values of freedom, equality and solidarity, and that these ideals can only be achieved through the realization of a socialist society.

The trouble with these nice sounding words is that it is a cover story to disguise the real Radical Leftist agenda. Their agenda includes leftist principles like political correctness, victimization, authoritarianism, anti-Americanism, identity politics, phony virtue signalling, the lying and naive 1619 Project, and the leftist agenda generally. All are logically and morally flawed, which is why the majority of our citizens reject them.

Hence the fascist need to FORCE compliance with an ugly and cynical strategy of wokeness, cancelation, blackmail and threats. The father of progressive education, John Dewey, is turning over in his grave. The first progressive president, Theodore Roosevelt, is turning over in his grave.

The authoritarian Left is aggressively insistent that everyone must conform to its values, demanding submission and conformity. This is fascist doctrine and a fascist strategy. This is supposed to be a free country where everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but the left is turning the U.S. fascist—and they like to call the right fascist to cover their lying hypocrisy

The authoritarian Left is aggressively insistent that everyone must conform to its values, demanding submission and conformity. The dogmatic Left is obsessed with putting people in categories and changing human nature. Everyone who opposes it must be destroyed. [As Trump has stated many times, Cancel Culture is the very definition of Totalitarianism]

"Ben Shapiro looks at everything from pop culture to the Frankfurt school, social media to the Founding Fathers, to explain the origins of leftists' turn to tyranny, and why so many seem blind to it." (Source: The Authoritarian Moment: How the Left Weaponized America's Institutions Against Dissent, Lightsailed)

Conservatives have ceded the education of America's youth to the left, giving up education and mass media to leftist propagandists—a serious error!

"The conservative culture movement is still in its infancy. For decades, conservatives have allowed the left to run American culture, preferring to relegate their claim to the realm of tax policy or governance. Conservatives have ceded the education of America's youth to the left, given up the arts to leftist propagandists, capitulated on mass media, entertainment, and nearly every other avenue of communication other than politics. This has created a culture bereft of any grounding in virtue or reason.

"The American public has paid a high price for the refusal of conservatives to engage in culture, or to offer an alternative view to the relativist ideas that are on such righteous display all around us." (Source: Ben Shapiro on the need for conservatives to stake a claim to American culture, Libby Emmons, the Post Millennial)

If we do not have free speech then we are not free. If we are gagged from leftist intolerance and bigotry, we are not free

The Authoritarian Moment: How the Left Weaponized America's Institutions Against Dissent lays bare the intolerance and rigidity creeping into all American ideology – and it also prescribes the solution to ending the authoritarianism that threatens our future. If we do not have free speech then we are not free. If we are gagged from leftist intolerance and bigotry, we are not free.

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• Good News and Bad News
• Habits Of The Heart
• Modern Times Revised Edition: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties
• The Assault On Parenthood
• The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power
• The War Over The Family
• Authoritative and Democratic Parenting Programs
• Social Evolution Is Spinning Its Wheels