What do the far left and the far right have in common? An embrace of totalitarianism.
And it's because they can't sell their wares to the rest of us without making an offer we can't refuse. I'm fired up. Permit me to rant.
Though it is hardly an original thought, I have been known to complain here about the far left’s unwillingness to debate things like DEI, transgender issues, gun control, crime and policing, bigotry, sexism, racism, victimhood, border policies, bad science, censorship, and green issues because they take their views on these to be completely self-evident truths. The far left will vociferate, at length, on your ignorance as a scholar, your status as an employed professional, and/or your failings as a human being, should you have the temerity to attempt to challenge them on any of these.
The far left much prefers canceling, deplatforming, ending careers, censoring, or, in some other way, muzzling critics to debating them. And these days, they seem to be getting away with it, though there are nascent signs of hope that the debate-free ride won’t last forever.
What is less discussed, at least here, is the degree to which the far right embraces many of the same tactics. The far right is at least as enthusiastic about cancel culture and censorship as the far left, and they embrace their own brands of bad science, self-serving reasoning, and fact-poor analyses of current events.
The far right just goes about silencing critics differently. Instead of explicitly calling for someone to be cancelled or deplatformed, the far right likes to paint them as immoral children of lesser gods and leave the rest to the tender mercies of mobs who are ready and willing to bust out healthy doses of retribution, Old Testament style. If we can’t shut the family planning clinic down, let’s just blow it up.
In both cases, the goal is to quell dissent. That’s because the last thing that anyone equipped with limited facts, poor reasoning, and an austerity of grace wants is to debate critics who may suffer none of these shortcomings. It makes them look bad. The barrel of a gun yields much quicker results without all of the arguing and loss of face. Totalitarianism is the easy way for those in charge.
The way I see it, the reason that national elections in this country in this century have produced wild vacillations in national policy is because our political processes are run by partisans who want complete control over everything. It’s win at all costs because the winner takes all. It’s totalitarianism. The concept of compromise, something that permeates our nation’s founding documents, infusing them with the spirit of necessary cooperation, is now considered an obscenity among those camped at either end of the political spectrum.
It’s the damnedest thing, and it’s completely dispiriting, but there’s abundant evidence that it’s all not only true but getting worse. To quote the Rolling Stones, it gets me down.
There’s a lot about this that really ticks me off. I don’t like being labelled an Islamophobe for calling out Hamas over 10/7 atrocities anymore than I like being thrown in with ANTIFA because I acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 election. I don’t like being labelled a greenie because I don’t dispute the basic idea of climate change (just how to deal with it) anymore than I like being tagged as a xenophobe because I object to millions of illegal migrants pouring over our southern border.
I don’t think that any of those convictions are unreasonable. Neither do many of you. But not those in the thrall of partisan totalitarianism. They all think that people like us lack the stomach to do what’s necessary: burn things down and remake them in their image.
On a completely personal level, and as an aside, I’m furious that my religious convictions (actually, lack thereof) were a point of contention in recent divorce proceedings concerning custody of my children. Wasn’t it enough that I was not only compelled (though technically not required) to swear on a Bible in a courtroom full of people of the same faith, except me, but to pay for the proceedings with legal tender marked “In God We Trust,” when in fact, I do not?
Don’t worry; I came out of it just fine. But that’s some arm-twisting for you right there. Religious freedom is a fundamental guarantee in our country. But it does not work out that way in practice. Never once in my entire life have I attempted to foist upon or coerce anyone in terms of my spiritual beliefs. Not once. It sure doesn’t work that way in reverse.
For what it’s worth, I have no idea if I’m anywhere in the ballpark with my spiritual beliefs. For all that I know, all of you could well be automatons sent here to test my moral turpitude.
The last widely permissible prejudices in America are religious in nature. All it will take to change that is for Christianity to no longer be the predominant religion in America. I give it three decades.
But I digress. Thank you for allowing me to vent, but this is, after all, a rant. Twelve-gauge style.
We’re supposed to be living in a country where everyone, even the least among us, enjoys the same freedoms as everyone else. Instead, that noble concept has morphed into an ignoble practice wherein a relatively small number of people call the tunes to which the rest of us must dance.
I’m pretty sure that was not in the cards way back in the day.
I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of being told what ideas, opinions, and matters of faith are proper to possess and express from the totalitarians on both sides of the spectrum. How dare anyone advocate for censoring or suppressing ideas or arguments, not because there’s anything factually wrong with them but because people with the power to put us under their thumbs just don’t like them?
Even if one’s ideas and opinions are found wanting, in America, you have the right to be wrong. You get corrected by your peers, not by Big Brother (through his minions behind the curtain), with the force of law and the power of the state. That’s about as far from our founding ideals as we can get.
Yet here we are. And yeah, I’m getting a little pissed.
I’ve had serious conversations with several smart, productive, and gainfully employed friends from across the political spectrum over the past few days, not the kind of folks generally disposed to doomsday prepping, who are seriously worried for the first time in their lives that our country could fail.
I share their concerns. And this extreme, winner-take-all totalitarian view of governing is behind it. The whole my way or the highway business has no place in an enlightened democratic republic such as our own.
Compromise in governing is not a dirty word. And neither is the concept of extending grace to those with whom we just disagree. This country has 331 million citizens who came from all over the planet. How in the hell are we all supposed to agree on everything all of the time?
That’s crazy talk. And the way that you eventually counter totalitarianism, no matter where it comes from, is from behind the barrel of your own gun.
The reason that our government isn’t working very well right now is that our founders made compromise fundamental to governing. Without that, things aren’t really supposed to work, at least without single-party rule. That’s why both parties are so bent on achieving just that.
Eschewing political compromise, embracing unreasonable social intolerance (I think that it’s OK to be intolerant, for instance, of criminals), and abandoning the acknowledgement that in this country, freedom means for everyone, not just for oneself, is patently un-American. It’s also intellectually lazy, flirts with (or, in some cases, DFKs) illegality, and represents a form of societal sociopathy.
And it’ll be our undoing unless we can pull our heads out of our bums.
Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, and arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth, on Facebook at facebook.com/martin.hackworth, and on Substack at martinhackworthsubstack.com.