Dear Editor,
At a White House event, the president shuts down a transgender undocumented immigrant asking him questions, saying “Shame on you… You’re in my house,” to which the audience cheers and the activist is escorted outside of the White House. When a CBS reporter asks the president a question that offends him, he refuses to answer the question and belittles the reporter, saying that “that’s nonsense, you should know better.” This same president also barred reporters whom he disagreed with ideologically from entering press conferences, and his administration prosecuted and spied on more reporters and whistleblowers than any other president in history.
The president I’m talking about is Obama.
If you’re thinking about Trump, you’d be a prime example of a NPC, knowing nothing more than what the leftist media tells you and incapable of discerning reality from propaganda. With the tension between the current administration and the left-leaning mainstream press, the progressive liberals, or leftists, have been quick to label Trump and his supporters as fascists, yet another example of the blue pot calling the red kettle totalitarian.
During his heydey, Republican Ronald Reagan—arguably the greatest contemporary president— predicted that “If fascism ever comes to America, it will come under the name of [progressive] liberalism,” which is scarily accurate considering the current political climate. Reagan then perfectly describes the overlap of progressive liberalism and fascism: “What is fascism? Fascism is private ownership, private enterprise but total government control and regulation. Well, isn’t this the liberal philosophy? The conservative, so-called, is the one that says, ‘less government, get off my back and get out of my pocket, and let me have more control over my own destiny,'” Reagan’s message has become all the more relevant with the rise of the silent majority and radicalization of the Left.
Let’s start with one of the defining characteristics of fascism: suppression of opposition and refusal of open discourse. I hope at the very least that Americans be aware of the increasing tolerance of violence with leftist motivation, especially those of Antifa. Smashing windows and throwing molotov cocktails are unfortunately becoming more common and tolerated on campuses whenever conservatives seek civil discourse with students, the essence of our future. It was the juxtaposition of “fascist, racist, intolerant” conservative Ben Shapiro peacefully engaging in civil discourse while the “tolerant, compassionate, peaceful” leftist protestors were literally setting the surroundings of his building ablaze that forced me to reflect about my leftist leaning at the time. The disturbing trend is actually less about the existence of leftist radicals—as there are radicals with any ideology—but rather the tolerance of said radicals; you don’t see any KKK organizations on college campuses, but for some reason you do see Antifa, an organization that has undoubtedly caused more domestic terror than the former in recent years. Or what about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, self-proclaimed socialist who outright claimed that conservatives were too scared to debate her because they known their wrong, but when conservative Ben Shapiro challenges her to a civil debate–and even offered her $10,000 to her campaign if she accepted– she cried “muh sexism” and dismissed it as catcalling. The Left proclaims that their ideology is inherently superior, yet it fails to justify why and even uses its supposed superiority as a justification to participate in physical violence over civil discourse. Doesn’t this sound like the Nazis, whom violently oppressed and targeted dissenting individuals?
But the Left says it’s the side of open-mindedness and peace that wants to unify America.
Let’s take another look at another characteristic of fascism: manipulation of the masses through misinformation, propaganda, and smear campaigns. Ironically, when the Left quotes Trump on calling the press “the enemy of the people,” they’re further proving that they feed distorted information in order to advance their agenda. When Trump was asked in an interview if he truly thought that the press were indeed “the enemy of the people,” he responded saying, “No. Not at all, but the fake news is.” That statement is quite anti-fascist, something that rational people on both sides of the aisle should agree with. Who would be opposed to the American people receiving truthful, impartial information free from spin, and allowing said people to make independent decisions? Fascists, and recently, the Left. Again, what an odd and seemingly coincidental overlap.
The examples are plentiful for leftist propaganda. The Left says that women make 79% of what men do yet fail to acknowledge that men tend to take higher paying jobs, which skews the average; they also fail to acknowledge that—when you compare apples to apples—women in their 20s and single, childless women actually make more than their male counterparts. The Left says there are 240 school shootings annually, but they don’t mention that any discharge of a weapon on a campus (even if no one was injured) counts as a school shooting according to that statistic; a suicide in a car in an abandoned school parking lot at night counted as a “mass school shooting” according to the Left. In reality, only 10 students have died annually on average due to school shootings; to put that into perspective, 100 students die annually due to bike accidents.
The Left also demonizes its opponents whenever they refuse to fully conform, like gay classic liberal Dave Rubin who is labeled as “far right” because he believes that all ideologies deserve the protection of free speech, or Kanye West who was label “mentally ill” and “an illiterate negro” by CNN because of his support for Trump and national unity. I thought the Left supported gays and blacks.
But the Left says it’s the side of open-mindedness and transparency.
Moreover, the Left is constantly attacking the top 1% those gosh darned “white, Christian, heterosexual, cisgender males,” and pushes for increasing taxes on said 1% to pay for increased welfare and government-funded healthcare. There’s a feeling of resentment against the top 1% and entitlement among the Left (not surprising considering the millennial base of the Left”, not unlike that of the German citizens during the rise of the Nazis. They scapegoated the Jews—the “top 1%” at the time—and felt that they’d been wronged by the Allied Powers and entitled to some compensation. The Left’s answer to the wrongs of capitalism is the centralization of the state and the establishment of nationalized health care and child care, all of which were policies under the Nazi regime. There’s also something unsettling about how the Left’s fetish for gun control resembles the Nazi’s gun policy, which took guns away from the people the state deemed a “threat” to prevent rebellion against their totalitarian rule.
When Democrat Gavin Newsom was exposed to be an adulterer, the left cheers about how he “takes responsibility for his actions” and they elect him to governor of California. When Democrat Michael Avenatti beats his wife, it’s okay because he dismisses it as a “right-wing conspiracy theory.” (Those gosh darn conservatives! Always to blame for everything, even when a leftist beats his wife.) When Obama and Hillary accept thousands of dollars in donations from Harvey Weinstein, the Left sweeps it under the rug. But, when Kavanaugh is merely accused of rape with only an inconsistent, fishy anecdote as evidence, the Left calls for the dismissal the legal process of due process and presumption of innocence for immediate prosecution. Dismissing laws for ideology is rather fascist.
Not to mention, that when Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, he changed the Constitution himself to appoint new justices and push his New Deal through. It was events like these—the undermining of checks and balances between the branches of government—that were what our founding fathers tried to prevent with the Constitution, which Democrats have spat on time and time again. Not surprisingly, the Nazi Party newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, praised Roosevelt, saying his actions resembled that of Hitler’s own dictatorial rule. This flagrant disregarding of limited government was again apparent when Obama pushed his Affordable Care Act through an executive order with no regard to the legislative process.
It doesn’t matter whether you agree with the New Deal or ACA; this is about the principle and not the matter. The fact is, leftists have time and time again undermined the limited government set up by the Constitution and that should be at least somewhat disturbing.
But the Left says it’s the side that respects the concept of limited government and protects American ideals.
I’m not saying that leftists are “literally fascists!” My goal is to have the Left take an honest look at itself and confront reality, and the reality is that they suffer from psychological projection: that they are closer to fascism than the people they accuse. There’s nothing wrong with giving into leftist ideology because you’ve been duped and lied to, but there is something wrong with clinging onto an ideology founded on lies and propaganda when the facts are in front of you.
This how I was converted: I began looking at reality and discovered that libertarianism and classical liberalism, the belief in limited government and the free exchange of all ideas—and not just those deemed politically correct by the Left—is in fact right-wing. If you believe in individualism over collectivism, oppose surrendering your rights for security, and mature enough to not be triggered by ideas you disagree with, then right-wing politics might be worth looking into. I recommend looking up Prager University and FreedomToons.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just an ignorant, authoritarian Nazi, according to the Left.
Class of 2020
Note: This letter is that of the author and does not necessarily reflect those of The Union, students, administration, or Milpitas Unified School District.