ith each passing day it becomes more obvious that the left has become incapable of rational debate or political compromise, and must now embrace the only tools available to it: intimidation, coercion, and political violence. Whatever liberals might believe about their progressive politics, today their program is based not on persuasion or representation, still less on open-minded rational inquiry or practical solutions to problems. It’s based on force.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk last month is of course emblematic of what the left has become. Kirk was murdered for speaking out against transgenderism. Dissenting from that ideology in particular is intolerable for the left because it encapsulates an ideal of total liberation — even from nature itself. But there are plenty of examples just from the past week of the left resorting to violence, or threats of violence, to advance their cause.
Call it the assassin’s or rioter’s veto — the last tactic of a liberal project that has reached an intellectual and political dead-end in the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination.
Consider the cancellation of a Federalist Society event scheduled for Oct. 7 at New York University Law School, which cited “security reasons” and fears that anti-Israel protesters would disrupt it. The event was to feature conservative legal scholar Ilya Shapiro discussing his new book, Lawless: The Miseducation of American Elites.
Shapiro is Jewish, and has been critical of campus anti-Israel protests in the past — the same sort of protests NYU officials anticipate on Oct. 7, and which, according to reporting from The Washington Free Beacon, the school is apparently unable to control. And yet, as the Beacon further reported, the law school “is slated to host a seven-hour symposium on ‘social entrepreneurship, impact investing, and sustainable development’ that same day.” They don’t fear riots over that event, but cannot (or will not) guarantee the safety of Shapiro’s event.
What’s more, for weeks now law school officials have been changing their justification for why they canceled the event, alternatively citing the threat of protests, a conflicting “private event,” the inability to host outside speakers the week of Oct. 7, and lack of space.
But we all know the real reason law school officials canceled the Federalist Society event: Shapiro is Jewish and conservative, they fear antisemitic rioters will attack the event and possibly Shapiro himself, and they are unwilling to do what’s necessary to protect him.
That’s how the rioter’s veto works, and it’s become commonplace on the left for the simple reason that the left refuses to engage in debate about these things. They’ve reached the end of rational inquiry and civil dialogue, and are increasingly resorting to force.
Or consider what’s unfolded this week in Portland, where Antifa rioters have besieged an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and recently began attacking members of the press who dare to report on what’s happening there.
Katie Daviscourt, a reporter for The Post Millennial, was attacked by an Antifa rioter who hit her in the face with a wooden flagpole, “swinging it like a baseball bat,” in Daviscourt’s words. Portland Police were on the scene, but allowed the masked assailant to escape despite Daviscourt identifying her attacker to an officer on the scene. The next day, she appeared on Fox News and on Jack Posobiec’s show with a black eye.
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