Young Authoritarians on the March

Well, one more post on the Creating Change travesty, because I think it encapsulates a seminal development on the left—including among younger LBTQ progressives—that older left-liberals haven’t wanted to face. It’s the fact that on college campuses progressivism now means shutting down or otherwise eliminating the expression of viewpoints that are not deemed sufficiently and correctly progressive. It’s a new streak of authoritarianism that reflects back to the pro-Soviet leftism of the ‘30s and ‘40s.

This is an ideology grounded in anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism, so it should really be no surprise to scratch the surface and find just underneath our old acquaintance, anti-Semitism, dolled up superficially as anti-Zionism.

The leaders of the National LGBTQ Task Force say they want all progressives to be able to come to their conferences as their true selves, but what happens when their true self is an authoritarian anti-Semite? At some point, “no enemies on the left” is just not viable, unless you’re willing to surrender to and henceforth take orders from the mob, as leftwing university administrators now appear willing to do.

Some are trying to defend the Task Force by claiming that the Israeli speakers at the Jerusalem Open House reception were the ones who decided to end the event because they didn’t want to deal with condemnation by the protesters. But that’s entirely disingenuous, as made clear by Washington Blade editor Keven Naff in his commentary Creating Shame: Anti-Israel protest misguided, offensive. He notes:

The organizers of Creating Change had to know something like this was brewing. Yet they had no control over the protest, which easily could have devolved into a dangerous situation. “The Task Force did very little to ensure that the program …could go on as planned, safely and without disruption,” [American University Law professor Tony] Varona reported. “Instead, the protestors were allowed to bully the speakers off the stage, and then to bully and harass the attendees out of the room.” When your invited speakers are forced to flee out a back door, you have failed in your responsibility to ensure the safety of attendees. Task Force staff must do a better job of providing security and of maintaining control over their own events. Ceding the stage to protesters sets an irresponsible precedent.

Naff concludes:

It’s refreshing to meet with younger LGBT advocates and Creating Change provides a safe space for them to share ideas and tactics. But “safe spaces” should refer to protecting the physical safety of attendees. They should not be shielded from opinions and ideas they find offensive. … Censoring speech and shouting down those we disagree with should not be on our agenda. Creating Change organizers must behave like the parent in the room and establish some basic rules of engagement and enforce them. And there’s clearly much work to be done in educating younger advocates on the history of Israel, the Holocaust and the plight of LGBT people in the Middle East.

Those who define themselves as on the left must either stand up to the new authoritarians or eventually surrender to them.

12 Comments for “Young Authoritarians on the March”

  1. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Those who define themselves as on the left must either stand up to the new authoritarians or eventually surrender to them.

    Not to worry, Stephen. Liberals have nothing to gain from allowing a small group of immature posuers to take over liberal discourse, so we are not likely to make the mistake that conservatives did when they did nothing to challenge the religious right for so many years. I don’t think that we’ll find ourselves in the situation in which you find yourself, having found yourselves with few options after a not-so-hostile takeover.

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      So much weird wording in Stephen’s post. Does anyone who reads this consider themselves the left? And does he really not see that the social conservatives aren’t just as bad as the regressive left AND far more influential in our politics?

      • posted by JohnInCA on

        When you look at how people politically self-identify, you find a lot of “independents” and shrinking groups of partisans.

        When you ask people how they actually *vote*, you find that the partisans are just as numerous and partisan as ever.

        So I don’t fault for Stephen for not worrying overmuch how many people “consider themselves” to be part of “the left”. After all, a huge chunk of people that, by deed if not by word, *are* “the left” don’t admit to it.

        • posted by Houndentenor on

          I actually have leftist friends. They roll their eyes at my moderate views. Most Americans have no clue what “the left” really is. In most European countries I’d be center right. In the US over half the country considers me the “far left”. That’s how far right the GOP has dragged the country. Again, I see the movement beginning to call out far left nonsense (and I’ll admit there’s plenty of it). I do not see anyone on the right openly taking on the far right even though that element has taken over the party and is dominating the primaries. So yes I do fault Stephen. He’s great at pointing fingers at the left but hardly a word of criticism for the crazy in his own party, no matter what they say or do.

      • posted by ngblog on

        I consider myself a member of the progressive left. I don’t like what has happened, not at all, and find it bizarre gay and non gay social conservatives have become voices of sanity and reason.

  2. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    As a side note, I want to update a statement I made in another thread about Trump, saying that I didn’t think that he posed much of a threat to Obergefell.

    Trump went over to the dark side today by signalling that he will nominate anti-Obergefell judges and Justices if he becomes President in an interview with Chris Wallace, joining Cruz, Rubio and most of the other Republican candidates for President in that regard.

    I still don’t that Trump, unlike Cruz and Rubio, is likely to go on a crusade to overturn Obergefell, but I’m sorry to see it happen. Trump was just about the last hope among the serious contenders that the party might moderate on marriage equality this election cycle, and it looks like that hope is fading away.

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      I remember Stephen claiming this was over and the right would drop it. As if. He obviously doesn’t actually talk to any social conservatives, living in a blue area. Those of us in Teabagistan knew they weren’t just going to accept that, not after making it their main issue for over a decade.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      I remember Stephen claiming this was over and the right would drop it.

      Stephen is good at whistling. I think that he is right in the long run, though. I suspect that the Republican Party will “drop it” in another two or three election cycles, but not much before then. At present, opposition to equality remains too much a mainstream issue, and fits in too well with the larger Republican theme of stoking white resentment about losing power to minorities, to “drop it”.

      What Reince Preibus and the other authors of the 2013 “Growth and Opportunity Project” missed something, and that is not how important opposition to equality is to mainstream Republicans and that any efforts to silence the mainstream by getting the party to “drop it” or “tone down the message” would inevitably fail.

      The emerging “establishment” candidate, Senator Rubio, captures the depth and breadth of mainstream Republican anti-equality sentiment with perfect pitch — he has pledged to overturn Obergefell, appoint judges and Justices who will make it so, rescind President Obama’s executive orders, and, like Stephen, Rubio plays to the Republican mainstream by holding gays and lesbians out as intolerant thugs: “This intolerance in the name of tolerance is hypocrisy.” Rubio speaks out against discrimination against gays and lesbians, but opposes legislation to limit it, a straddle reflecting the thinking of supposedly pro-equality Republicans like Paul Singer and LCR, not to mention homocons like Stephen.

      The mainstream Republican view will, in time change, if for no other reason than opposition to equality is highest among Republicans Stephen’s and my age, and it will not be too long before we die off. But it won’t happen quickly, because it can’t, given how central anti-equality is and has been to Republican politics.

  3. posted by Houndentenor on

    Many of us are, Stephen. But that makes me wonder when people like you are going to stand up to the authoritarians on the right. A lot of us are concerned about the regressives. A lot. Where is that concern on the right as the lunatic fringe is taking your party over the cliff and maybe the country with it. Yeah, there’s some nonsense on college campuses these days and that needs to be addressed but no of those nuts are about to be a party nominee for president.

  4. posted by Wilberforce on

    I’d just like to go off topic and outline a sensible center left position.
    Of course I would support most of Bernie’s program: Medicare for all, Wall Street reform, higher taxes on the rich to pay for college and other goodies, and environmental action. But I recognize that he couldn’t get any of this through congress, given the powerful interests that control it.
    I also think Hillary has a better chance in the general. A socialist candidate would unite the media into a scorched earth policy to defeat him.
    So I’m for Hillary, because I want to win, but also because I want to get some things through congress.

  5. posted by Jorge on

    The leaders of the National LGBTQ Task Force say they want all progressives to be able to come to their conferences as their true selves, but what happens when their true self is an authoritarian anti-Semite?

    You take their weapons at the door and give them back when they leave. Oh, look, ground rules are microaggressions and not permitted among the new left. They complain to the general public, not realizing the public carries the sledgehammer: TOO BAD.

    Liberals have nothing to gain from allowing a small group of immature posuers to take over liberal discourse, so we are not likely to make the mistake that conservatives did when they did nothing to challenge the religious right for so many years.

    I think the conservatives are more diverse than the liberals. The conservative movement is a hydra, while the progressive movement tries to be a melting pot. (In spite of each side favoring the other analogy.)

    The heads can try to eat each other, but it doesn’t work. The other factions either fall asleep or split off, yet either way, they keep their individuality in a way they don’t among the left.

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