While I understand the sentiment, and to some extent I agree (I’d become increasingly worried about the growing extremism American Left for quite some time, as expressed by my writing), I had reason to think that there was some restraint left, on account of what I personally used to be and who I knew personally.
I myself used to be a Leftist once — first a Marxist (which I outgrew some time ago) and then an orthodox progressive. At no point — even when I was a Marxist — was I ever an SJW or anything of this sort.
And looking back, I don’t find much bloodlust in my views from that time. I find a lot to disagree with: misguided naïve optimism (support for ‘Democracy-building’ foreign policy, faith in internationalist projects like the EU, etc.) and cultural contempt (New Atheist contempt for religion). But I don’t find any support for suppression of free speech, nor enthusiasm for comparing my opponents to Nazis, in the old me.
[I used to be a regular on Al Jazeera English and occasionally go back and re-read my old comments; and they’ve aged well, even if my views have changed.]
And from talking to people, I was under the impression that lots of them thought the same as me. Not all of them, obviously there were those that I wrote off as nutcases and representatives of the extremist wing, but enough that I felt relatively secure. And while this feeling had somewhat dwindled — especially since the election — I did feel some amount of safety in the views of most of my friends, who I saw as misguided but fundamentally decent.
In short, I figured there was a “silent majority” of moderate liberals who would in the end rein in the extremists, after the extremists inevitably overplayed their hand, kind of like how the radical Marxist student movements of the 60's and 70’s petered out. After attending the Boston rally/protest, this faith has been shaken; my friends’ reaction, buying the “they’re Nazis” line wholesale, was deeply troubling to me.
PS. I should mention that I classify Nazism as a right-wing movement, fundamentally. Sure, they espoused socialist economic policies (which worked quite well under Hjalmar Schacht, incidentally), but they were also set on (1) all authority concentrated in one man; (2) reification of German/Aryan culture and bloodlines; (3) old-school Imperialism, stripped of all pretenses, with the racial/ethnic component turned up to 11. All of these (hierarchical authority, in/out-groups defined by bloodline, and racially-tinged Imperialism) are hallmarks of the old-school European right wing.
If Moldbug can admit that Hitler was a right-winger, I can too.
