Today’s Tyranny

We do not live in a free country. There are ­many kinds of tyranny. Ours is certainly not like that of Nazi Germany or Communist ­Russia. Government agents are not knocking on doors in the dead of night. Dissenters are not being arrested and sent to prison camps. Nor is twenty-first-­century America quite what Alexis de Tocqueville feared, a ­society of isolated and timid individuals who welcome the smothering embrace of sovereign power that “­covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute, and uniform rules, which the most original minds and most vigorous souls cannot break through to go beyond the crowds.” It is true that we are atomized and live under a blanket of social control. But the “sovereign power” is not officialdom pure and simple. It is something more diffuse. Like our healthcare system and retirement benefits, the tyranny is distinctly American, imposed by a complex combination of government power and private initiative.

Imagine a lawyer, a devout Christian with traditional moral convictions, who works in a large national firm in New York. In years past, he was required to participate in diversity training seminars. These sessions were not mandated by any government agency. Rather, they were established by management in order to protect the firm in the event of civil rights litigation. He participated and held his tongue when the “training” turned to abortion and gay rights.

After the uproar of the summer of 2020, anyone with half a brain recognized that the stakes had become much higher. Some big clients became more aggressive about demanding clear signs of “diversity” in the firm’s legal staff. In response, management hired a diversity, equity, and inclusion officer. They wanted to insulate the firm from legal and reputational liabilities. The new DEI officer revised the diversity training, rebranding it “Allyship in the Workplace.” Thenceforth, all lawyers were required to make positive commitments to advance “historically marginalized communities,” which, given the power of the LGBT lobby at the firm, has meant highlighting their concerns.

The process is complete. DEI practices are as much a part of firm culture as billing. Again, neither the position of DEI officer nor the refashioned “allyship” training is mandated by government, at least not directly. There is no party commissar assigned to the firm. But some of the young associates have formed groups and are making demands. And management knows that the New York legislature has drawn up an amendment to the state’s constitution that prohibits discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation, gender expression, pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes.” It seems more than prudent to be proactive in ensuring that the firm is in full accord with the rainbow agenda.

So it looks as though the devout Christian lawyer must either submit and mouth an endorsement of the latest dictates from the Human Rights Campaign—or be fired. Maybe he can skillfully maneuver and avoid confrontation. Or perhaps he has lucrative clients or powerful parents who will protect him. This is of no moment. In the Soviet Union not every dissenter was arrested. What matters is the atmosphere of threat, which brings people into conformity.

Nor is it just a matter of losing your livelihood. As Scott Yenor recounts in “Anatomy of a Cancellation” (January 2023), activists will target you, your family, your friends, and your employer with a barrage of insults, threats, and denunciations. Those mounting the attacks are private actors, to be sure, but their measures are rarely if ever punished by institutional authorities that enforce social norms. Recently, Fifth ­Circuit Court Judge Kyle Duncan was invited to address a student group at Stanford Law School. Law students who objected to his very existence hurled vulgar insults and tried to intimidate him. His talk was ­disrupted by jeers, and he had to be escorted from the room by federal marshals. In the aftermath, the Law School dean made strong statements about the importance of free speech and open discussion. But she assured the ­students that none will be subjected to discipline for their behavior.

The Stanford episode is our situation writ small. In the aftermath of its “mostly peaceful protests,” Black Lives Matter and related organizations were showered with money. (The Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life has documented donations to BLM and related causes, which total more than $80 billion). A year later, we heard accusations of misuse of funds. One BLM leader was accused by colleagues of embezzling $10 million. Private lawsuits have been filed. We are not an entirely lawless country. But to my knowledge, not a single district attorney has opened an investigation. Meanwhile, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has doggedly pursued a dubious case against Donald Trump for payment of hush money to a porn star.

In the halls of academe, at our workplaces, and in the trenches of political combat, one gets the message. Those advancing the progressive party line are empowered and protected by authorities. Anyone unwise enough to dissent in public or, worse, enter into active resistance becomes a target.

This tyranny is soft, not hard. Outside of Portland, there are no bands of progressive thugs with truncheons roaming the streets. You and I can go about our days unmolested. But only up to a point. A friend reported that during the summer of 2020, a major automobile company fired factory workers who posted negative comments about Black Lives Matter on their social media accounts. More recently, a Georgia police officer was told to resign or be fired. His offense: a social media post saying “there’s no such thing” as gay marriage. These blue-collar folks were naive. They thought they lived in a free country. Well before 2020, those of us who work as professionals were aware that we ­needed to self-censor.

Further events have intensified the atmosphere of threat. In 2022, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers and froze the financial accounts of individuals who had donated to the trucker protest in Ottawa, effectively expelling them from economic life. The measure was criticized and soon lifted. But we got the message. And then there were FBI investigations into the possibility that parents who objected to the indoctrination of their children at school board meetings might be “domestic terrorists”—to say nothing of the bizarre FBI memo identifying the traditional Latin Mass as a potential source of “right-wing extremism.” These excesses have been exposed and subjected to a good bit of public pushback. But, again, we got the message: Dissent at your own risk.

We should be grateful that we live in a time in which ideologues backed up by state power are satisfied with getting you fired rather than putting a bullet in your head. But let’s not kid ourselves. Progressives have adopted tactics meant to instill fear in those who dissent, and fear is the great enemy of freedom.