Opinion | Which Is More Powerful, the MAGA Right, or ‘Woke’ Left?

One way of thinking about that period, that I think is how I think about it, is that two things are sort of true at the same time. So, one, there was way too much speech policing. There was too much cancellation. There was too much that instead of being willing to have arguments, people just tried to make the arguments unhaveable. That all happened. I don’t deny any of it. And on the other hand, a lot of what people more on the left in that moment were afraid of, or what they predicted, also happened. The alt-right moved much more from the fringe to the center. – I always think about —— – The alt-right was totally destroyed after Charlottesville. I think maybe we have a different view of what the alt right represented. which is fair enough. But I think a lot of ideas that were very, very, very far from the center — I think about Elon Musk and the things he kind of pumps into the attentional stream would have been considered incredibly marginal even in Trump’s first term. Yes, there are parts of the alt-right that are not significant today. Richard Spencer is not a significant figure. Nick Fuentes has a bigger audience than Richard Spencer ever did. – Sure. – And there is, I mean, when I’m on X and other places, the amount of just constant antisemitism and anti-Indian racism I see just happening in people’s mentions is wild to me. And I mean, I don’t think he’ll win. But you look at Fishback, who’s running for governor in Florida, it’s almost unimaginable to think of somebody like him being a figure in Republican Party politics who would be commanding the support of particularly anybody. So it’s the fact you can have these things be true at the same time. Yes. I think you’re kind of understating, understating the dynamic on one side. I mean, it wasn’t just about speech policing. The — after 2020, the left maintained a kind of apparatus of social annihilation. And I went through it myself. I had the A.C.L.U. subpoena me and harass me with a lawfare campaign that cost me a lot of money. I had the S.P.L.C. and the A.D.L. put me on some sort of hate list that was totally bogus, trying to destroy my reputation. And so I had people — threats of violence against me that were very credible at the time. And so, people trying to get, going after my family, my kids. I mean, we shouldn’t forget just how awful that period was. And look, I think the difference that maybe you’re not seeing is that the radical, nihilistic and violent left- wing movements have the full support of the left’s institutions. And what we’re talking about is a radical, nihilistic movement on the right — do not have any institutional support and are — bubble up in your Twitter comments, which, again, don’t agree, but is different in kind, not just in quantity. It’s like, I’m looking at it, I’m feeling it. I’m seeing it with my colleagues. After Charlie Kirk was killed, I called all the people, friends and colleagues in the business, and I just like was completely distraught for weeks. And, again, while I don’t support James Fishback for governor, again, I think that it’s kind of an empty symbolism where I was on the other side. It feels like these ideologies have the support of the institutions. They wielded power irresponsibly in the past and still have the ultimate political threat, the threat of violence, that I know everybody in my world has seen, has experienced, has feared. – I see it the opposite way. – Really? I see it the opposite way. And I’ll explain why. I don’t see the S.P.L.C., the Southern Poverty Law Center, as a powerful, potent left-wing actor. Really? They could — 10 years ago, – they could nuke you. – Hold on. – Like, if they go —— – I’ll go through — I’ll go through my thing. A.D.L. I don’t even see as on the left, which is a different question, I understand, but I see the Trump administration as powerfully and potently extreme and willing to use the power of the federal government, from deploying ICE and C.B.P. agents to different cities, to directing the D.O.J., who to investigate and go after, to, after Charlie Kirk’s murder, trying to get people fired who are just random people who had done [expletive] tweets. I do not see a world in which there is this huge separation between the extreme elements of the right and this administration. I keep hearing from people like you, who I think has talked about this, that there’s a huge number of groypers working in House and Senate offices, in Congress. It’s almost unbelievable how far things have gone. Even Trump 1 to Trump 2 are very, very different beasts. And so all of a sudden, it doesn’t look impossible to imagine that Fuentes and Carlson and Fishback are the future, not the fringe. I think a lesson that has been burned into many of us is that it is dangerous to dismiss something that seems to have a lot of energy around it as a fringe, because what is today’s fringe is tomorrow’s maybe not center, but much more live and potent political force.