The subtitle is How the Left Weaponized America’s Institutions Against Dissent and the author is Ben Shapiro (2021).
The story is one that I have dwelled on before – the lunatic left, while a minority in numbers, has somehow managed to hijack and coopt the message and views of corporate boardrooms, universities, the media, and the Democratic party. And, in doing so, has used that position to silence its opposition in ways that are authoritarian and draconian, all with a view to gain leverage and power. Theirs is a message that decries individualism and meritocracy, and harbors on disparate outcomes as if they are at all times and in all places the result of something evil, leading to policy and ideas that are bereft of logic and which fail to serve the greater good.
To wit, the pandemic offers an example of what I mean. When it came to the vaccine roll-out, with the explicit understanding that the elderly were always the most at-risk, CDC officials pushed for a plan where essential workers were treated first, acknowledging that it would likely lead to more deaths by up to 6.5%, because “racial and ethnic minority groups are underrepresented among adults over 65”. This view was endorsed by other public health officials, including an expert from Penn who actually said: “Older populations are whiter. Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.” Because we live in a world where systemic racism allegedly is the biggest problem going, these are the ideas that get oxygen.
The foregoing anecdote represents the corruption of science to serve a political end, but the impact of the Authoritarian Left is felt across industry. I have seen it in my professional life where diversity training, which is effectively racism by another name, is mandated. Institutions of higher learning largely have no faculty members these days who represent anything other than the Leftist view. And there are only too many stories of corporations and media companies who fire corporate leaders and others for suggesting that America is not just some systemically racist place.
I don’t have any clever rhetorical flourish or deep takeaway to close today. I will simply say the book is an eye-opener (if you need one) and worth the read.
