Authorities In Britain Are Trying To Criminalize Christian Street Preaching
As Christianity declines in the West, we should expect Christians to be persecuted. It’s already happening in Britain.As Christianity declines in the West, we should expect Christians to be persecuted. It’s already happening in Britain.How anti-fascism became the West’s civil religion
At the end of World War II, much of the West stood in ruins. Europe’s great powers were shattered, millions were dead, and political leaders searched for a framework that would prevent another civilizational collapse. What emerged was what R.R. Reno later described as the “postwar consensus”: an elite agreement to reorganize Western society around a single overriding moral imperative — never again allow a figure like Adolf Hitler to rise.
Anti-fascism became the West’s civil religion. This was understandable in the immediate aftermath of the war. Nazi Germany’s atrocities demanded more than mere condemnation. But over time, anti-fascism ceased to function as a historical judgment and instead hardened into a permanent moral framework. In the process, it began to distort politics, hollow out institutions, and undermine the concept of the nation itself.
The longer conservatives wait to make reasonable corrections, the more radical — and likely authoritarian — the eventual correction will be.
Anti-fascism served a second, less acknowledged function. The United States and its allies had partnered with the Soviet Union to defeat Hitler. That alliance was strategically necessary but morally grotesque. Communist regimes starved millions, persecuted Christians, liquidated entire classes, and carried out ethnic cleansing on a scale easily outstripping the Nazis.
To sustain the moral legitimacy of the postwar order, Nazism had to remain the singular, unrivaled evil of modern history. Any serious moral accounting risked an intolerable conclusion: that the West had joined forces with a regime at least as monstrous as the one it defeated.
Because communism retained elite defenders in academia, media, and politics, fascism became the only ideology that could be universally condemned. Conservatives opposed both, but liberals embraced or excused communism. Anti-fascism thus became the sole moral language the entire ruling class could share.
That imbalance persists. Public figures openly describe themselves as socialists or communists without consequence. Communist symbols appear on clothing and merchandise, sometimes celebrated as ironic rebellion. Fascism alone remains socially radioactive.
The power of taboo
This asymmetry transformed the definition of fascism into a weapon.
Anything directly associated with Nazism became forbidden, and soon anything vaguely adjacent followed. Online platforms remove or demonetize historical content for displaying Nazi imagery, even in documentary contexts. History itself must be censored to comply with the taboo.
Meanwhile, symbols of communist regimes that murdered tens of millions provoke little more than mild disapproval. A guy wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt or a hammer and sickle may earn a sneer. Wearing a swastika ends careers — even lives.
Absolute stigma confers absolute power. Control the definition of fascism, and you control the moral boundary of acceptable thought.
Mission creep as strategy
The left quickly grasped this dynamic and began expanding the category. Traditional social institutions were recast as latent fascism. Academic works such as Theodor Adorno’s “The Authoritarian Personality” asserted that family structure, masculinity, Christianity, national identity, capitalism, and law and order were markers of authoritarian psychology.
Over time, the list expanded from Nazi symbols to Confederate flags, Christian imagery, art styles, gestures, numbers, and ordinary behaviors. Organizations like the ADL and Southern Poverty Law Center labeled everything from physical fitness to drinking milk and the “OK” hand sign as potential indicators of extremism.
Conservatives often mock the more absurd examples, but many accepted the earlier ones. Borders became suspect. So did preferring some immigrant groups over others. Explicit national identity became a huge red flag. Christianity as a political foundation became authoritarian.
Anti-fascism succeeded not because it was coherent, but because it was unchallengeable.
A society without tools
The result is a civilization that has locked away the tools required for its own survival.
A functional society requires cohesion: shared language, culture, norms, and traditions. Not everyone must conform fully, but enough must for assimilation to mean something. When every mechanism of cohesion is labeled fascist, cohesion becomes impossible.
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Crime, educational collapse, family breakdown, falling birth rates, and social fragmentation are not impossible to fix. The corrective measures are well understood. But they have been rendered politically illegitimate because they’re all somehow hallmarks of fascism. Conservatives often avoid them out of fear — or worse, oppose them in the name of anti-fascism itself.
This does not prevent authoritarianism. It guarantees it.
What remains
If the present trajectory continues, only two outcomes remain.
One is an increasingly authoritarian managerial state that governs a disintegrating society through surveillance, regulation, and bureaucratic coercion. The other is a decisive leader who smashes the glass labeled “fascism” and uses the forbidden tools outright.
The longer conservatives wait to make reasonable corrections, the more radical — and likely authoritarian — the eventual correction will be.
Nazism was evil, and opposing it was obviously right. But elevating anti-fascism into the West’s single, unquestionable religious principle has been catastrophic. It has stripped societies of the means to govern themselves prudently and ensured that when the correction finally comes, it will be far harsher than anything its most ardent anti-fascists claim to fear.
Democrats once undermined the Army. Now they undermine the nation.
America again stands on the edge of betrayal, watching mobs assault federal officers while judges call it “restraint.”
This is not new. Between 1876 and 1878, the same script played out as those sworn to uphold the law were branded as tyrants and those undermining it claimed the mantle of freedom. When the federal government lost the will to enforce its own laws, violence filled the vacuum.
How the first ‘Redemption’ worked
After the Civil War, Republican coalitions in the South — freedmen, poor whites, and Northern reformers — were crushed by white Democrats who called themselves “Redeemers.” They promised “home rule” but delivered a racial caste system enforced by terror and political exclusion.
The Redeemers invoked ‘home rule’ to dismantle Reconstruction. Today’s Democratic left invokes ‘human rights’ to paralyze national defense.
The last obstacle to that counterrevolution was federal protection of black voters. During the disputed 1876 election, President Ulysses S. Grant stationed troops at polling sites across the South to deter fraud and Ku Klux Klan violence. Democrats in South Carolina vowed to “wade in blood knee-deep” if necessary to reclaim power.
Those troops were the only shield between freedmen and their former masters. But in the Compromise of 1877, federal forces were withdrawn to buy political peace. Reconstruction governments collapsed, schools for freedmen closed, and voting rights vanished. As W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.”
Southern Democrats soon made that withdrawal permanent. Wrapping themselves in the rhetoric of liberty and “local control,” they pushed the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, criminalizing use of the Army for domestic law enforcement except when Congress expressly authorized it.
The narrative was set: Federal troops at the polls meant “tyranny”; “home rule” meant “harmony.” In truth, the act cemented the collapse of Reconstruction and led to the birth of Jim Crow, which paralyzed federal defense of civil rights for nearly a century.
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The rhetoric of reversal
Debates over the Posse Comitatus Act dripped with moral inversion. Southern Democrats like Rep. John Atkins of Tennessee and William Kimmel of Maryland denounced President Rutherford B. Hayes as a “monarch” who preferred bullets to ballots. Federal soldiers protecting black voters were smeared as bloodthirsty brutes and “tools of despotism.”
In that twisted language, enforcing the law became tyranny, while mob rule became freedom.
It was early information warfare: delegitimize the protectors, vindicate the aggressors, and freeze lawful authority into submission.
The new paralysis
A century and a half later, the pattern repeats. Democrats, left-wing activists, and their media allies now use essentially the same language to delegitimize immigration enforcement. ICE and Border Patrol agents, upholding laws passed by Congress, are branded as “fascists.” Federal defense of government facilities is denounced as “militarization.”
Judges cite the Posse Comitatus Act to block National Guard deployments meant to protect ICE offices from violent assaults. In Illinois, U.S. District Judge April Perry ruled that deploying the Guard could “add fuel to the fire that they started,” claiming no evidence of impending “rebellion.” The ruling came days before No Kings Day demonstrations.
The Department of Homeland Security had extended fencing around its Broadview facility after earlier attacks — rioters hurling fireworks, bottles, and tear gas while local officials looked away. When the DHS finally reinforced its defenses, the courts ordered them torn down.
Since June, ICE and Border Patrol have endured shootings, arson attempts, and coordinated ambushes. In Dallas, a sniper targeted an ICE field office. In suburban Chicago, federal agents were rammed and pinned by cartel-linked drivers before returning fire. Local police en route to assist were told to stand down.
Within hours, left-wing outlets and activist networks declared the clash proof of “authoritarianism.” The strategy is deliberate: manufacture chaos, provoke a lawful response, then cite that response as evidence of tyranny.
This is a textbook reflexive control operation — using perception to paralyze power. The Redeemers of 1878 called federal troops “despots” and “usurpers.” Their descendants call federal agents “fascists.” The aim is identical: Erode public trust in lawful authority and make enforcement politically impossible.
Citizenship as the battlefield
Then, as now, the real fight centers on citizenship itself.
In the 19th century, freed black Americans embodied the principle that allegiance and equality before the law, not race or birth, define membership in the republic. That ideal shattered the old Southern order, so Redeemers destroyed it.
Today, citizenship threatens a different order — the globalist one. Citizenship implies borders, duties, and distinctions. So progressives seek to redefine it as exclusionary or immoral. Illegal aliens become “newcomers.” Enforcing the law becomes oppression. The federal obligation to protect citizens morphs into a liability.
What began as Redeemer propaganda has evolved into a post-national orthodoxy: Sovereignty is shameful, and the citizen must yield to the “world citizen.” The result is the same — federal paralysis, selective law enforcement, and mobs empowered by moral cover.
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Lessons from the first betrayal
The parallels are precise. The Redeemers invoked “home rule” to dismantle Reconstruction; today’s left invokes “human rights” and “de-militarization” to paralyze national defense.
The Posse Comitatus Act was never a sacred constitutional barrier — it was a political tool of retreat. Then it left freedmen defenseless; now it hinders protection of federal agents, citizens, and borders. By turning law into spectacle and restraint into virtue, it leaves our republic unguarded.
History teaches a blunt lesson: Retreat invites terror. When the state retreats, mobs rule. When courts mistake optics for justice, defenders become defendants. The same moral inversion that once enslaved men through “home rule” now threatens to enslave the republic through lawfare.
To survive, America must recover what it lost in 1877 — the courage to act as a nation. Withdrawal is not peace. Compromise, in this instance, is not order. The freedman of this century is the American citizen himself — and the question, once again, is whether the nation that freed him will defend him.
‘No Kings’ Isn’t Protecting Democracy, But Suppressing It
'No Kings' isn’t a defense of democracy at all. Instead, it’s a defense of the entrenched power of the Democratic Party.Kimmel Backers Accusing FCC Of ‘Authoritarianism’ Silent On Democrats’ Threats Against Carr, Broadcasters
Private TV station owners are not obligated under federal law to publicize certain content. Democrats accused them of quid pro quo anyway.White liberal denial meets black reality
I know what it’s like to live in the neighborhoods white liberals only mention when it suits them. I’ve lived on the South Side of Chicago. I’ve lived in Southeast D.C. I’ve seen crime with my own eyes, and I’ve experienced the fear that comes with it.
I’ve walked streets where parents teach their kids to drop at the sound of gunfire. I’ve seen drug corners where police barely bother to show up because they know the system won’t back them. And I’ve watched Democrats — who run these cities decade after decade — pretend nothing is wrong until an election season or a TV crew arrives.
The truth is out. Democrats have failed — in DC, in Chicago, in New York, and across the country.
Every four years, they roll in with cameras and promises. They shake hands, hug babies, stand in front of boarded-up storefronts, and pledge “change.” Then they disappear back to their safe neighborhoods, leaving residents with the same violence, the same fear, and the same hopelessness.
That isn’t leadership. It’s exploitation. I know because I’m a black man who worked as a Democratic staffer not so long ago. I’ve been in the rooms where campaign strategy is written. I’ve heard the cynical playbook: “Do a barbershop tour.” “Visit a black church on Sunday.” Deliver a few lines about “taking back the community” — then roll right back out. When the cameras leave, so do they.
Now, when President Trump does what Democrats refuse to do — when he sends in federal law enforcement and the National Guard to cities that won’t protect their own people — those same white liberals suddenly find their voice. They shriek about “authoritarianism.” They cry about “militarization.” They insist crime is “under control.”
It’s dishonest. It’s insulting. And it proves how little they care about the lives being lost. What they really care about is their four minutes on MSNBC.
Take Washington, D.C. Liberals wave charts claiming violent crime is down. But the city got caught manipulating the numbers. A police commander was placed on leave for allegedly altering stats to make the streets look safer. Whistleblowers confirmed what residents already knew: Violent crimes were downgraded or mislabeled so politicians could maintain the illusion of control. That’s no conspiracy theory. It’s now a federal investigation.
Yet, Democrats still claim Trump’s intervention wasn’t necessary. They say crime is “exaggerated.” They say the city is “safe.” Tell that to families who won’t let their kids walk home after dark. Tell it to small-business owners robbed so often they don’t bother reporting anymore. Tell it to mothers in Anacostia burying their sons while city officials massage the data for press conferences.
Chicago tells the same story. Democrats have ruled the city for generations, but whole neighborhoods on the South and West Sides remain plagued by violence and poverty. I lived there. I saw it. And here’s the truth: Polite white liberals from gentrified districts or leafy suburbs don’t want to see it. They want to protect the illusion that Democrats defend the poor, even as they use these communities as political props.
Chicagoans plead for help at City Council meetings every week, and Democratic aldermen ignore them. No wonder grassroots groups like Chicago Flips Red are gaining ground.
New York is no different. In Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district, major crime has spiked 70% since she took office in 2019 — more than double the citywide average. Residents there say what residents in every Democrat-run city say: Our leaders don’t care. They show up for headlines, then vanish when the bullets start flying.
Donald Trump saw that reality. He campaigned on it. He walked into those neighborhoods and spoke plainly to people who had been ignored for decades. That’s why millions more black voters supported him in 2024 — a political earthquake. It’s a warning to Democrats: Their monopoly on minority voters is collapsing.
White liberals screaming on cable news about Trump’s law-and-order strategy don’t live in the neighborhoods where gunfire is commonplace. They don’t send their kids to the schools where gangs recruit. They don’t shop at the corner stores hit by weekly robberies. They don’t ride the buses or walk the sidewalks ordinary people in D.C., Chicago, and the Bronx walk every day.
They can afford to believe crime is “under control.” They can afford to believe more gun control will fix things, ignoring the obvious truth: Criminals don’t care about your new laws. They can afford denial because they can afford to live somewhere else.
But crime is not under control. It never has been. And until leaders — real leaders — admit it and act, people in these communities will keep suffering. Trump understands that. Democrats never have.
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So when white liberals lecture that Trump is wrong to send federal law enforcement into cities that can’t protect their residents, I have one question: Where were you? Where were you when crime stole futures and destroyed families? Where were you when Democrats cooked the books to protect their power? Where were you when Biden was in charge or when AOC’s district saw crime explode?
You weren’t there. You didn’t care. And that’s why the Democratic Party is collapsing.
The truth is out. Democrats have failed — in D.C., in Chicago, in New York, and across the country. They’ve failed black voters. They’ve failed working-class Americans. That’s why support for their party sits at record lows. That’s why more voters are walking away.
The future doesn’t belong to the party of denial and decay. It belongs to the people who demand safety, security, and accountability. It belongs to those ready for real change.
Donald Trump is delivering that change. Democrats never will.
Trump to DC: Crime is a choice
President Trump announced Monday that he will federalize control of law enforcement in Washington, D.C. The move follows his threat to act after a brutal attack on a DOGE staffer who tried to defend a woman during a carjacking. National Guard troops will supplement D.C. Metro Police in an effort to quell violent crime. Americans are tired of excuses for why their cities feel dirty and unsafe when we already know how to fix them. Crime is a policy choice, and Trump has taken decisive action with a promise to restore law and order to the nation’s capital.
The United States is the most powerful nation on earth, and Washington is its imperial capital. History shows the state of the capital often mirrors the health of the civilization. The comparison is not flattering. In Japan or Singapore, a woman can walk alone at night without fear. In Washington, ordinary people are routinely harassed, assaulted, and robbed. Everyone knows why this disparity exists and how to solve it, but political correctness has made the truth unspeakable.
To succeed, Trump must ignore the inevitable accusations of racism and authoritarianism and focus on results.
Ideally, crime declines when a virtuous population maintains strong cultural norms and self-control. When virtue isn’t enough, the state must deliver swift and certain justice. If laws go unenforced, honest people quickly learn they are fools for obeying them, while marginal characters drift toward crime. Arrests must be followed by real penalties. As Rudy Giuliani proved in New York with broken-windows policing, consistent enforcement of even minor laws dismantles a culture of permissibility and encourages respect for the rules.
If we know regular enforcement and strong penalties work, why do Democrats choose the opposite in the cities they run?
Their answer always returns to racism. Crime data shows black Americans commit a disproportionate share of crime. Enforcing the law honestly will result in more black arrests and incarcerations. Neither Democrats nor most Republicans will discuss this fact or ask the black community to confront it. Instead, they declare the system racist by design.
Once the system is branded racist, “criminal justice reform” becomes the only solution. Because the underlying causes go unaddressed, disparities persist. To make the system look less racist, enforcement is scaled back. Heather Mac Donald calls this the “Ferguson effect”: Police who fear becoming national pariahs simply stop policing black neighborhoods. Law enforcement retreats from the areas where crime is highest. Officers are told to overlook minor crimes to lower minority arrest rates. Prosecutors cut deals, and early release programs proliferate to improve incarceration statistics. This is exactly the formula for more crime and less safety.
As a former crime reporter, I’ve had candid conversations with officers about this. Police know where most crime happens and who commits it, but politics make addressing it a nightmare. Officers say they sometimes ignore domestic violence or burglary calls in certain neighborhoods. They want to go home to their families, not become nationally infamous for answering the “wrong” call. The number of incarcerated black Americans may fall, but deaths from traffic accidents to homicides rise. Policies enacted “for” the black community make life more dangerous for them — and for everyone else.
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When asked about the chain of command under Trump’s initiative, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith, a black woman, replied, “What does that mean?” Not reassuring. It suggests that in many cities, police chiefs are chosen less for competence than for their DEI value to activists. If the officials charged with maintaining public order under the dictates of gay race communism cannot grasp basic law enforcement concepts, they will fail.
Trump has taken on a complicated challenge. Restoring order may be straightforward in theory, but the politics are treacherous. To succeed, he must ignore the inevitable accusations of racism and authoritarianism and focus on results. In an era when most politicians flee responsibility, Trump is embracing it. If he succeeds, he will restore safety and dignity to the capital and create a model that could shame other cities into action.
Some compare Trump’s move to Nayib Bukele’s crackdown in El Salvador. The most important lesson from that comparison is that success speaks for itself. If Trump’s takeover produces a radically safer capital, Americans will demand the same in their own cities.
The era of managerial rule is over. Long live the sovereign!
There’s a world before President Trump’s descent down the escalator, and there’s a world after it. The recent No Kings protests transmitted the idée fixe of the pre-2015 world. That idea was hostility to personal authority, or personal power — hostility to the notion of sovereignty, to the power once exercised by kings. Donald Trump, the figure who has dominated politics since 2015, is its most visible sign of contradiction. In that sense, the protesters weren’t entirely wrong. Trump’s success marks the passing of the world of the latter half of the 20th century, which was defined by hatred of personal authority.
Successive generations demolished the concept of sovereignty, casting suspicion on the notion that a leader’s decisions can legitimately reshape political or social life. This shift began in the United States when the intelligentsia promulgated the concept of “the authoritarian personality.” They found this personality in the working classes, their churches and associations, their families and fathers, and the politicians who represented them. Where there was the whiff of authoritarian character traits, fascism probably lurked.
All the elements of Trump’s personality that his opponents loathe have proved, for better or worse, to be demonstrations of strength rather than weakness.
The anti-authority impulse then extended to challenge the authority of elected bodies. Popular sovereignty became dangerous. In the late 1950s and '60s, on matters such as school prayer, unctuous judges and administrators tied the hands of potentially reactionary legislatures and frog-marched them toward secularism.
In the 1970s, the target was popular sovereignty as embodied in the office of the president. The American Constitution enabled an energetic executive or administrative presidency, traces of the monarchical form. But the president’s authority was decapitated in the great act of regicide — otherwise known as Watergate.
The ‘golden straitjacket’
Sketching the gloomy landscape of the 1970s, the sociologist Robert Nisbet saw in the twilight of authority the rise of impersonal forces; administrators touting “best practices” stepped into the breach. Therapists, managers, and other experts became increasingly important. They coordinated with economic, social, and legal networks to constrain human agents who might otherwise upset progress.
That’s what globalization was all about. At the peak of the era of what Thomas Friedman called “the golden straitjacket,” sovereignty was outré. Successful politicians such as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair dazzled their electorates with the bullion of cheap credit and narratives of an impending gilded age while tightening the bonds ever further. They weakened the power of their offices, distributing it to central banks and international agencies.
Their actions clarified the vocation of right-thinking people. Stigmatize the authoritarian personality. Banish any individual or group that displayed its signs from the helm of government and public life. Spin an ever-tighter web of legal, administrative, and economic networks that could remove the risks of exercising personal human control over government — the risks of an energetic executive — once and for all.
All that changed with Trump’s descent down the escalator. “The golden straitjacket” had numerous critics, but no major public figure exposed its hatred of political, personal power as aggressively and abruptly as Trump did. In 2015, he thrust personal authority back to the center of public life. It’s been there ever since, an example to imitate — in enthusiasm or envy.
Restoring the executive
As president, Trump has fought hard to restore the bloodied Article II of the Constitution. His executive and legal actions on behalf of presidential power even won over skeptics in the conservative legal world. Not only did he challenge the presuppositions of government via the administrative state, but he also exposed the overreaching deep state that is devouring the American Constitution.
Indeed, No Kings could very well function as a pro-Trump slogan. Prior to Trump, American presidents largely functioned as kings. Like the monarch in Great Britain, U.S. presidents had long held power in theory as the “dignified” branch, while other actors in the security state made the real decisions — the “efficient” branch. Trump has been his most republican when he has upset this double government.
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To be sure, anti-Trump No Kings protesters are more troubled by another phenomenon: Trump’s personal style of leadership. They’re not wrong to draw attention to it, but they’re wrong about its significance.
Authority depends on a person’s capacity to command in order to reshape politics. Trump mastered the new fragmented media environment, in which entertainment — rather than solemn statements — wins attention and deference. Trump made his personality an issue. His critics attacked him for it, claiming his persona was a manifestation of the dreaded authoritarian personality. But all the elements of Trump’s personality that his opponents loathe — rhetorical and physical aggression, incivility, scorn for discourse and discussion, brashness, maleness, unwillingness to apologize or express guilt, bluntly demarcating between American winners and losers, claiming the exceptional power to fix America’s problems — have proved, for better or worse, to be demonstrations of strength rather than weakness.
The importance of character traits such as “caring for people like me” or “experience,” which had mattered so much in late 20th-century mass democracy, faded away. Swaths of the electorate would of course still look for their “therapist in chief” or “expert in chief.” But more wanted a boss who asserted control and expected those under him to follow his lead.
The reassertion of personal authority, after decades of opposition to it, has been a messy affair. It’s risible to think that Trump ever intended to abolish elections, set up a dictatorship, or establish a hereditary monarchy. But his style did help accelerate the collapse of institutional authority, such as that once held by the media. Although many of his more dramatic promises have been unrealized (stymied by a variety of forces), the symbology of authority has remained key for gaining and wielding legitimacy.
The twilight of liberalism
A numinous connection has developed between an electorate that confers sovereignty upon its chosen figure and the figure who exercises it. The acoustic and visual symbols this connection generates are all the more potent because, at this point in the 21st century, as Mary Harrington has argued, a culture of mass literacy has vanished. This culture was essential to transmit the symbols associated with the print ideals of liberalism (for instance, the importance placed on the freedom of the press, or on discourse itself). As print culture goes, so go the symbols of liberalism. Other symbols step into their place.
Trump’s more subtle critics, who are troubled by the twilight of liberalism, noticed this transformation. They sense something has changed and single out Trump as the chief villain. But wielding the symbols of personal authority is one area in which Trump has long ceased to be exceptional. Even those who are very far from Trump ideologically and politically still inhabit his symbolic universe, in which personal authority, hierarchy, and one’s capacity to reshape political life are of critical importance.
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Emmanuel Macron’s predecessors, fearing being labeled authoritarians by the May ’68 generation, adopted a deliberately understated, egalitarian style. Macron shocked the French political system by embracing the persona of “Jupiter.” He seized the opportunity that Trump’s descent down the escalator made possible.
Pope Francis began his papacy in a conversational, freewheeling style, akin to a Clintonian or Blairite doing one’s best to manage the media narrative. But after the first few years, he also imitated Trump as his supporters embraced the theology of an imperial papacy.
Joe Biden likewise leaned into a “Dark Brandon” iconography of authority to create the impression that he was in charge, the simulacrum of a functioning presidency.
Politicians who can’t successfully embody the symbolism of authority, such as Biden, or those who shy away from it, such as Justin Trudeau, end up as failures. Trudeau launched his political career by an act of physical prowess, beating up a Conservative Party senator who was too lazy to train for a boxing match. It was a crude but effective way of legitimating Trudeau’s claim to lead the Liberal Party and Canada.
Even in an extremely progressive country, primal assertions of authority win admiration. But Trudeau forgot the underlying lesson. In office, he preferred the symbolism of colorful socks, and his unpopularity forced him to resign in ignominy. Meanwhile, Trudeau’s successor, who invokes the physical, masculine iconography of hockey fights to win votes, has returned to more visceral politics. The liberal norms of national civility go nowhere; it’s the brash Trumpian traits that are deployed to gain victory.
Slashing the straitjacket
The resurgence of authority is why there’s no chance of reverting to globalized, impersonal power — at least how the pre-2015 world conceived it. As candidates compete for personal authority, those vying for power repudiate the notion that economic, social, and legal networks should constrain human agents. The capacity to take back control over these networks is what matters. This helps us understand the deeper unity behind Trump’s signature policies.
All the major themes that Trump hit on when he descended the escalator — an end to mass immigration, free trade, and regime-change missions abroad — were on one level anti-globalization topics: They slashed away at the golden straitjacket.
Anti-globalization themes are now so mainstream that even Keir Starmer imitates Trump’s symbology by talking tough on border control. On one level, it’s a policy victory. But the success is more profound than that. To effect that agenda demands the reassertion of the personal, political will to effect social and political change. Faced with the diminishing returns of the old regime, that’s what more and more people are looking for.
In our new world, leaders rise and fall by how well they can speak the language of authority. Whatever the full implications of this paradigm shift may be, the longing for sovereigns shows no signs of letting up.
Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally as “A New Birth of Authority” at the American Mind.
How China Is Censoring Scientific Research Across The Globe
The China model has no place in a free society.Zuckerberg courted China, silenced Trump, and called it ‘neutral’
Mark Zuckerberg appeared on “The Joe Rogan Experience” in January sporting a new hairstyle and a gold chain — an image makeover that began with the billionaire tech mogul sparring with MMA fighters in 2023. He cast himself as a reformed free-speech champion, admitting that under the Biden administration, Meta’s fact-checking regime had become “something out of '1984.'” Something, he said, needed to change.
What he didn’t say: Meta’s censorship playbook has long resembled the Orwellian dystopia he now claims to oppose.
‘Meta lied about what they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party to employees, shareholders, Congress, and the American public.’
Under Zuckerberg’s leadership, Meta has operated with "1984"-style control — censoring content, shaping political narratives, and cozying up to authoritarian regimes, all while pretending to remain neutral. While Zuckerberg criticizes China’s digital authoritarianism, Meta has adopted similar strategies here in the United States: censoring dissent, interfering in elections, and silencing political opponents.
Whose ‘shared values’?
Zuckerberg’s hypocrisy is increasingly obvious. His ties to China and Meta’s repeated attempts to curry favor with the Chinese Communist Party expose a willingness to bend democratic principles in the name of profit. Meta mimics China’s censorship — globally and domestically — even as it publicly condemns the CCP’s control over information.
For years, Meta attacked China’s censorship and human rights abuses. But as China-based tech companies gained ground, Zuckerberg’s rhetoric escalated. He warned about Chinese AI firms like DeepSeek, which were producing superior tools at lower costs. In response, Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan assured Americans that the company would build AI based on “our shared values, not China’s.”
Zuckerberg even declared he’d partner with President Trump to resist foreign censorship and defend American tech. But that posturing collapses under scrutiny.
Behind the scenes, Zuckerberg worked hard to ingratiate himself with the Chinese regime. As Steve Sherman reported at RealClearPolicy, Meta pursued “Project Aldrin,” a version of Facebook built to comply with Chinese law. Meta even considered bending its privacy policies to give Beijing access to Hong Kong user data. To ingratiate himself with the CCP, Zuckerberg displayed Xi Jinping’s book on his desk and asked Xi to name his unborn daughter — an offer Xi wisely declined.
These overtures weren’t just about market share. Meta developed a censorship apparatus tailored to China’s demands, including tools to detect and delete politically sensitive content. The company even launched social apps through shell companies in China, and when Chinese regulators pressured Meta to silence dissidents like Guo Wengui, Meta complied.
On April 14, an ex-Facebook employee told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism that Meta executives “lied about what they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party to employees, shareholders, Congress, and the American public.”
Political meddling at scale
After the Trump administration moved to block Chinese tech influence, Meta backed off its China ambitions. But the company didn’t abandon censorship — it just brought it home.
In the United States, Meta began meddling directly in domestic politics. One of the most glaring examples was the two-year ban on President Donald Trump from Facebook and Instagram. Framed as a measure against incitement, the decision reeked of political bias. It showed how much power Zuckerberg wields over American discourse.
Then came the 2020 election. Meta, under pressure from the Biden administration, suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story — a move Zuckerberg himself later admitted. Though the story was legitimate, Facebook and Twitter labeled it “misinformation” and throttled its reach. Critics saw this as an obvious attempt to shield Biden from scrutiny weeks before Election Day.
Meta’s interference didn’t stop at content moderation. It also funded election infrastructure. Zuckerberg donated $350 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life and another $50 million to the Center for Election Innovation and Research. These funds were funneled into swing states under the guise of pandemic safety. But critics viewed it as private influence over public elections — a dangerous precedent set by one of the most powerful CEOs in the world.
Meanwhile, Meta executives misled the public about the company’s relationship with China.
Beyond corporate hypocrisy
Zuckerberg’s deference to China wasn’t a phase — it was part of a long-term strategy. In 2014, he wrote the foreword for a book by Xi Jinping. He practiced Mandarin in public appearances. He endorsed Chinese values in private meetings. This wasn’t diplomacy — it was capitulation.
Meta even designed its platform to comply with CCP censorship. When regulators in China asked the company to block dissidents, it did. When Chinese interests threatened Meta’s business model, Zuckerberg yielded.
So when he criticizes China’s authoritarianism now, it rings hollow.
Meta’s behavior isn’t just a story of corporate hypocrisy. It’s a case study in elite manipulation of information, both at home and abroad. Zuckerberg talks about free speech, but Meta suppresses it. He warns of foreign influence, while Meta builds tools that serve foreign powers. He condemns censorship, then practices it with ruthless efficiency.
Americans shouldn’t buy Zuckerberg’s rebrand. He wants to sound like a First Amendment champion on podcasts while continuing to control what you see online.
Meta’s past and present actions are clear: The company interfered in U.S. elections, silenced political speech, and appeased authoritarian regimes — all while pretending to stand for freedom.
Zuckerberg’s censorship isn’t a glitch. It’s the product. And unless Americans demand accountability, it will become the new normal.
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