One common argument that is ubiquitous from Objectivists, and has been for decades, is that there is an equal or substantial threat coming from both sides of the political spectrum. We are in danger from both the secular leftists and the theocratic right we are told from nearly everyone involved with Objectivism. Dr. Peikoff sees an "M2 Christian theocracy" in 20 to 30 years. Yaron Brook sees Christians taking over the universities and creating a Christian America in the same time frame. Objectivist bloggers like Diana Hsieh (now divorced) lives in fear of Christian Dominionists and fears Christian soccer moms more than University professors. One of the old SOLO posters Adam Reed, a very smart Polish Phd in the hard sciences, used to post incessantly about the "symmetrical threat" from both secular egalitarians and Christian Conservatives. Etc, etc, etc.
Is this right? Is there really an equal threat coming from both Left and Right. Jeff Diest of the Von Mises Institute recently posted this essay on the subject:
https://mises.org/blog/progres...
Tom Woods (also of the Von Mises Institute as well as an independent scholar) summed up the essay in one of his e-mails that he sends out to subscribers. I'll quote the bulk of it (I don't think he'll mind):
I just got hit with a bucket of ice over the head.
Jeff Deist, president of the Mises Institute, just spelled out the full extent of the progressive triumph.
I guess I knew this at some level, but I'd never seen it put quite this way, in all its systemic horror.
Here's what we all know, but may not have fully processed:
Progressives overwhelmingly control both major political parties in the US;
Progressives control the federal judiciary, along with all federal departments and agencies;
Progressives dominate academia, universities, and K-12 education, both government and private;
Progressives run the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association, and thus the traditionally “conservative” professions of medicine and law are now steered leftward;
Major corporations, both global and domestic, are run by progressives. Their boards are progressive. Their corporate branding and messaging is progressive;
Wall Street is progressive;
Silicon Valley and the tech industry are dominated by progressives, from Google to Apple to Microsoft;
Progressives overwhelmingly control traditional media, including broadcast news and print publications (virtually all journalists self-identify as progressive);
Progressives overwhelmingly run important social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr;
Progressives run Hollywood: they hold sway over the film, TV, and video industries, including the growing market for streaming content from HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and others; and
All major religious institutions in the West, from the Vatican to mainline Protestant churches to virtually all synagogues, are now thoroughly progressive both politically and doctrinally.
And yet you talk to progressives, and they act as if America is one election away from the restoration of the Third Reich.
They have infiltrated and dominated pretty much everything you can think of, and they still operate at that level of paranoia.
Of course, it's state power in which they truly excel. And as Jeff says, "Even when progressives don’t directly control a particular state apparatus, they effectively apply extra-legal means (executive or judicial) to promote their political agenda and thwart opposition."
This is why we shouldn't pretend conservatives and the Right are "just as bad" as progressivism and the Left.
Now if you've listened to me for any length of time, you know how hard I can be on conservatives, even as I sympathize with much of the non-political side of their program. But the point is: they have no power. And that alone makes them much, much less of a concern.
So Jeff's conclusion is my conclusion: why, especially at a time like this, should libertarians extol egalitarianism or adopt the language and causes of the SJWs?
Instead, we should reach out to disaffected conservatives and indeed to all American dissidents by talking about decentralization, secession, nullification -- in other words, political withdrawal from the progressive behemoth that rules over us.
Now would you ever know this from reading Objectivist commentary? Would you know this from reading Objectivist opinions on the dangers of Donald Trump? Do Objectivists ever even show awareness of that long list in bold? Ever? Is it wrong to start to think that the Progressives have to a certain extent captured (or at least neutered) the Objectivist movement?
To paraphrase Reagan, "I didn't leave Objectivism. Objectivism left me."