I agree with the overall premise that we’d be better off if both parties were more tolerant of people who don’t always tow the party line, especially when they come from swing states/ districts. What I find interesting is that this is the second piece in a row that illustrates just how out of touch TLP is with thinking on the right.
The most glaring is failing to recognize that Trump and most of his coalition are not isolationists. They are Jacksonian, and true isolationists have always been a small minority within the tent. Digressing a bit, if you’re interested in foreign policy you should read Walter Russell Mead’s 20+ year old book Special Providence. This is a solid Cliff Notes/primer on Jacksonian views initially described by Mead.
I can’t pretend to know. I have no loyalty to either party or their orthodoxies. Based on polling, I suspect that puts me in a majority or at least a plurality of Americans.
Sure, but that’s because we’ve accepted a binary reality. If we reform elections effectively (non-partisan primaries, majority-winner voting and tallying methods, campaign finance reform), we should see much greater diversity within the parties and success of new parties and Independents. How nice would it be to be excited about at least one candidate for every position on your general election ballot?
Are states with open or two round primaries noticably less polarized than states without them?
I don't think this reform actually solves anything. I think it's a reform that's supported for the sake of reform and because it makes things feel more 'democratic'.
"campaign finance reform"
The biggest spook of them all. The empowerment of small dollar donors, the strait-jacketing of official party organizations, and the other results of a few generations of trying to 'get money out of politics' is one of the major drivers of our current baleful condition.
I'm not sure how to measure polarization, but states and municipalities with non-partisan primaries combined with majority-winner voting methods have more positive campaigns and, more importantly, more effective legislatures (for one example, look into the exemplary legislative sessions in Alaska following their move to "final four" voting - there is a documentary, "Majority Rules" that goes into it in some depth). That said, the sample size is still very small. What we can say for certain is that we have no evidence that these reforms don't work. Unless you think our state and federal governments are doing a bang up job right now, why would you oppose trialing reforms that show promise?
I don't follow your last comment at all. What are the specific reforms that have been applied and what evidence is there that they have negatively impacted things?
Moderates' failure at governance and politics is just as bad as leftists'.
Moderates have not proven any ability to govern inside the party, not even crafting compromise proposals on any of the issues of the day. How can people who don't exercise real leadership inside a party be expected to lead the country? If you can't manage factions inside your party how are you going to manage Congress?
A key difference in the presidential primaries will be the filibuster. The one leftists were attacking for the last two decades but have now hypocritically embraced.
If moderates decide to defend the filibuster but then continue on their leftward drift, they will essentially be promising the country more deadlock. Deadlock favors the right structurally (given the current neoliberal status quo) and politically (given that further deterioration of the economy favors the far right -as is being seen in every single Western country-).
A moderate with actual leadership would call on a repeat of the Biden-Sanders negotiations and try to unite the party behind something that can lead to actual policy progress for the whole party and country.
Instead not a single one of the so called moderate potential presidential candidates is calling for any sort of moderation on absolutely a single one of the issues that contributed to costing the party elections in 2016 and 2024.
Due to short term polling, moderates have basically conceded that the left is right on immigration, tariffs, Gaza, Venezuela and Iran (and implicitly on transgender issues).
The main difference between moderates and the left nowadays is on issues that are not in the public eye as much anymore like climate change/energy and crypto/AI and that are unlikely to be major differentiators in the primaries.
The 2028 election will again be about affordability and the primaries will again be about electability.
Democrats can easily win unless there is some sort of economic miracle before then.
But the political environment and philosophy they will have continued nurturing until then is simply bad for democracy.
"It is a peculiar Western aberration to believe that, 'under the skin', other people all believe as we do'", heard by chance in a Thomas Sowell lecture, has made more and more sense for me in the last two decades. As US messaging went from the FDR's confidence inspiring "All we have to fear, is fear itself" to fear inducing, first of Soviet nuclear power, then environmental destruction to the all purpose "Climate Change", in fulfillment of H. L. Mencken's ""The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety)" and fear became operating doctrine. Constant heightened threat creates tunnel vision, reducing options and the blind coalescing around leaders with the most effective profiled messaging, including that "the other guy" is also the enemy.
The resilient societies, able to accommodate great diversity on the individual basis of "freedom of thought", yet able to unite in common purpose, become monochrome target-able blocs with no flexibility, prone to disintegration by the Heterodox, who are to be cast out into darkness. Our fear of the unknown which leads to projecting our own image in default where we have no actual knowledge ("They can't possibly think that!") has serious consequences when large scale immigration brings cohesive, non-heterodox groups that "really do think that".
Perhaps lateral thinking, imagination and some knowledge of history would help. I don't know, but hope.
Or...Another example of Democrat heterodoxy on the cultural front would be someone who accepts any restrictions on abortion whatsoever. Ain't gonna happen. There is a radical disconnect between what Democrats say they believe and what they universally vote for.
In my opinion, Trump worship is mainly a myth. Voters make the same calculations every election. I like this. I do not like this. They run the numbers and vote for the person with the most policies with which they agree, or for the person whose polices they dislike, the least.
The legend of Trump Zombies completely discounts the historical Biden Presidency. The worst public health response in US history, of debatable legality. A purposefully dissolved Border, with 10 million unvetted new arrivals, without a single extra bedroom to house them or a single extra MD to treat their healthcare needs.
50 year high inflation spurred by unwarranted Covid panic and trillions flushed on Green fantasies, even European Socialists no longer believe. The subsidies and unprecedented regulations mainly enriched Dem donors , while killing American living standards for all but the wealthy. They also stifled American choice in everything from stoves to schools. The latter, suddenly teaching child transgenderism and the plague of universal White racism and Western culture, rather than Reading and Math.
We are in this situation, because the nation elected someone they assumed would be a moderate caretaker, but who governed as the most Progressive President in US history. Had Biden campaigned on allowing 10 million unvetted people to walk across the border, sans valid asylum claims, would he still have won? Had Joe mentioned he would seek to control more aspects of American life than ever before in US history, would he still have prevailed?
Without Biden there is no Trump 2.0. Trump is a term limited reaction to a Progressive Presidential Con of historical epic proportions.
And the next administration will be a reaction to Trump. The logic of all you said applies in reverse also - just substitute overreach Trump policies with those you call out from Biden.
I’ve read a few of your comments and you seem to ignore ideology or perhaps treat it as dependent on structural factors like primaries. But wokism metastasized out of academia around 2010. We didn’t institute primaries or gerrymandering in 2010. Ideologies has their own life cycle. We had primaries and gerrymandering during much less polarized eras.
As Thomas Sowel points out, conflicts of interests dominate the short run but conflicts of visions dominate history. Solid will not be around forever because it’s too obviously wrong to win an ideological war. (Besides, no leftist idea has ever survived the test of history)
Separately, I don’t know what to make of your comment about “leftist policies” never standing the test of time. I guess not if you define leftist as the things that haven’t.
Leftism is a specific lineage of political philosophies that derive from Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his famous history of philosophy, Bertrand Russell wrote, “At the present time, Hitler is an outcome of Rousseau ; Roosevelt and Churchill, of Locke.” The philosopher Paul Strathern agrees. In Hume in 90 Minutes, he writes: “Rousseau’s ideas were to inspire both the glories and the excesses of the French Revolution, and continued to play a similar role in the twentieth century. His ideas are recognizable in both fascism and communism, as well as in the underlying drift towards self-expression and liberalism.”
I wrote a lot more about leftism here, should be a decent survey from Rousseau through Critical Race Theory.
Good stuff. I think it is possible to believe we are called to take care of “the least of these” even at the collective level without being “leftist” in this sense and falling prey to the excesses rightly condemned here.
I’m not ignoring ideology. I’m saying that it exists on a natural bell curve and our electoral system advantages the small minorities on both tails. That reality has been going on for decades as gerrymandering matured and media and campaign finance devolved.
I’m not sure “wokeism” can be so neatly defined and placed in time, but my thesis is that its extreme adherents (including some academic circles) occupy one of the tails on social ideologies and thus are part of the group that captures the Dem party and generates unmoderated representatives (coming out of safe Dem primaries).
Meanwhile, increasingly radical ideologues on the right (including conspiracists and Christian Nationalists) rule the Republican primaries. Ideological moderates (the fat part of the bell curve) are effectively disenfranchised.
> "I’m not sure “wokeism” can be so neatly defined and placed in time"
Wokism is very easy to define, see my other comment. But John Fonte once extracted the practical tenets of wokism (and he did it back in 2001!).
1. the group you belong to is the only meaningful unit, not individuals
2. groups can be divided into oppressor groups (white, male, heterosexual, Christian) and victim groups (black, female, LGBTQIA2S+, Muslim)
3. immigrants are automatically members of victim groups
4. society must be reordered so as to make all groups equal
5. historical narratives must be changed to feature victim groups
> "I’m saying that it exists on a natural bell curve "
Except that the left side of the bell curve suddenly moved much farther to the left. See this famous meme. It's this movement that your treatment of ideology ignores.
Thanks for the definitional criteria. I’d say most folks who are accused of being “woke” wouldn’t meet more than one or two and would readily disclaim the remainder. The problem is that the few who are fully bought In are unduly, influential in our two party system.
As for the bell curve shifting leftward, my sense is that is part of the natural evolution. One hopes that the arc of history truly does bend toward compassion.
Keep in mind that your "compassion" has caused essentially every horror of modern history.
- you know how the French Revolution radicalized partway through? That's when Enlightenment liberals inspired by Voltaire were arrested by Leftists (The Insurrection of May 30 - June 2). At that point leftists began to systemically execute political opponents by the guillotine (and other methods like drowning) in the Reign of Terror
- Communism is another leftist movement and they made the Reign of Terror look a family picnic.
- Fascism is arguably not leftist, but it is inspired by the exact same philosophers such as Rousseau and the syndicalist George Sorel.
- The dirty little secrete of the 20th century progressives is that they were racists and eugenicists. Woodrow Wilson re-segregated the government and screen Birth of a Nation
From an outsider's perspective (Canadian), the USA has a very entertaining but ineffective government. Canada should be so lucky. Our last 10 years has been totally devastating.
In many ways, the US electoral system seems not particularly important due to the intentional checks and balances, as well as the importance of the President mainly picking which aspects of current law to embrace. Further, the 'greying' of the congress, senate and presidency make it far less an agency of change.
There's a simple reason why party orthodoxy and the office-holders of each party are less diverse than the voters who identify and lean in their direction - electoral system. As Unite America points out, due to gerrymandered "safe districts" and partisan primaries (along with other ways in which the two-parties have conspired to lock out any new political rivals), the 7% of voters who participate in selecting the winning candidates in safe primaries choose 87% of the House. So, regardless of which party has a majority, that majority is made up of sad sacks who are completely beholden to the orthodoxy of the true believers.
Worse, because the minority is made up almost entirely of those beholden to true believers on the other end of the spectrum, there is no hope of a critical mass of wannabe moderates joining together on almost any issue to do the real work of "art of the possible" compromise (where, say, we all agree on a solution that gives neither side a dominating "win" over the opposition heathens, but is clearly better than the status quo).
The result is either (1) divided government and complete grid lock or (2) a trifecta (but tiny) majority that always oversteps its "mandate," setting the stage for buyer's remorse (in the few swing districts that determine the majority) and an electoral reset in the next cycle to divided government or a trifecta for the other side.
We seem to be nearing the end of this madness. Either we will reform elections to give the majority of voters in the middle of the ideological spectrum a voice, or we will ride this cycle to collapse.
Nothing is collapsing. Our electoral system is brilliant in its' protection of small and rural states, of which the US has many.
Remember wealthy Founding Fathers risked their lives and wealth to win a Revolution, and then willingly handed the reins to farmers and farriers. To that end, they designed an electoral system that can only be amended with 2/3rds the House and Senate and 3/4ths of States.
Dems will spontaneously elect Trump to a 3rd term as a Democrat, and pigs will fly, before that happens.
No issue with the bi cameral legislature balancing states’ influence. The problem is a nation at the mercy of two parties themselves hijacked by a small minority of their most ideological extremists (and fed by unprincipled media and the buy-offs of the billionaires). If we don’t address the structural problems of gerrymandering partisan primaries and undue influence of wealth, the ping ponging will continue until we reach an untenable point. Trump might be that point.
Thing is, what if you do NOT disagree with President Trump? On anything? If I were President, I'd look just like him, except gray and about five inches shorter.
Interesting. How would you describe the underlying world view that informs your position on any specific thing? For Trump, I think it is - "goodness in the world is defined by what is good for Trump wealth and adulation." I assume you are not motivated by that per se, so what are the foundational beliefs that would drive your presidency?
Simpler. America First. What's good for America is what I support. So far, I haven['t found one policy or area that isn't good for America.
Oh, and I should have mentioned this. Yesterday a poll came out showing the Congressional Ds had a lower approval than ISIS . . . but good news! A new poll today shows that Ds are slightly ahead of the Iranian mullahs!
Yes, D's have horrible approval. But all of them, including Trump, have negative approval. That is proof enough that the system itself is broken. Fix the way that we elect people and you will end up with public policy that is neither Trumpian nor hard leftist. Fail to reform the system and we are well on the way to the end of the American experiment. There's a place for "America First" ideals as Trump claims to understand them, but his version and implementation would not win in a healthy environment of political and philosophical debate.
See, I totally disagree. In 2016 I correctly predicted Trump's victory in OCTOBER in my book, "How Trump WON" (past tense), I predicted exactly the EV margin (I said 300---it was 304). I followed up with 2024 with EXACTLY the final with my JUNE prediction of 312 EVs and +1.5% popular vote. My point is that the general media/understanding ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS underestimates Trump's strength (not Rs, who trail him by about 5 points. Without vote fraud and illegals, Trump would have won 2020 as well. I think anyone not understanding this as a party---which Ds still do not---is begging for more defeat. Don't get me wrong, the House is so tight that 5 seats will swing it. But if Trump is on the ballot, totally different story.
You believe there were a lot of non citizens voting in 2020? Regardless, 50% of the popular vote given weak alternatives is not a show of deep support for the candidate or the party.
I may not agree with all of Larry's thoughts, but he is right far more than Dems who seem to have only 2 main policies. Open borders and the destruction of the West.
To be fair, Open Borders is mostly a reaction to the Dem inability to keep Americans in Blue States. We are not a Republic by accident. States compete for residents and the last decade or two, the traffic only moves one way, Blue to Red. Without mass migration, the 2030 Reapportionment may have well rendered Dems a permanent minority Party.
There is one stat that most clearly demonstrates the Dem problem, better than all the rest. In 2000 Texas was suppose to overtake CA in population in around 2100. It is now assumed Texas will be the largest US state around 2050.
CA has beautiful coastlines and one of the world's most temperate climates. Texas has bugs so large they need Air Traffic Control around DFW, lousy temps 6 months of the year, and a variety of snakes that rivals Australia. Yet Americans will not stop migrating from their Blue Utopias, to America's version of Hell, with responsible governance.
We can agree that electing more Dems of the ilk that survive safe Dem primaries is not the solution. My point is that the same is true in relation to Republicans.
Congressional Ds do have a very low approval rating. But...that dismal rating is not automatically good news for the GOP. A significant percentage of people who disapprove of Congressional Democrats do so because they believe those Ds are not far enough Left. In the end, they'll vote for the Ds they disapprove of over any Republican.
100%. And that, in fact, is really, really good news for Rs.
I jokingly say that Rs could actually campaign on this: "We are lazy, occasionally corrupt, and often inept. But we don't want to kill you. Ds actually want to kill you and your family." Believe me there are MANY who won't say this out loud but deep down are coming to believe that in general Ds want them dead.
As this essay correctly notes, both major parties enforce orthodoxy: the Wokester Left controls the Democratic party, and Trump worshipers control the Republican party. Even minor dissent is ruthlessly suppressed.
But there's a simple reason why that suppression succeeds: the enforcers show up in primary elections in numbers hugely disproportionate to their percentage of eligible voters. If you want to win a general election, you first have to convince your party's enforcers to support you in the primaries. It's theoretically possible for moderates/centrists to take control of one or both major parties, but people like that are not (collectively speaking) devoted to spending large amounts of time and effort on political matters and vote in primaries at low rates.
> “ heterodoxy mostly indicates someone who says, “I disagree with Donald Trump.””
Almost. It’s “are you on the side of the people, or the side of intellectual elites.” The people summoned Trump, not the other way around. Remember when Trump, Musk and Ramaswamy all wanted more h1b visas? That got shouted down and Trump made h1bs more expensive. Or remember when Trump tried to make the base pro-vax? He gave up (I’m vaccinated).
Note that all the Never Trumpers, such as the Bulwark crowd, are cheerleading every progressive wishlist from (trans)gender ideology to NGOs (we learned during the USAID debates that Kristol has done quite well by government-funded NGOs) to open borders. As Trump put it, “It’s not me they hate, it’s you. I’m just in the way.”
No doubt aspects of what Trump tapped into were majority views, but you'd be hard pressed to find majorities supporting almost any specific implementation of those views (because - like most politicians - he was happy to say whatever to get the power; once in power, the agenda is his own and that of those who will help keep him in power).
The only reason "the people" had to signal things Trump was positioned to take advantage of is the broken legislative branch. And that problem has everything to do with the most partisan and ideological fraction of the electorate effectively choosing 9 out of 10 representatives in "safe" primaries. The "poeple" have no voice there, but can still make themselves heard in a presidential election, even if that leads to being hypnotized by a pied piper of self-interest.
Using sortition as a punch line was maybe not Buckley's most prescient moment. I think a lot of people are coming around to the idea that maybe we really should be governed by a medium-sized group chosen at random--they would be much more likely to actually talk to one another than our current crop of legislators.
I was just forestalling a leftist talking point. I really don’t care how May Covid vaccinations or boosters (or not) someone gets. You definitely shouldn’t get fired for not taking them, at least if you have a positive antibody test.
"I always voted at my party's call; and I never thought of thinking for myself at all. I thought so little, they rewarded me by making me the ruler of the Queen's Navy." WS Gilbert in 1878 and still dead-on today.
Speaking as a Brit looking in I don't think the flaws in your electoral system is an absence of proportional representation. Rather I think they are: political gerrymandering of congressional districts, no campaign spending limits, state winner takes all electoral college votes, out of sync elections for president, senate and the house and mass participation in primaries. Combined these give too much power to extremists in the parties and too few competitive races and the bizarre spectacle of candidates winning the Presidency without a plurality of the popular vote. Also the House should be able to override the senate as the House of Commons can override the House of Lords.
Indeed we do. Here is the breakdown of the 1,119 convictions for online communications in the UK (2023):
~650–700: Domestic Abuse & Personal Threats
The single largest category. These involve direct threats of violence, death, or harassment sent to former partners or family members via social media or messaging apps.
~250–300: Child Safety & Grooming
Convictions specifically for "Sexual Communication with a Child."
~100–150: Targeted Stalking & Harassment
Persistent, malicious campaigns against specific individuals, such as "trolling" that crosses the legal line into criminal stalking or causing "needless anxiety."
Under 50: Stirring Up Hatred
The most politically sensitive but statistically smallest group. Only 44 convictions were recorded for "stirring up racial hatred" following the 2024 summer unrest. This included posts encouraging rioters to set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers. In 2025 the Government revised the law and police guidance to make the last category less ambiguous in response to criticism it could be applied too broadly. The USA on the other hand pays near religious devotion to a constitution written nearly 100 years before the widespread adoption of electricity which could hardly have forseen the immense damage that would be caused by social media. It therefore massively constrains your ability to regulate this industry. Nevertheless despite this claimed commitment to free speech trump is enabling his tech bro buddies to buy news TV channels that dare to criticise him and his secretary for war threatens the broadcasting license of a channel for reporting the truth about his disastrous Middle East adventure.
1. You are only counting convictions but the process is the punishment. There are over ten times as many arrests as convictions. Someone makes a conservative comment - far milder than what I make here - and the police are knocking on their door at 6 AM with a warrant for their arrest. The goal, at least for now, is to silence opposition rather than imprison conservatives. But history shows leftism is always a slippery slope to ever-more-violent authoritarianism.
2. Pace what you said above, UK censorship is expanding every year, with the UK and EU striving to act as global censors via the DSA.
3. We need to be clear about how these are categorized. Repeatedly referring to a biological male in a dress as “he” on social media counts as targeted harassment. You’re safe if you lie but arrested if you speak the truth.
4. Statements like “men can’t be lesbians” count as hate speech. Again, for speaking the truth. You’re only safe if you lie in leftist regimes.
5. You Alastair, are part of the reason why tens or perhaps even hundreds of thousand of working class girls were repeatedly raped by Muslim immigrants. The Muslim grooming gangs. When people spoke out against it they were called racists and many arrested - even the dads of girls who were raped.
That’s what your embrace of leftism over liberalism did. The United States and Britain used to be allies as the only Western nations committed to Enlightenment liberalism. Now you and the English in general are weak and declining leftist authoritarians
It is indeed true that there have been far more arrests than convictions. I personally think this is as the legal system and parliament works out what we are actually trying to achieve with these laws and what the boundaries actually are or should be. There are crucial cases which have set precedent and the political debate has led to modifications in the law and changes to police guidance.
In response to a couple of your points:
In the UK, the legal status of "misgendering" or stating that "men can't be lesbians" recent court rulings have established that these views are generally protected by law, though their "manifestation" (how and where they are said) can still lead to civil or workplace consequences.
"Gender-Critical" Beliefs are Protected Under the Equality Act 2010, several high-profile cases (most notably Maya Forstater v CGD Europe) have established that "gender-critical" beliefs—the belief that biological sex is real, important, and immutable—are protected philosophical beliefs.
Courts have ruled that these beliefs are "worthy of respect in a democratic society" and are not comparable to extreme ideologies like Nazism. You cannot therefore be legally fired solely for holding the view that "men can't be lesbians" or that a person's biological sex is their "true" sex.
When is it "Hate Speech"?
Strictly speaking, in UK criminal law, "hate speech" usually refers to "stirring up hatred". Stating "men can't be lesbians" or referring to a trans woman as "he" is not a crime in itself. For example, after the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 came into force, Police Scotland confirmed that JK Rowling's tweets—which included misgendering—did not constitute a criminal offence. While not "hate speech," a post could theoretically be investigated under the Communications Act 2003 if it is deemed "grossly offensive." However, recent CPS guidance and court wins for street preachers have set a very high bar, ruling that simply being offensive or causing distress is not enough for a conviction.
While you have the right to hold the belief, you do not have a "green light" to harass individuals. In a workplace, deliberate and persistent "misgendering" of a specific colleague can be classified as harassment under the Equality Act if it creates an "intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment". Debating the definition of a "lesbian" or "woman" as a general statement of belief in a public forum is protected. Targeted, repeated bullying of a specific individual in a way that violates their dignity at work is not protected.
"Non-Crime Hate Incidents" (NCHIs) are an important change. Even if it isn't a crime, the police used to record these statements as "Non-Crime Hate Incidents" if someone perceived them as hateful. Following a landmark legal challenge (Miller v College of Policing), the College of Policing updated its guidance to state that police should not record NCHIs for "trivial" or "legitimate" expressions of opinion unless there is a real risk of escalation to violence.
I’d also like to point out that under UK law, specifically the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, criticizing, ridiculing, or even insulting a religion is not a crime.
The "anti-Muslim" cases that lead to convictions involve threatening people, not debating theology.
The "Free Speech" Safeguard
Section 29J of the Public Order Act 1986 provides an explicit "freedom of expression" defence. It states that the law does not prohibit:
• Discussion, criticism, or expressions of antipathy, dislike, or ridicule of particular religions or belief systems.
• Insult or abuse directed at the religion itself rather than the people.
• Proselytizing or urging people to stop practicing a particular religion.
For an "anti-Muslim" post to reach the level of a conviction for stirring up hatred, the prosecution must prove two things that are not required for other offences:
Threatening Intent: The material must be objectively "threatening"—abusive or insulting language is not enough for a religious hatred conviction.
Intent to Stir Up Hatred: The prosecution must prove the person specifically intended to stir up hatred against Muslims as a group, rather than just being reckless or offensive.
Posting "I believe the tenets of Islam are incompatible with Western values and I dislike the religion" is protected speech under Section 29J.
A 2023/24 conviction involved a woman who posted that a mosque should be blown up with people inside. This was prosecuted because it was a direct threat of violence against a group of people, not a critique of their faith.
In summary, the UK has essentially abolished "blasphemy" laws. You can legally hate a religion, but you cannot threaten or incite hatred against the people who follow it.
You are right to point out that the reluctance of the police to investigate rape gangs made up of muslim males because of the fear they would be branded racist is a scandal and politicians of all parties have spoken out against it and it will undoubtedly lead to changes in the law. However, whilst it is inevitable that finding the correct laws to balance freedom of speech and threats or intimidation to violence is difficult that is not a reason not to try and shouting "you're constraining my freedom of speech" as if that is the end of the matter is not constructive to resolving this thorny problem.
I’ll lead with an interesting tidbit I just found: England had freer speech in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution than they do today. Of course the Glorious Revolution was a foundational event of the Enlightenment and leftists like you have rejected the Enlightenment so not a surprise. But it’s interested to juxtapose how Englanders had more free speech over 300 years ago than they do today. It shows how far backwards leftism takes society.
It’s astonishing to me that you keep defending these laws, and its equally astonishing the way you spin them.
Misgendering
————————
I actually followed this in real time. When people like Allison Bailey and Maya Forstater were fired for not believing that women have penises (remember that with leftism, its the truth that gets you fired and arrested, not misinformation), it was not clear how these cases would go. In fact, the odds seemed against them - it will make a great Hollywood docudrama in about 30 years when Hollywood is capable of making real movies again.
There was a black swan event on the side of the little guy - the world’s most famous author of YA fiction decided to fight back. She used her enormous platform, and her enormous wealth, to resist. She also made it clear wrt speech that she would say the exact same things that got anyone arrested for hate speech. She single-handedly defanged these laws wrt gender ideology.
Yet your spin is “the system worked as intended.” No, the system failed. IT was the courage of brave women like Allison Bailey, Maya Forstater, and JK Rowling, who were willing to face death threats and rape threats to stand up for the truth.
It’s amazing to me that you can casually refer to the systemic rape of tens or even hundreds of thousands of girls by Muslims as minor regrettable incident. But you’re like all leftist authoritarians - if you want to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs. In this case “break a few eggs” means let Muslims rape and murder girls.
But before turning back to Muslim rape and murder, here is a famous example of UK’s speech laws in action. An autistic teenage girl was walking with her mother (or was it grandmother?) and passed a female police offer with short hair. The autistic girl said “she looks like my lesbian nana”. The next day, six police officers broke into their home and dragged the girl, screaming, from her little cubby where she goes when she’s stressed, and dragged her to the police station to be arrested. After the public outcry, she was released with no chargers.
But your spin evokes the narcissist prayer: “this never happens, and if does happen, it’s rare. and if it’s not rare, it’s a good thing.”
One more interlude before we go back to Muslim rapes and murders. Let’s talk about the hit Netflix series Adolescence. In the movie, a white British boy who had gotten taken in by “red pill” and “manosphere” content stabbed and murdered a girl who turned him down. I remember a TikTok comment: “Finally, someone brave enough to take on the epidemic of white British knife violence"!”
The case the show was based on was done by a Muslim and Muslim men repeatedly rape and murder British women and girls (I would be arrested with your approval if I lived in the UK for saying that). So after the Southport Murders, when a Muslim stabbed and murdered three pre-teen girls at a Taylor Swift party, the same people that actually think they protect women and girls, immediately pulled the stops on censoring any speech critical of what happened. In the eyes of leftists, the riots afterwards were the real problem, not the Muslims who are raping and murdering girls.
You have attributed all kinds of opinions to me which I didn't say and don't hold. I don't consider myself a leftist. I have voted conservative for the vast majority of elections in my life. I consider myself what Paul Graham describes as an accidental moderate, someone who considers the issues and sometimes comes down in the centre and sometimes to the more radical left or right depending on the issue. I consider J K Rowling a heroine for the stand she took. I don't deny that there are people of the left in this country who do want to significantly constrain free speech in these areas and there have been far too many people cancelled by the stentorian left through the pressure of social media and putting pressure on institutional leaders, a habit sadly picked up from the US. I also don't deny that attempts have been made to turn these social pressures into laws and that these have had to be fought. What I contend is that democratic politics and the judicial system have kept that extreme desire at bay and that the actual laws we have and actual enforcement of them is ending up in a place acceptable to me. I expect vigilance will need to be maintained to keep them in the right place as the controllers of speech have not given up. Now free speech fundamentalists will not agree. And there we will have to agree to disagree. But I do think the right to free speech is not absolute. Libertarians make a sharp distinction between physical violence and the hurt of speech. I think this is mistaken. I think extreme and sustained use of certain speech against individuals can be more distressing than mild violence. And I think the science backs that up. I don't condone either, but I think it an error to contend that speech can never cause damage that should be constrained by law. I do accept that finding the right balance is extremely challenging and needs to be the subject of ongoing political debate.
Gerrymandering, coupled with the primary system (especially in closed primaries, where only partisans vote) is possibly the biggest reason for the division in the US and the fact that we're a nation of moderates run by extremists.
The gist (I did an entire podcast with more detail for anyone interested) is that the system incentivizes extremism - gerrymandering means that most members of the House are in safe districts, which means they are more likely to lose in the primary than the general. Thus, their incentive is to run to the left/right to avoid being challenged from the flanks.
Wish independents would to pick a party and become involved enough to help centrist candidates to win primaries. With their help hopefully we would have better candidates in each party than the current mostly extreme right and left choices.
This is not that hard. Politics is the fight against the enemy; religion is the fight against the heretic.
If you want more heterodoxy then you need to reduce the power of politics and the power of religion.
I agree with the overall premise that we’d be better off if both parties were more tolerant of people who don’t always tow the party line, especially when they come from swing states/ districts. What I find interesting is that this is the second piece in a row that illustrates just how out of touch TLP is with thinking on the right.
The most glaring is failing to recognize that Trump and most of his coalition are not isolationists. They are Jacksonian, and true isolationists have always been a small minority within the tent. Digressing a bit, if you’re interested in foreign policy you should read Walter Russell Mead’s 20+ year old book Special Providence. This is a solid Cliff Notes/primer on Jacksonian views initially described by Mead.
https://www.hudson.org/national-security-defense/tehran-awakens-jacksonian-giant-mike-watson
I can’t pretend to know. I have no loyalty to either party or their orthodoxies. Based on polling, I suspect that puts me in a majority or at least a plurality of Americans.
Sure, but that’s because we’ve accepted a binary reality. If we reform elections effectively (non-partisan primaries, majority-winner voting and tallying methods, campaign finance reform), we should see much greater diversity within the parties and success of new parties and Independents. How nice would it be to be excited about at least one candidate for every position on your general election ballot?
"non-partisan primaries"
Are states with open or two round primaries noticably less polarized than states without them?
I don't think this reform actually solves anything. I think it's a reform that's supported for the sake of reform and because it makes things feel more 'democratic'.
"campaign finance reform"
The biggest spook of them all. The empowerment of small dollar donors, the strait-jacketing of official party organizations, and the other results of a few generations of trying to 'get money out of politics' is one of the major drivers of our current baleful condition.
I'm not sure how to measure polarization, but states and municipalities with non-partisan primaries combined with majority-winner voting methods have more positive campaigns and, more importantly, more effective legislatures (for one example, look into the exemplary legislative sessions in Alaska following their move to "final four" voting - there is a documentary, "Majority Rules" that goes into it in some depth). That said, the sample size is still very small. What we can say for certain is that we have no evidence that these reforms don't work. Unless you think our state and federal governments are doing a bang up job right now, why would you oppose trialing reforms that show promise?
I don't follow your last comment at all. What are the specific reforms that have been applied and what evidence is there that they have negatively impacted things?
Moderates' failure at governance and politics is just as bad as leftists'.
Moderates have not proven any ability to govern inside the party, not even crafting compromise proposals on any of the issues of the day. How can people who don't exercise real leadership inside a party be expected to lead the country? If you can't manage factions inside your party how are you going to manage Congress?
A key difference in the presidential primaries will be the filibuster. The one leftists were attacking for the last two decades but have now hypocritically embraced.
If moderates decide to defend the filibuster but then continue on their leftward drift, they will essentially be promising the country more deadlock. Deadlock favors the right structurally (given the current neoliberal status quo) and politically (given that further deterioration of the economy favors the far right -as is being seen in every single Western country-).
A moderate with actual leadership would call on a repeat of the Biden-Sanders negotiations and try to unite the party behind something that can lead to actual policy progress for the whole party and country.
Instead not a single one of the so called moderate potential presidential candidates is calling for any sort of moderation on absolutely a single one of the issues that contributed to costing the party elections in 2016 and 2024.
Due to short term polling, moderates have basically conceded that the left is right on immigration, tariffs, Gaza, Venezuela and Iran (and implicitly on transgender issues).
The main difference between moderates and the left nowadays is on issues that are not in the public eye as much anymore like climate change/energy and crypto/AI and that are unlikely to be major differentiators in the primaries.
The 2028 election will again be about affordability and the primaries will again be about electability.
Democrats can easily win unless there is some sort of economic miracle before then.
But the political environment and philosophy they will have continued nurturing until then is simply bad for democracy.
"It is a peculiar Western aberration to believe that, 'under the skin', other people all believe as we do'", heard by chance in a Thomas Sowell lecture, has made more and more sense for me in the last two decades. As US messaging went from the FDR's confidence inspiring "All we have to fear, is fear itself" to fear inducing, first of Soviet nuclear power, then environmental destruction to the all purpose "Climate Change", in fulfillment of H. L. Mencken's ""The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety)" and fear became operating doctrine. Constant heightened threat creates tunnel vision, reducing options and the blind coalescing around leaders with the most effective profiled messaging, including that "the other guy" is also the enemy.
The resilient societies, able to accommodate great diversity on the individual basis of "freedom of thought", yet able to unite in common purpose, become monochrome target-able blocs with no flexibility, prone to disintegration by the Heterodox, who are to be cast out into darkness. Our fear of the unknown which leads to projecting our own image in default where we have no actual knowledge ("They can't possibly think that!") has serious consequences when large scale immigration brings cohesive, non-heterodox groups that "really do think that".
Perhaps lateral thinking, imagination and some knowledge of history would help. I don't know, but hope.
Or...Another example of Democrat heterodoxy on the cultural front would be someone who accepts any restrictions on abortion whatsoever. Ain't gonna happen. There is a radical disconnect between what Democrats say they believe and what they universally vote for.
In my opinion, Trump worship is mainly a myth. Voters make the same calculations every election. I like this. I do not like this. They run the numbers and vote for the person with the most policies with which they agree, or for the person whose polices they dislike, the least.
The legend of Trump Zombies completely discounts the historical Biden Presidency. The worst public health response in US history, of debatable legality. A purposefully dissolved Border, with 10 million unvetted new arrivals, without a single extra bedroom to house them or a single extra MD to treat their healthcare needs.
50 year high inflation spurred by unwarranted Covid panic and trillions flushed on Green fantasies, even European Socialists no longer believe. The subsidies and unprecedented regulations mainly enriched Dem donors , while killing American living standards for all but the wealthy. They also stifled American choice in everything from stoves to schools. The latter, suddenly teaching child transgenderism and the plague of universal White racism and Western culture, rather than Reading and Math.
We are in this situation, because the nation elected someone they assumed would be a moderate caretaker, but who governed as the most Progressive President in US history. Had Biden campaigned on allowing 10 million unvetted people to walk across the border, sans valid asylum claims, would he still have won? Had Joe mentioned he would seek to control more aspects of American life than ever before in US history, would he still have prevailed?
Without Biden there is no Trump 2.0. Trump is a term limited reaction to a Progressive Presidential Con of historical epic proportions.
And the next administration will be a reaction to Trump. The logic of all you said applies in reverse also - just substitute overreach Trump policies with those you call out from Biden.
I’ve read a few of your comments and you seem to ignore ideology or perhaps treat it as dependent on structural factors like primaries. But wokism metastasized out of academia around 2010. We didn’t institute primaries or gerrymandering in 2010. Ideologies has their own life cycle. We had primaries and gerrymandering during much less polarized eras.
As Thomas Sowel points out, conflicts of interests dominate the short run but conflicts of visions dominate history. Solid will not be around forever because it’s too obviously wrong to win an ideological war. (Besides, no leftist idea has ever survived the test of history)
Separately, I don’t know what to make of your comment about “leftist policies” never standing the test of time. I guess not if you define leftist as the things that haven’t.
Leftism is a specific lineage of political philosophies that derive from Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his famous history of philosophy, Bertrand Russell wrote, “At the present time, Hitler is an outcome of Rousseau ; Roosevelt and Churchill, of Locke.” The philosopher Paul Strathern agrees. In Hume in 90 Minutes, he writes: “Rousseau’s ideas were to inspire both the glories and the excesses of the French Revolution, and continued to play a similar role in the twentieth century. His ideas are recognizable in both fascism and communism, as well as in the underlying drift towards self-expression and liberalism.”
I wrote a lot more about leftism here, should be a decent survey from Rousseau through Critical Race Theory.
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/tlp-weekend-edition-march-7-8-2026/comment/224363634
Good stuff. I think it is possible to believe we are called to take care of “the least of these” even at the collective level without being “leftist” in this sense and falling prey to the excesses rightly condemned here.
I’m not ignoring ideology. I’m saying that it exists on a natural bell curve and our electoral system advantages the small minorities on both tails. That reality has been going on for decades as gerrymandering matured and media and campaign finance devolved.
I’m not sure “wokeism” can be so neatly defined and placed in time, but my thesis is that its extreme adherents (including some academic circles) occupy one of the tails on social ideologies and thus are part of the group that captures the Dem party and generates unmoderated representatives (coming out of safe Dem primaries).
Meanwhile, increasingly radical ideologues on the right (including conspiracists and Christian Nationalists) rule the Republican primaries. Ideological moderates (the fat part of the bell curve) are effectively disenfranchised.
> "I’m not sure “wokeism” can be so neatly defined and placed in time"
Wokism is very easy to define, see my other comment. But John Fonte once extracted the practical tenets of wokism (and he did it back in 2001!).
1. the group you belong to is the only meaningful unit, not individuals
2. groups can be divided into oppressor groups (white, male, heterosexual, Christian) and victim groups (black, female, LGBTQIA2S+, Muslim)
3. immigrants are automatically members of victim groups
4. society must be reordered so as to make all groups equal
5. historical narratives must be changed to feature victim groups
> "I’m saying that it exists on a natural bell curve "
Except that the left side of the bell curve suddenly moved much farther to the left. See this famous meme. It's this movement that your treatment of ideology ignores.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/040/353/cover2.jpg
Thanks for the definitional criteria. I’d say most folks who are accused of being “woke” wouldn’t meet more than one or two and would readily disclaim the remainder. The problem is that the few who are fully bought In are unduly, influential in our two party system.
As for the bell curve shifting leftward, my sense is that is part of the natural evolution. One hopes that the arc of history truly does bend toward compassion.
I other words:
- the left isn't that woke
- and if they are that woke, it's a good thing
Keep in mind that your "compassion" has caused essentially every horror of modern history.
- you know how the French Revolution radicalized partway through? That's when Enlightenment liberals inspired by Voltaire were arrested by Leftists (The Insurrection of May 30 - June 2). At that point leftists began to systemically execute political opponents by the guillotine (and other methods like drowning) in the Reign of Terror
- Communism is another leftist movement and they made the Reign of Terror look a family picnic.
- Fascism is arguably not leftist, but it is inspired by the exact same philosophers such as Rousseau and the syndicalist George Sorel.
- The dirty little secrete of the 20th century progressives is that they were racists and eugenicists. Woodrow Wilson re-segregated the government and screen Birth of a Nation
From an outsider's perspective (Canadian), the USA has a very entertaining but ineffective government. Canada should be so lucky. Our last 10 years has been totally devastating.
In many ways, the US electoral system seems not particularly important due to the intentional checks and balances, as well as the importance of the President mainly picking which aspects of current law to embrace. Further, the 'greying' of the congress, senate and presidency make it far less an agency of change.
There's a simple reason why party orthodoxy and the office-holders of each party are less diverse than the voters who identify and lean in their direction - electoral system. As Unite America points out, due to gerrymandered "safe districts" and partisan primaries (along with other ways in which the two-parties have conspired to lock out any new political rivals), the 7% of voters who participate in selecting the winning candidates in safe primaries choose 87% of the House. So, regardless of which party has a majority, that majority is made up of sad sacks who are completely beholden to the orthodoxy of the true believers.
Worse, because the minority is made up almost entirely of those beholden to true believers on the other end of the spectrum, there is no hope of a critical mass of wannabe moderates joining together on almost any issue to do the real work of "art of the possible" compromise (where, say, we all agree on a solution that gives neither side a dominating "win" over the opposition heathens, but is clearly better than the status quo).
The result is either (1) divided government and complete grid lock or (2) a trifecta (but tiny) majority that always oversteps its "mandate," setting the stage for buyer's remorse (in the few swing districts that determine the majority) and an electoral reset in the next cycle to divided government or a trifecta for the other side.
We seem to be nearing the end of this madness. Either we will reform elections to give the majority of voters in the middle of the ideological spectrum a voice, or we will ride this cycle to collapse.
Nothing is collapsing. Our electoral system is brilliant in its' protection of small and rural states, of which the US has many.
Remember wealthy Founding Fathers risked their lives and wealth to win a Revolution, and then willingly handed the reins to farmers and farriers. To that end, they designed an electoral system that can only be amended with 2/3rds the House and Senate and 3/4ths of States.
Dems will spontaneously elect Trump to a 3rd term as a Democrat, and pigs will fly, before that happens.
No issue with the bi cameral legislature balancing states’ influence. The problem is a nation at the mercy of two parties themselves hijacked by a small minority of their most ideological extremists (and fed by unprincipled media and the buy-offs of the billionaires). If we don’t address the structural problems of gerrymandering partisan primaries and undue influence of wealth, the ping ponging will continue until we reach an untenable point. Trump might be that point.
Thing is, what if you do NOT disagree with President Trump? On anything? If I were President, I'd look just like him, except gray and about five inches shorter.
Interesting. How would you describe the underlying world view that informs your position on any specific thing? For Trump, I think it is - "goodness in the world is defined by what is good for Trump wealth and adulation." I assume you are not motivated by that per se, so what are the foundational beliefs that would drive your presidency?
What was Biden's underlying world view?
Simpler. America First. What's good for America is what I support. So far, I haven['t found one policy or area that isn't good for America.
Oh, and I should have mentioned this. Yesterday a poll came out showing the Congressional Ds had a lower approval than ISIS . . . but good news! A new poll today shows that Ds are slightly ahead of the Iranian mullahs!
Yes, D's have horrible approval. But all of them, including Trump, have negative approval. That is proof enough that the system itself is broken. Fix the way that we elect people and you will end up with public policy that is neither Trumpian nor hard leftist. Fail to reform the system and we are well on the way to the end of the American experiment. There's a place for "America First" ideals as Trump claims to understand them, but his version and implementation would not win in a healthy environment of political and philosophical debate.
See, I totally disagree. In 2016 I correctly predicted Trump's victory in OCTOBER in my book, "How Trump WON" (past tense), I predicted exactly the EV margin (I said 300---it was 304). I followed up with 2024 with EXACTLY the final with my JUNE prediction of 312 EVs and +1.5% popular vote. My point is that the general media/understanding ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS underestimates Trump's strength (not Rs, who trail him by about 5 points. Without vote fraud and illegals, Trump would have won 2020 as well. I think anyone not understanding this as a party---which Ds still do not---is begging for more defeat. Don't get me wrong, the House is so tight that 5 seats will swing it. But if Trump is on the ballot, totally different story.
You believe there were a lot of non citizens voting in 2020? Regardless, 50% of the popular vote given weak alternatives is not a show of deep support for the candidate or the party.
I may not agree with all of Larry's thoughts, but he is right far more than Dems who seem to have only 2 main policies. Open borders and the destruction of the West.
To be fair, Open Borders is mostly a reaction to the Dem inability to keep Americans in Blue States. We are not a Republic by accident. States compete for residents and the last decade or two, the traffic only moves one way, Blue to Red. Without mass migration, the 2030 Reapportionment may have well rendered Dems a permanent minority Party.
There is one stat that most clearly demonstrates the Dem problem, better than all the rest. In 2000 Texas was suppose to overtake CA in population in around 2100. It is now assumed Texas will be the largest US state around 2050.
CA has beautiful coastlines and one of the world's most temperate climates. Texas has bugs so large they need Air Traffic Control around DFW, lousy temps 6 months of the year, and a variety of snakes that rivals Australia. Yet Americans will not stop migrating from their Blue Utopias, to America's version of Hell, with responsible governance.
We can agree that electing more Dems of the ilk that survive safe Dem primaries is not the solution. My point is that the same is true in relation to Republicans.
Congressional Ds do have a very low approval rating. But...that dismal rating is not automatically good news for the GOP. A significant percentage of people who disapprove of Congressional Democrats do so because they believe those Ds are not far enough Left. In the end, they'll vote for the Ds they disapprove of over any Republican.
100%. And that, in fact, is really, really good news for Rs.
I jokingly say that Rs could actually campaign on this: "We are lazy, occasionally corrupt, and often inept. But we don't want to kill you. Ds actually want to kill you and your family." Believe me there are MANY who won't say this out loud but deep down are coming to believe that in general Ds want them dead.
Just a by-product of unprincipled media serving up caricatures of both sides that fire up emotional responses and therefore attention and profit.
I finally feel seen as a heterodox voter with no one to vote for anymore. Give me the DINOS and RINOS.
HINO!
As this essay correctly notes, both major parties enforce orthodoxy: the Wokester Left controls the Democratic party, and Trump worshipers control the Republican party. Even minor dissent is ruthlessly suppressed.
But there's a simple reason why that suppression succeeds: the enforcers show up in primary elections in numbers hugely disproportionate to their percentage of eligible voters. If you want to win a general election, you first have to convince your party's enforcers to support you in the primaries. It's theoretically possible for moderates/centrists to take control of one or both major parties, but people like that are not (collectively speaking) devoted to spending large amounts of time and effort on political matters and vote in primaries at low rates.
Exactly. I would have just responded to this instead of my own response if I'd seen it first
> “ heterodoxy mostly indicates someone who says, “I disagree with Donald Trump.””
Almost. It’s “are you on the side of the people, or the side of intellectual elites.” The people summoned Trump, not the other way around. Remember when Trump, Musk and Ramaswamy all wanted more h1b visas? That got shouted down and Trump made h1bs more expensive. Or remember when Trump tried to make the base pro-vax? He gave up (I’m vaccinated).
Note that all the Never Trumpers, such as the Bulwark crowd, are cheerleading every progressive wishlist from (trans)gender ideology to NGOs (we learned during the USAID debates that Kristol has done quite well by government-funded NGOs) to open borders. As Trump put it, “It’s not me they hate, it’s you. I’m just in the way.”
No doubt aspects of what Trump tapped into were majority views, but you'd be hard pressed to find majorities supporting almost any specific implementation of those views (because - like most politicians - he was happy to say whatever to get the power; once in power, the agenda is his own and that of those who will help keep him in power).
The only reason "the people" had to signal things Trump was positioned to take advantage of is the broken legislative branch. And that problem has everything to do with the most partisan and ideological fraction of the electorate effectively choosing 9 out of 10 representatives in "safe" primaries. The "poeple" have no voice there, but can still make themselves heard in a presidential election, even if that leads to being hypnotized by a pied piper of self-interest.
"The peope"? C'mon we all fear and hate "the people."
“I’d rather be ruled by the first 500 names in the Cambridge phone book than the faculty of Harvard.” - WF Buckley
Using sortition as a punch line was maybe not Buckley's most prescient moment. I think a lot of people are coming around to the idea that maybe we really should be governed by a medium-sized group chosen at random--they would be much more likely to actually talk to one another than our current crop of legislators.
I was just forestalling a leftist talking point. I really don’t care how May Covid vaccinations or boosters (or not) someone gets. You definitely shouldn’t get fired for not taking them, at least if you have a positive antibody test.
I had 7 covid boosters because I have lots medical issues. This year my doc told he didn't feel strongly one way or the other.
"I always voted at my party's call; and I never thought of thinking for myself at all. I thought so little, they rewarded me by making me the ruler of the Queen's Navy." WS Gilbert in 1878 and still dead-on today.
Speaking as a Brit looking in I don't think the flaws in your electoral system is an absence of proportional representation. Rather I think they are: political gerrymandering of congressional districts, no campaign spending limits, state winner takes all electoral college votes, out of sync elections for president, senate and the house and mass participation in primaries. Combined these give too much power to extremists in the parties and too few competitive races and the bizarre spectacle of candidates winning the Presidency without a plurality of the popular vote. Also the House should be able to override the senate as the House of Commons can override the House of Lords.
> "Speaking as a Brit looking"
Britain arrests people up for social media posts.
Indeed we do. Here is the breakdown of the 1,119 convictions for online communications in the UK (2023):
~650–700: Domestic Abuse & Personal Threats
The single largest category. These involve direct threats of violence, death, or harassment sent to former partners or family members via social media or messaging apps.
~250–300: Child Safety & Grooming
Convictions specifically for "Sexual Communication with a Child."
~100–150: Targeted Stalking & Harassment
Persistent, malicious campaigns against specific individuals, such as "trolling" that crosses the legal line into criminal stalking or causing "needless anxiety."
Under 50: Stirring Up Hatred
The most politically sensitive but statistically smallest group. Only 44 convictions were recorded for "stirring up racial hatred" following the 2024 summer unrest. This included posts encouraging rioters to set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers. In 2025 the Government revised the law and police guidance to make the last category less ambiguous in response to criticism it could be applied too broadly. The USA on the other hand pays near religious devotion to a constitution written nearly 100 years before the widespread adoption of electricity which could hardly have forseen the immense damage that would be caused by social media. It therefore massively constrains your ability to regulate this industry. Nevertheless despite this claimed commitment to free speech trump is enabling his tech bro buddies to buy news TV channels that dare to criticise him and his secretary for war threatens the broadcasting license of a channel for reporting the truth about his disastrous Middle East adventure.
1. You are only counting convictions but the process is the punishment. There are over ten times as many arrests as convictions. Someone makes a conservative comment - far milder than what I make here - and the police are knocking on their door at 6 AM with a warrant for their arrest. The goal, at least for now, is to silence opposition rather than imprison conservatives. But history shows leftism is always a slippery slope to ever-more-violent authoritarianism.
2. Pace what you said above, UK censorship is expanding every year, with the UK and EU striving to act as global censors via the DSA.
3. We need to be clear about how these are categorized. Repeatedly referring to a biological male in a dress as “he” on social media counts as targeted harassment. You’re safe if you lie but arrested if you speak the truth.
4. Statements like “men can’t be lesbians” count as hate speech. Again, for speaking the truth. You’re only safe if you lie in leftist regimes.
5. You Alastair, are part of the reason why tens or perhaps even hundreds of thousand of working class girls were repeatedly raped by Muslim immigrants. The Muslim grooming gangs. When people spoke out against it they were called racists and many arrested - even the dads of girls who were raped.
That’s what your embrace of leftism over liberalism did. The United States and Britain used to be allies as the only Western nations committed to Enlightenment liberalism. Now you and the English in general are weak and declining leftist authoritarians
It is indeed true that there have been far more arrests than convictions. I personally think this is as the legal system and parliament works out what we are actually trying to achieve with these laws and what the boundaries actually are or should be. There are crucial cases which have set precedent and the political debate has led to modifications in the law and changes to police guidance.
In response to a couple of your points:
In the UK, the legal status of "misgendering" or stating that "men can't be lesbians" recent court rulings have established that these views are generally protected by law, though their "manifestation" (how and where they are said) can still lead to civil or workplace consequences.
"Gender-Critical" Beliefs are Protected Under the Equality Act 2010, several high-profile cases (most notably Maya Forstater v CGD Europe) have established that "gender-critical" beliefs—the belief that biological sex is real, important, and immutable—are protected philosophical beliefs.
Courts have ruled that these beliefs are "worthy of respect in a democratic society" and are not comparable to extreme ideologies like Nazism. You cannot therefore be legally fired solely for holding the view that "men can't be lesbians" or that a person's biological sex is their "true" sex.
When is it "Hate Speech"?
Strictly speaking, in UK criminal law, "hate speech" usually refers to "stirring up hatred". Stating "men can't be lesbians" or referring to a trans woman as "he" is not a crime in itself. For example, after the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 came into force, Police Scotland confirmed that JK Rowling's tweets—which included misgendering—did not constitute a criminal offence. While not "hate speech," a post could theoretically be investigated under the Communications Act 2003 if it is deemed "grossly offensive." However, recent CPS guidance and court wins for street preachers have set a very high bar, ruling that simply being offensive or causing distress is not enough for a conviction.
While you have the right to hold the belief, you do not have a "green light" to harass individuals. In a workplace, deliberate and persistent "misgendering" of a specific colleague can be classified as harassment under the Equality Act if it creates an "intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment". Debating the definition of a "lesbian" or "woman" as a general statement of belief in a public forum is protected. Targeted, repeated bullying of a specific individual in a way that violates their dignity at work is not protected.
"Non-Crime Hate Incidents" (NCHIs) are an important change. Even if it isn't a crime, the police used to record these statements as "Non-Crime Hate Incidents" if someone perceived them as hateful. Following a landmark legal challenge (Miller v College of Policing), the College of Policing updated its guidance to state that police should not record NCHIs for "trivial" or "legitimate" expressions of opinion unless there is a real risk of escalation to violence.
I’d also like to point out that under UK law, specifically the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, criticizing, ridiculing, or even insulting a religion is not a crime.
The "anti-Muslim" cases that lead to convictions involve threatening people, not debating theology.
The "Free Speech" Safeguard
Section 29J of the Public Order Act 1986 provides an explicit "freedom of expression" defence. It states that the law does not prohibit:
• Discussion, criticism, or expressions of antipathy, dislike, or ridicule of particular religions or belief systems.
• Insult or abuse directed at the religion itself rather than the people.
• Proselytizing or urging people to stop practicing a particular religion.
For an "anti-Muslim" post to reach the level of a conviction for stirring up hatred, the prosecution must prove two things that are not required for other offences:
Threatening Intent: The material must be objectively "threatening"—abusive or insulting language is not enough for a religious hatred conviction.
Intent to Stir Up Hatred: The prosecution must prove the person specifically intended to stir up hatred against Muslims as a group, rather than just being reckless or offensive.
Posting "I believe the tenets of Islam are incompatible with Western values and I dislike the religion" is protected speech under Section 29J.
A 2023/24 conviction involved a woman who posted that a mosque should be blown up with people inside. This was prosecuted because it was a direct threat of violence against a group of people, not a critique of their faith.
In summary, the UK has essentially abolished "blasphemy" laws. You can legally hate a religion, but you cannot threaten or incite hatred against the people who follow it.
You are right to point out that the reluctance of the police to investigate rape gangs made up of muslim males because of the fear they would be branded racist is a scandal and politicians of all parties have spoken out against it and it will undoubtedly lead to changes in the law. However, whilst it is inevitable that finding the correct laws to balance freedom of speech and threats or intimidation to violence is difficult that is not a reason not to try and shouting "you're constraining my freedom of speech" as if that is the end of the matter is not constructive to resolving this thorny problem.
I’ll lead with an interesting tidbit I just found: England had freer speech in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution than they do today. Of course the Glorious Revolution was a foundational event of the Enlightenment and leftists like you have rejected the Enlightenment so not a surprise. But it’s interested to juxtapose how Englanders had more free speech over 300 years ago than they do today. It shows how far backwards leftism takes society.
It’s astonishing to me that you keep defending these laws, and its equally astonishing the way you spin them.
Misgendering
————————
I actually followed this in real time. When people like Allison Bailey and Maya Forstater were fired for not believing that women have penises (remember that with leftism, its the truth that gets you fired and arrested, not misinformation), it was not clear how these cases would go. In fact, the odds seemed against them - it will make a great Hollywood docudrama in about 30 years when Hollywood is capable of making real movies again.
There was a black swan event on the side of the little guy - the world’s most famous author of YA fiction decided to fight back. She used her enormous platform, and her enormous wealth, to resist. She also made it clear wrt speech that she would say the exact same things that got anyone arrested for hate speech. She single-handedly defanged these laws wrt gender ideology.
Yet your spin is “the system worked as intended.” No, the system failed. IT was the courage of brave women like Allison Bailey, Maya Forstater, and JK Rowling, who were willing to face death threats and rape threats to stand up for the truth.
It’s amazing to me that you can casually refer to the systemic rape of tens or even hundreds of thousands of girls by Muslims as minor regrettable incident. But you’re like all leftist authoritarians - if you want to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs. In this case “break a few eggs” means let Muslims rape and murder girls.
But before turning back to Muslim rape and murder, here is a famous example of UK’s speech laws in action. An autistic teenage girl was walking with her mother (or was it grandmother?) and passed a female police offer with short hair. The autistic girl said “she looks like my lesbian nana”. The next day, six police officers broke into their home and dragged the girl, screaming, from her little cubby where she goes when she’s stressed, and dragged her to the police station to be arrested. After the public outcry, she was released with no chargers.
But your spin evokes the narcissist prayer: “this never happens, and if does happen, it’s rare. and if it’s not rare, it’s a good thing.”
One more interlude before we go back to Muslim rapes and murders. Let’s talk about the hit Netflix series Adolescence. In the movie, a white British boy who had gotten taken in by “red pill” and “manosphere” content stabbed and murdered a girl who turned him down. I remember a TikTok comment: “Finally, someone brave enough to take on the epidemic of white British knife violence"!”
The case the show was based on was done by a Muslim and Muslim men repeatedly rape and murder British women and girls (I would be arrested with your approval if I lived in the UK for saying that). So after the Southport Murders, when a Muslim stabbed and murdered three pre-teen girls at a Taylor Swift party, the same people that actually think they protect women and girls, immediately pulled the stops on censoring any speech critical of what happened. In the eyes of leftists, the riots afterwards were the real problem, not the Muslims who are raping and murdering girls.
You have attributed all kinds of opinions to me which I didn't say and don't hold. I don't consider myself a leftist. I have voted conservative for the vast majority of elections in my life. I consider myself what Paul Graham describes as an accidental moderate, someone who considers the issues and sometimes comes down in the centre and sometimes to the more radical left or right depending on the issue. I consider J K Rowling a heroine for the stand she took. I don't deny that there are people of the left in this country who do want to significantly constrain free speech in these areas and there have been far too many people cancelled by the stentorian left through the pressure of social media and putting pressure on institutional leaders, a habit sadly picked up from the US. I also don't deny that attempts have been made to turn these social pressures into laws and that these have had to be fought. What I contend is that democratic politics and the judicial system have kept that extreme desire at bay and that the actual laws we have and actual enforcement of them is ending up in a place acceptable to me. I expect vigilance will need to be maintained to keep them in the right place as the controllers of speech have not given up. Now free speech fundamentalists will not agree. And there we will have to agree to disagree. But I do think the right to free speech is not absolute. Libertarians make a sharp distinction between physical violence and the hurt of speech. I think this is mistaken. I think extreme and sustained use of certain speech against individuals can be more distressing than mild violence. And I think the science backs that up. I don't condone either, but I think it an error to contend that speech can never cause damage that should be constrained by law. I do accept that finding the right balance is extremely challenging and needs to be the subject of ongoing political debate.
Apologies that's 44 convictions for stirring up hatred in 2024 after the major asylum riots. In 2023 it was less than 15.
Dead on correct.
Gerrymandering, coupled with the primary system (especially in closed primaries, where only partisans vote) is possibly the biggest reason for the division in the US and the fact that we're a nation of moderates run by extremists.
The gist (I did an entire podcast with more detail for anyone interested) is that the system incentivizes extremism - gerrymandering means that most members of the House are in safe districts, which means they are more likely to lose in the primary than the general. Thus, their incentive is to run to the left/right to avoid being challenged from the flanks.
Wish independents would to pick a party and become involved enough to help centrist candidates to win primaries. With their help hopefully we would have better candidates in each party than the current mostly extreme right and left choices.
Is anyone truly independent? In my city the biggest, leftist blowhard always states proudly that he is an independent.