I’ve never voted Republican in my life—Kerry, Obama (twice), Clinton, Biden. But after the past few years, I’m left at a bizarre crossroads, realizing that the enemy of my enemy, of my enemy, of my enemy... might just be my 'friend.'
My political identity had always felt secure, founded on principles of free speech, civil liberties, and equality. For years, I assumed the left, my side, was the natural defender of these values. After all, the liberal ideals I embraced were built on the notion of individual rights and freedoms, the freedom to speak, and the freedom to dissent. These values were deeply embedded in the progressive movements of the twentieth century.
But the COVID-19 era changed all of that. What began as a public health crisis quickly evolved into a societal stress test, and the results were shocking. The professional class—academics, media figures, politicians—willingly embraced authoritarian measures, from speech suppression to social and physical isolation, all justified under the guise of "public safety." Their commitment to ideals like free speech and equality of opportunity crumbled when faced with the possibility of inconvenience or discomfort.
What I witnessed was a mass capitulation. The people I had once respected, the institutions I had once trusted, were weaponizing their privilege while imposing draconian measures on the rest of society. Suddenly, dissent became dangerous. Freedom of speech became a casualty of a new ideological authoritarianism, a force more interested in silencing uncomfortable truths than debating them.
For the first time in my life, I began questioning everything I once took for granted. I wasn’t watching the right attack civil liberties; I was watching the left, my own side, use COVID as an excuse to suppress free speech, to cancel debate, and to impose rigid, totalitarian controls on society—all while wrapping themselves in the flag of progressivism. The professional class luxuriated in isolation while essential workers were left to keep the world turning. The hypocrisy was staggering, and it shattered everything I believed about who stood for liberty.
So, here I am, standing at a precipice, having realized that the tools I once thought protected liberty have been turned into weapons against it.
II. Equity Over Equality: The Left’s Dangerous Ideological Drift
There’s a critical difference between equality of opportunity and equity—the former, the foundation of liberal democracy, ensures everyone has a fair chance to succeed based on their individual efforts. But the left’s focus has shifted, now obsessed with equity—ensuring that everyone ends up in the same place, regardless of choices or talents. This isn’t a minor ideological quirk; it’s a seismic shift with deep consequences.
Take Kamala Harris, for example. She hasn’t just slipped once and said, “we should all end up in the same place.” No, she’s said this over and over again—remarkable, considering how little of substance she typically offers. Think about what that really means. The vice president of the United States, someone who’s supposed to champion diversity, believes that we should all land in the same spot, no matter our individual differences.
This ideology is not just misguided—it’s dangerous. The left claims to love diversity, but true diversity is about accepting that people will choose different paths, have different talents, and—yes—end up in different places. To force uniform outcomes under the guise of equity is to erase individuality and stifle true freedom.
Look at Harris’s rise in 2020 as Biden’s running mate. It wasn’t driven by her record, her qualifications, or her popularity. She dropped out of the Democratic primary due to lack of support, polling terribly along the way. But Biden had already made his commitment to pick a woman of color, and Harris checked the boxes. She was, for lack of a better term, a DEI hire. It’s not an entirely comfortable term, but it’s not unfair either.
What makes it worse is how the left handles any critique of this. You criticize Harris’s qualifications or policies, and instantly you’re accused of racism or sexism. There’s no room for discussion of merit, of leadership, of competence. It’s a pattern now: deflecting any legitimate critique by accusing the critic of bigotry. This is the broader problem—the left’s ideological drift has created an environment where debate is stifled and dissent is punished.
III. COVID-19 and the Left’s Authoritarian Drift
The COVID-19 pandemic was a moment of reckoning. In the chaos of an unfolding global crisis, we saw institutions and the media dismiss, suppress, and censor dissenting voices with alarming ease. Anyone who dared question the narrative—whether it was the origins of the virus, the efficacy of lockdowns, or even the safety and efficacy of vaccines—was swiftly branded as a conspiracy theorist. Experts who deviated from the approved message were ridiculed or deplatformed. Social media companies, under pressure from governments, actively suppressed information, flagging legitimate debate as "misinformation."
Now, with a few years of hindsight, it's clear that many of those so-called conspiracy theorists weren’t wild-eyed radicals—they were simply right. Whether it’s the ongoing debate about the origins of COVID, which is now widely accepted as plausibly stemming from a lab leak, or the evolving discourse around vaccines, it’s become undeniable that much of the initial skepticism and questioning was justified. Dissenting voices that warned of the consequences of lockdowns—on mental health, education, and economies—have been vindicated, yet these conversations were squashed by the left in real-time.
During this period, the professional class—journalists, politicians, academics—revealed their true colors. Many were all too eager to accept authoritarian measures so long as they didn’t personally feel the impact. Lockdowns were easier to bear when you could work remotely, isolated in comfort, as delivery workers brought groceries to your doorstep. And while dissent was crushed, these same elites patted themselves on the back for “saving lives.”
The irony is that those who dared question the wisdom of these authoritarian measures were proven right, and yet those voices were systematically silenced. This was not a mistake or an overreaction—it was a deliberate effort to control the narrative, suppress debate, and consolidate power. The pandemic became a convenient excuse for the left to seize control and silence opposition, all while cloaking it under the banner of public safety.
IV. The Global Assault on Free Speech
What unfolded during the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t just limited to the U.S.—it was part of a growing global trend of free speech erosion. Around the world, we saw governments take unprecedented steps to control the narrative and silence dissent, often under the pretense of public safety or national security.
In France, we witnessed the arrest of Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, over claims that his platform failed to properly moderate content. Brazil went even further, banning X.com and VPNs in what can only be described as judicial overreach. And in the UK, citizens faced arrests over social media posts that were deemed offensive or harmful by the state.
These instances reveal a chilling truth: free speech, once considered the bedrock of democracy, is under siege worldwide. The mechanisms may vary from country to country—whether it’s the use of “misinformation” laws, broad claims of “national security,” or direct pressure on social media platforms—but the end goal is the same. Governments and their allies in Big Tech have found ways to exert control over what can be said, read, or shared.
And let’s not forget the Twitter Files, where internal documents revealed how social media platforms were pressured to suppress content at the behest of government officials, under the guise of fighting disinformation. The Hunter Biden laptop story is just one example of how legitimate news was quashed because it didn’t fit the approved narrative.
It’s no longer just about free speech—it’s about who controls the flow of information, and who gets to decide what’s true and what’s not. The global trend points to a disturbing future where dissent isn’t just discouraged, it’s actively punished.
V. Politicians as Tools: The Imperfection of Political Leaders
Politicians, particularly those at the highest levels, are rarely paragons of virtue or principle. In many ways, they are tools—both in the literal sense, as a means to an end, and in the pejorative sense, as Douglas Adams so aptly put it: "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." The very ambition that drives someone to seek the highest office is often, in itself, disqualifying.
Yet, that doesn’t change the fact that we have to work with what we’ve got. As voters, we’re often faced with deeply imperfect choices, none more evident than the Donald Trump dilemma. Trump, a figure who is as polarizing as he is flawed, was never supposed to win. And yet, he did. Not once, but repeatedly—overcoming the Republican establishment’s clear resistance to his candidacy. He’s a tool, one the establishment believed was so distasteful that he could be easily defeated. And perhaps that was the point. The DNC, the media, the “shadowy powers that be”—whoever you believe is pulling the strings—likely saw Trump as an opportunity. His toxicity would drive voters to support anyone but him, whether it was Joe Biden, whose cognitive decline was obvious even during the campaign, or Kamala Harris, a candidate so unpopular she didn’t even make it through the primary.
It’s not a stretch to suggest that, by making Trump the boogeyman, the establishment counted on people being willing to vote for just about anything else, even a metaphorical ham sandwich, if it meant keeping Trump out of office. And while that may sound like a bit of a conspiracy theory, it’s hard to ignore the patterns. Trump’s presence offers the perfect distraction—a way to herd voters without ever having them think too deeply about the alternatives. It’s rope-a-dope politics, where the very figure who’s supposed to be too toxic to win ends up being the easiest tool to manipulate public sentiment.
In a world like this, the idea of perfect candidates is a myth. We have to recognize politicians for what they are: tools, deeply flawed but sometimes necessary. Sometimes, we have to wield the tool that’s available, no matter how imperfect, because the alternative is even worse.
VI. Conclusion: Reclaiming Liberty in a Time of Conformity and Tribalism
We’re living through a moment where conformity has taken over critical thought, where independent reasoning is no longer celebrated but condemned. If everyone’s thinking the same thing, as the old saying goes, someone isn’t thinking at all. And today, the people who once claimed to champion diversity of thought are now the most rigid enforcers of groupthink. They’ve traded their supposed commitment to freedom for the comfort of ideological uniformity, casting out anyone who dares question the party line.
Consider Jonathan Haidt’s insights from moral foundations theory: how is it that you can know someone’s stance on tax policy based on their views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? It doesn’t make sense logically, and yet, it’s become a predictable outcome of modern political tribalism. These positions are supposed to be informed by individual experience, knowledge, and values, but more often than not, they’re dictated by group allegiance. If you dare stray from the expected conclusions—whether it’s on COVID-19, lockdowns, vaccines, or voting patterns—you’re not engaging in independent thought, you’re labeled as “joining the cult.”
What’s more, people who pride themselves on being critical thinkers—the intellectual elites, the media, and even friends and family—are the quickest to shut down debate, demanding absolute loyalty to the in-group. If you question their conclusions, you’re told you’ve stopped thinking altogether. But the real cult-like behavior is coming from the very people who refuse to allow for dissent or deviation. It’s ironic that those who used to stand for free thought now treat changing your mind after careful reasoning as an act of betrayal.
And yet, changing your mind is the essence of independent thought. It’s something to be celebrated, not condemned. In 2016, I vehemently voted against Donald Trump. I didn’t agree with him, I didn’t like him, and I worried about what a Trump presidency could mean. But even then, I didn’t vilify those who supported him. I didn’t think they were evil or stupid. They were simply coming to a different conclusion based on their values, and that was their right.
Now, after years of witnessing the erosion of civil liberties, the stifling of dissent, and the left’s increasing authoritarianism, I’ve changed my own stance. After a lot of thought, I’ve decided that Trump, for all his flaws, represents the best tool we have at the moment to fight back against the forces that are trying to strip away our freedoms. And it’s because I’ve done the work to think this through that I’m told I’ve joined a cult.
But what kind of society are we, if we can’t change our minds? If we can’t think critically, reassess, and arrive at different conclusions based on new information or reflection? The ability to revise your beliefs is what separates independent thinkers from ideological slaves. If you can’t question your own side, or if you’re unwilling to reconsider, then are you really thinking at all?
The left has turned away from this kind of intellectual honesty. It’s now a world of in-group loyalty, where stepping outside the lines marks you as a heretic. That’s not diversity—that’s ideological purity, masquerading as progress.
What we need now is a commitment to pragmatism and intellectual honesty. The battle for liberty isn’t going to be won by waiting for perfect candidates to come along, or by aligning ourselves with parties that say all the right things while systematically stripping away our freedoms. It’s going to be won by those who are willing to stand up and say, “No, I’m not going to conform just because it’s easier.”
This moment calls for a reckoning. The erosion of free speech, the silencing of dissent, and the obsessive push for equity over individual freedom aren’t just philosophical debates—they are the core issues that will define the future of our society. And in this fight, we don’t need perfect tools. We need effective ones.
If that means supporting someone like Donald Trump, a flawed figure but one who stands against the authoritarianism that’s crept into our daily lives, then so be it. The alternative is far worse—a future where free thought, free speech, and personal liberty are relics of the past, traded away for the comfort of tribal loyalty and the illusion of safety.
So here’s the real question: Do we want to be a society of thinkers, willing to question, debate, and reconsider? Or do we want to be a society of followers, rigid in our beliefs, terrified of stepping out of line?
The answer will determine not just the next election but the future of liberty itself.
