If you watched Bill O’Reilly’s show many years ago, you probably remember Margeret Hoover, great-granddaughter to President Herbert Hoover. On the Fox News show, she used to host a mix of lighthearted and analytical segments. Since then, she’s moved on to PBS, hosting an interview show called Firing Line.
Recently, Hoover sat down with Ai Weiwei, a Chinese artist and political activist who serves as an expert on authoritarianism, specifically dealing with Mao’s cultural revolution. During their exchange, the PBS host brings up a mention in Weiwei’s book of Donald Trump, but while Hoover was clearly setting up a lead-in for some good old Trump-bashing, she and her producers ended up with an answer they didn’t want.
PBS featured an expert in authoritative regimes, to attack Trump.
His insight was different.
Keep an eye out🎥
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) November 15, 2021
Hoover presses Weiwei to call Trump an authoritarian, yet the activist turns the conversation around, noting that you can not be an “authoritarian” on your own. That’s certainly true. The former president was not an “authoritarian” simply by virtue of the fact that he sometimes said things liberals don’t like. Instead, authoritarianism involves tangible acts and is more serious. In hindsight, Joe Biden, for example, is clearly far more authoritarian than Trump as evidenced by the current president’s continued propagation of clearly unconstitutional actions. Twitter does not automatically make someone dictatorial.
But it was what Weiwei said next that likely had Hoover’s producers putting their faces into their palms. The United States was, he claimed, his next claim. IsThe authoritarian moment is not the one the left thinks. Instead, he brings up the fact that people unifying around certain “political correctness” denotes a “dangerous” trend.
Here’s the thing. Those on the left desperately want everything they oppose to be “authoritarian.” That’s why you get constant, irrational claims about their need to “save democracy.” Yet the left’s attempts to erase history and suppress “improper” speech are actually the hallmarks of authoritarianism as evidenced by Mao’s cultural revolution, something Weiwei is very familiar with.
He understands that a leader popping off on Twitter doesn’t bring about tyranny. Instead, what is responsible for tyranny in the first place is a social shift that threatens financial ruin and violence while tearing down the past. It is not the right that wants to destroy statues of Thomas Jefferson and put in place “hate speech” laws. Instead, it is the left that forces people from their jobs for wrong-think while insisting that it’s acceptable to “punch” nazis. And surprise, everyone they don’t like is a nazi.
In the end, I’m sure Weiwei’s overall views aren’t in line with traditional American conservatism. I’m not claiming anything of the sort. But as someone who knows authoritarianism when he sees it given his experiences with the communists in China, he’s a good messenger for what truly fosters it. A reality check could be helpful for many Americans on this topic.
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