Article/Archive
A couple of days after the election, a closeted Republican friend sent me a compendium of messages and social-media posts he had gathered from some of his left-of-center colleagues. They were utterly wild.
One insisted that while all of us needed space to “grieve,” we had only a few months to prepare for “solidly authoritarian rule.” Another was looking for open university positions overseas in her specialty, since she couldn’t come to terms with living in a country “that hates so many of us,” where “half of us are denied the highest leadership position purely because of our gender.”
A Massachusetts resident asserted that “my rights as a woman are about to be compromised.” A man sarcastically congratulated his fellow Americans for voting for four more years of “fascist ideology,” “blatant misogyny and racism,” “toxic masculinity” and “spiritual bankruptcy.” A woman wrote late on election eve that while she didn’t exactly want to die, “it’s just that I don’t care if I don’t wake up” on Nov. 6.
Nonleftists wonder if fears such as these are sincerely held or merely performative. After all, while one could have plenty of reasonable doubts about a second Trump administration, the fear that we are in for a resurgence of fascist authoritarianism, that America voted against Kamala Harris because it couldn’t countenance a female president rather than due to her singular weaknesses as a candidate, and that Massachusetts is going to restrict abortion aren’t among them.
Yet as unrealistic as these fears are, they seem to reflect the sincere beliefs of at least some otherwise reasonable people. How can that be?
Right-leaning commentators regularly zero in on one key reason: the echo chamber of the media and the Democratic Party. The Harris campaign parlayed Donald Trump’s quips about being “a dictator on day one”—i.e., issuing lots of executive orders, as other new presidents have also done—into alarms about the return of fascism. Mainstream journalists insisted that Mr. Trump must have intended to echo a pro-Nazi gathering in 1939 when he chose Madison Square Garden, site of the 1992 Democratic National Convention, for a rally. Oprah Winfrey suggested that if Americans didn’t elect Kamala Harris president, they may lose the right to vote.
But there is another reason, one that conservatives are far less likely to mention, since it implicates them. One thing the election results proved beyond a doubt is that Americans with conservative views are everywhere—in every city, every state and every demographic group, far more than we knew. But the shock of the election results demonstrated how many Americans are willing to vote their values at the ballot box even as they remain unwilling to explain that vote even to a pollster, much less to a friend. Particularly inside elite government, business and academic enclaves, where the darkest fears about Mr. Trump have been incubated, Americans with right-of-center views tend to keep those views to themselves.
It’s easy enough to understand why. In recent decades, and particularly since 2020, the numerous examples of careers ended by touching one of our nation’s constantly moving political tripwires have led many to believe they need to choose between sincerity and friendships, between advancing their values and supporting their family, between an opinion and a job.
The electric fence of cancel culture creates a tendency toward self-censorship among the (real or perceived) minority, which leads those who belong to the dominant culture to assume that no reasonable person holds views different from their own. After all (so they think), they don’t know anyone who does.
All this came to mind when I read those hysterical social-media messages. I think of how much these genuinely frightened friends and colleagues could benefit from knowing that there are people they like, people they trust, who have a different take on things, who might be able to reassure their friends and neighbors that their fears are unrealistic and exaggerated—that the country will still exist in four years and it will still be the United States of America.
For those who are shy about dissenting, I understand the risk you would assume by speaking, even to close friends from whom you’ve hidden your true beliefs. But I believe you should do it anyway. I think that cancel culture is receding and that you’ll find the water warmer than you expect, but I can’t guarantee that. What I know for sure is that for as long as America remains a self-censoring society, it will also remain an extreme, polarized and deeply unhealthy one. All of us have a part to play in repairing it.
A couple of days after the election, a closeted Republican friend sent me a compendium of messages and social-media posts he had gathered from some of his left-of-center colleagues. They were utterly wild.
One insisted that while all of us needed space to “grieve,” we had only a few months to prepare for “solidly authoritarian rule.” Another was looking for open university positions overseas in her specialty, since she couldn’t come to terms with living in a country “that hates so many of us,” where “half of us are denied the highest leadership position purely because of our gender.”
A Massachusetts resident asserted that “my rights as a woman are about to be compromised.” A man sarcastically congratulated his fellow Americans for voting for four more years of “fascist ideology,” “blatant misogyny and racism,” “toxic masculinity” and “spiritual bankruptcy.” A woman wrote late on election eve that while she didn’t exactly want to die, “it’s just that I don’t care if I don’t wake up” on Nov. 6.
Nonleftists wonder if fears such as these are sincerely held or merely performative. After all, while one could have plenty of reasonable doubts about a second Trump administration, the fear that we are in for a resurgence of fascist authoritarianism, that America voted against Kamala Harris because it couldn’t countenance a female president rather than due to her singular weaknesses as a candidate, and that Massachusetts is going to restrict abortion aren’t among them.
Yet as unrealistic as these fears are, they seem to reflect the sincere beliefs of at least some otherwise reasonable people. How can that be?
Right-leaning commentators regularly zero in on one key reason: the echo chamber of the media and the Democratic Party. The Harris campaign parlayed Donald Trump’s quips about being “a dictator on day one”—i.e., issuing lots of executive orders, as other new presidents have also done—into alarms about the return of fascism. Mainstream journalists insisted that Mr. Trump must have intended to echo a pro-Nazi gathering in 1939 when he chose Madison Square Garden, site of the 1992 Democratic National Convention, for a rally. Oprah Winfrey suggested that if Americans didn’t elect Kamala Harris president, they may lose the right to vote.
But there is another reason, one that conservatives are far less likely to mention, since it implicates them. One thing the election results proved beyond a doubt is that Americans with conservative views are everywhere—in every city, every state and every demographic group, far more than we knew. But the shock of the election results demonstrated how many Americans are willing to vote their values at the ballot box even as they remain unwilling to explain that vote even to a pollster, much less to a friend. Particularly inside elite government, business and academic enclaves, where the darkest fears about Mr. Trump have been incubated, Americans with right-of-center views tend to keep those views to themselves.
It’s easy enough to understand why. In recent decades, and particularly since 2020, the numerous examples of careers ended by touching one of our nation’s constantly moving political tripwires have led many to believe they need to choose between sincerity and friendships, between advancing their values and supporting their family, between an opinion and a job.
The electric fence of cancel culture creates a tendency toward self-censorship among the (real or perceived) minority, which leads those who belong to the dominant culture to assume that no reasonable person holds views different from their own. After all (so they think), they don’t know anyone who does.
All this came to mind when I read those hysterical social-media messages. I think of how much these genuinely frightened friends and colleagues could benefit from knowing that there are people they like, people they trust, who have a different take on things, who might be able to reassure their friends and neighbors that their fears are unrealistic and exaggerated—that the country will still exist in four years and it will still be the United States of America.
For those who are shy about dissenting, I understand the risk you would assume by speaking, even to close friends from whom you’ve hidden your true beliefs. But I believe you should do it anyway. I think that cancel culture is receding and that you’ll find the water warmer than you expect, but I can’t guarantee that. What I know for sure is that for as long as America remains a self-censoring society, it will also remain an extreme, polarized and deeply unhealthy one. All of us have a part to play in repairing it.
