Why The Modern Left is The Enemy of Reality

Recommends - The Persistence of the Ideological Lie: The Totalitarian Impulse Then and Now, Daniel J. Mahoney

That the “ideological” project to replace the only human condition we know with a utopian “Second Reality” oblivious to — indeed at war with — the deepest wellsprings of human nature and God’s creation has taken on renewed virulence in the late modern world, just thirty-five years after the glorious anti-totalitarian revolutions of 1989.

The Persistence of the Ideological Lie: The Totalitarian Impulse Then and Now, Daniel J. Mahoney

Modern political discourse is many things, but a commonality is each side believes the other to be crazy. That’s a given. Political disagreements have always occurred, and past discourse wasn’t as civil as people envision, yet the internet has made politics far more divisive by fueling the innate impulse of tribalism. The Left, whether legacy media, institutions such as hospitals or schools, or individuals, wears its politics on its sleeve to signal a self-believed and self-appointed moral rectitude while claiming it isn’t politics but rather that it’s being a good person. But they posture their beliefs, perhaps more so, to display loyalty because, as Daniel J. Mahoney succinctly states in his latest work, “Progressive Ideology requires absolute fealty to the cause.” The Right, on the whole, is less keen on performative public displays given elements of the right-leaning nature, and those who do display it display it more along the vibes of exasperated 1980s punk rockers going against the approved grains of institutions since Progressive ideology crowded itself into every corner of life from Catholic leaders, local coffee shops, movies, hospital patient forms, and on and on the list goes.

So while it’s not new that the other side thinks the other is crazy, here is a reality of one side:

• Can’t define what a woman is

• Believes sex isn’t determined at birth but is an identity picked by the individual and the individual can choose from over 74 choices of genders or from an infinite spectrum

• Has infiltrated institutions best exemplified by the Language Games

• That America’s founding was purely racist, and that the slaves in America freed themselves from slavery

• That the Revolutionary War was fought to keep slavery

• That the laws of this country were set up to favor wealthy white men

• That there is no true good or bad and that it’s relative and subjective

• That human rights should define laws and anything pertaining to natural law must be supplanted by these rights

• That a school curriculum including LGBTQIA curricula, 1619 Project and or Southern Poverty Law Center History Curricula, Marxism good capitalism bad curricula, and teachers walking out on classes to protest ICE is not at all political or politics, and saying anything otherwise is political

• That equity can be attained in society without consequence and disparities in outcome reveal systemic issues such as racism, misogyny, privilege, so on and so forth.

• That 2+2=5

This side does live in a Second Reality, and this side demands uniformity. Not everyone on the Left holds those convictions, but if put on national television, 99% would almost certainly parrot them for fear of being canceled and outcast. I’ve been told that the other side thinks that I’m crazy, that my side lives in a Second Reality, but I and others on the Right can tell you what a woman is; I can tell you that the Revolutionary War was not fought to keep slavery, and, while no math whiz, I can take two apples and know that if I add two more apples I would then have four apples.

The ideological conviction of the Left poses profound concerns for our country. And Daniel J. Mahoney’s The Persistence of the Ideological Lie: The Totalitarian Impulse Then and Now is a work of penetrating cultural analysis and penetrating political philosophy. The work articulates the philosophy and nature of Progressive Ideology, the influences, why it’s a conviction for those with that worldview, and the totalitarian consequences of that worldview.

Quick Background Mahoney

Daniel J. Mahoney is a conservative intellectual, has published multiple books, and is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute and a senior writer at Law and Liberty. His writings make frequent appearances in The Claremont Review of Books and The New Criterion. His specialty is political philosophy, and the politics, philosophy, and art of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. His mastery is his ability to analyze the background of political worldviews, categorize without generalizations, and then unveil the arguments, positions, and influence of these worldviews. He does this whether it’s the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln or the racist concepts of Nikole Hannah-Jones of the 1619 project. He’s heady; he introduces topics requiring a look-up and consideration, but spending time with him sharpens perspective. His observations are astute, thought-provoking, and pragmatic.

The Persistence of the Ideological Lie guides the reader through epistemological analysis of ideology, how it’s playing out today, the tools and concepts used to force this ideology onto individuals, and the various defenses that warn or nobly fight against this ideological and totalitarian wave.

The Enemy of Reality

We live in an age of enforced uniformity, prosecuted in the name of preserving “our democracy” and keeping “disinformation” and “Far Right” lies at bay. 

The relativists, the postmodernists, the Leftists, the boomer Liberal aunt who protested at No Kings, have won institutions. It’s difficult to tell whether elected Democrats or an institution like the New York Times is obeying or commanding constituents—a Hobbesian feature of the Left. Who commands whom and who obeys whom, but one thing is for certain, the moralizing cause must be adhered to and followed by all because the grand goal is uniformity. Mahoney details what comprises and what’s behind those Instagram stories sharing memes telling us that —almost always a white liberal woman—Trump voters should have apologized before but can apologize now for whatever reason is going on in the world. Or in more recent events, how journalists demanded apologies from players on the United States Hockey team for talking to Donald Trump, demanding the playings to apologize for saying they were proud to be Americans after the win, and to apologize and reflect for laughing at a natural, good-natured girls-versus-boys joke Trump made. The latter here is a result of what Mahoney labels the “information oligarchy.” That one side, Liberals, which now run the majority of mainstream media and academia and so on, have certain narratives, certain information, which they deem morally pure and right. Even though much of it is baloney and ludicrous, Leftists demand that everyone must fall in line with these narratives.

The Left has a preferred name for this: those who resist the pressure of intellectual conformity, of stifling political correctness, are “enemies of democracy.” 

Today, at a more local and personal level, if a parent questions the curriculum, particularly something like the 1619 Project curriculums in schools, those parents are cast as political, racist, backwards, and stupid. Those parents are not falling in line. The most common example of this demanded uniformity is seen with the phenomenon of Trump Derangement Syndrome, aka TDS. Mahoney does a remarkable job of giving oomph to TDS, a term lobbied around by many but often without the philosophical depth Mahoney provides. Mahoney expands that behind TDS we find the Enemy of Reality. The Enemy of Reality has a distinct background of Marx, Robespierre, critical theorists, and so on—the Enemy of Reality demands that you buy narratives and lies wholesale and any criticism of it means you’re an enemy of democracy. For instance, for the majority of modern liberals, politicians to your neighbor, if Trump is for anything they are reflexively against it, whatever it is. They, in fact, become unglued. One can peruse social media and see someone in an unglued rage saying if any of their followers voted for Trump then to unfollow them immediately (this is also done by the person to display fealty to the Progressive cause). Or one can look at former “conservative” writers like Bill Kristol or David French. If Trump takes a position, French and Kristol immediately take the opposite position, even if they made a career of defending that position for decades, they’re now hardline against it. One not need look further than Kristol’s The Bulwark which is built on a fanatical mission to express Trump Derangement Syndrome. Regardless whether it’s your neighbor or Ilhan Omar, Trump Derangement Syndrome has played out by allowing outright lies of Trump to be expressed as truths with total impunity, such as Trump is a pedophile, Russian Collusion, or less so Trump, that America is the most racist country in the world.

If one zooms out, TDS represents a greater concern:

A moment of reflection suggests that a precondition for being politically correct today is to parrot one untruth after another, while immediately and often cruelly castigating those who refuse to deny their rational judgment and moral good sense. Political correctness can justly be called systematic and coercive mendacity at work. Whatever it is, it is hardly “scientific” or self-evident. 

A factor of this Enemy of Reality is our own reflectiveness. The West has a feature of reflectiveness, a feature of Aristotle’s Reflective Choice and Christianity’s concept of free will.¹ Yet as is natural for certain dispositions, especially those who reject Judeo-Christian worldviews, that reflectiveness morphed past guilt for past mistakes and into pure nihilism and self-loathing.

Today, what comes first is Western self-loathing, the obscene conviction that the Western world, and it alone, is the source of colonialism, slavery, racism, injustice, totalitarianism, and economic exploitation.

Mahoney analyzes the infamous but widely accepted as truth inside institutions: Postcolonial Ideology. As quoted above, the postmodernist, or, in reality, the Marxist position has been digested into the masses as ideological clichés. For instance, countries in Africa are failing because of American imperialism or colonialism, not because of their instability, culture, and corruptness. All that’s put forth from these clichés is how awful America is on a global scale. It’s repeated ad nauseam and taken as fact. Another example, that Cuba’s issues are a result of American embargo, as Mahoney points out, and not its communist government. Most ignore that before Castro, in 1959, Cuba was the fourth most prosperous country in the Americas and enjoyed a thriving middle class.²

The Background of The Enemy: The Influences, The Voices, Where Did it Come From 

How and why did the Progressive posture come to wield such force and influence in our world? How did it become the worldview of such a large population? And why does it hold such a grip over institutions, even institutions at its core opposed to it such as Christian institutions?

Common answers to this are steeped in recency bias. Most look to the Covid shutdowns of 2020 and the summer BLM riots. Nearly overnight companies, people, and so on suddenly and intensely expressed the views of Progressive Ideology. What was two years prior never considered a “right” such as trans rights was now a “right” required to save democracy and to end the genocide against trans people. Just as it was believed that cops were killing thousands of blacks each year, a lie still postulated with impunity.

But it’s not recent; it goes back a long way. 2020 put woke despotism into the spotlight, but it was not an overnight success as Mahoney carefully details. One such step in woke despotism becoming mainstream resulted from constant wins with language, what’s also called The Language Game by Mahoney, and others such as David Mamet. This is also known as political correctness. A simple history: consider the journey to “the unhoused.” What was once vagrant, bum, and hobo became judgmental and triggering to some. It then became homeless, and then homeless became triggering and now it is “unhoused.” The “unhoused” are claimed to be victims of capitalism and some are suffering a mental health crisis due to “global warming.” (A cliche taken as fact by many living in the Denver area).

A clear example of the Language Game which comprises both Mahoney’s Enemy of Reality and a Culture of Repudiation are the forms now standard at hospitals. Where it’s no longer “man or woman” but chosen identity and beyond. For example, at a pediatrics office in Denver, here are the forms for a newborn provided by the massive company Athena:

Language Game in action

That form is for newborns and up to two years old. Note how no other option exists; you must adhere to it and if you deny it or at least reasonably want a basic “male/female” form it means you’re being political and, likely, “an enemy of democracy.” The goal of the language game is to have everyone fall into line.

The fevered politics of purity and perfection are in every respect an enemy of the good, of mutual respect, and of shared liberty under the rule of law. If we don’t recognize this elementary truth, and soon, we shall surely lose our civilizational soul and perhaps our freedoms, too.

Mahoney argues that we must reject wholesale, in our daily lives and on a bigger scale, the Language Games and Culture of Repudiation which have permeated institutions, and our daily lives; he argues that we must create a parallel polis which is something those inside the Soviet Union did to work towards liberty. A great example of this, as Mahoney argues, is the Barney Initiative by Hillsdale College. It’s a charter school featuring a classical curriculum. One could argue that TPUSA tried this at the Super Bowl halftime, the debate whether it was worth it or not could go on for days, but it is still an attempt, and an admirable one. We see more and more parents doing homeschooling, we see people flocking to red states, we see a rise in the interest in traditional Catholicism among young men. If some of these catch on like how the Barney Initiative has (and Christian Classical Education), then it gives life to counter the politics of purity and perfection of the Left.

The parallel polis fights:

Ideological Manichaeism, the temptation of ideologues and revolutionaries everywhere to localize evil and see its embodiment in suspect groups, whose elimination (or even “cancellation”) will lead the world forward to revolutionary bliss. We witnessed this mechanism at work in the totalitarian regimes and ideologies that gave rise to death camps, gulags, and killing fields. We see the same impulse at work in the coercive virtue signaling that is the specialty of the woke.

Two common claims stemming from the fear that we’re totally lost today, especially from right-leaning people, are that we’re either like German culture post World War I which led to the Third Reich or we’re like the degenerate periods of the Roman Empire. Historical ignorance and a lack of perspective inform both claims; our modern day rhymes more with the ideologues of the French Revolution from 1789–1793, particularly the fanaticism of Maximilien Robespierre. We see the same demands of Progressive purity, fealty to the Progressive posture, and the same terror towards those who disobey. One need not look further than the riots against ICE along with the mayors and governors pushing neo-Confederacy policies to diminish ICE and resist the Trump administration, those celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk, or the nurses who go on TikTok and push for poisoning or giving terrible care to MAGA supporters.

Dostoyevski/Burke Warnings and Pathways Out

This moralistic fanaticism, this moral inversion, is, as Mahoney calls it, toxic nihilism. The ideal of communism was proven bust by the Soviet Union. And that totalitarian state, that communist ideal, was toppled in 1989 to the jubilation of millions. But the lessons of that regime, the lessons we were supposed to carry forward are all but forgotten by many. The claim goes, real socialism was never tried. And that in the experiment of real socialism, people still see the ideal. That somehow from the failed experiment of it the ideal still exists, and as Pierre Manent argues, how are we to know what life is like if everyone conforms to this ideal, which was tried before?

And we see this moral fanaticism, this moral inversion, this toxic nihilism everywhere. It’s in school boards, it’s in local HOAs, it’s inescapable in certain areas, particularly blue states. Is there a way out?

Mahoney argues that there is. His answers come from the warnings of Edmund Burke and from Fyodor Dostoyevski. From Burke, looking at the fanaticism of our modern day, and rejecting it wholesale when we encounter it. Rejection not in the manner of the “Right Retreat” but in the manner of courage and moderation. Courage here could be as simple as refusing to fill out nonsensical forms to speaking up at school boards. Moderation is understanding that a parallel polis is required not an outright revolution. Build and fan the flames of those working to bring light. With Dostoyevski, it’s finding the moral compass again, it’s finding the moral order of Judeo-Christian values, particularly Christian with Dostoyevski, and to have that guide us. That our way out is at the individual level and at the metaphysical level, and Mahoney makes a compelling case.

The work is penetrating, concerning, and heady. Penetrating in the manner of how Mahoney can summarize with exhaustive depth. You get the whole picture and the steps forward. The heady element: Mahoney is an intellectual, he’s well-read, and his choice of words, his dropping of various philosophers and concepts, will require most readers to look things up. Which makes for good, deliberate reading if you’re willing to engage with the work—which is worth engaging.

A Grounding of Worldview

This work resonated with me. 2020 was a cornerstone year for me metaphysically. I came home to values and it hit fast and hard. Since then, I’ve looked around the corners of my worldviews, opinions, convictions, and spirituality. I wanted answers, and the search opened up a lot to me, got me in front of various thinkers and concepts, and gave me further convictions. This work contributed to my worldview, contributed to my political nature, contributed to a return home to my Catholic faith.

But the bigger resonation is various personal experiences affected by the concepts Mahoney analyzes, affected by toxic nihilism, affected by a culture of repudiation, affected by displays of Progressive moral rectitude, and affected by those who demanded intellectual conformity to the Progressive posture. For instance, when my wife and I began dating in 2022, my wearing my conservatism on my sleeve cost her her social circles. She was on a journey herself to her conservative and Catholic values but kept it to herself. Whereas her friends looked up my social media, and many told her, quite explicitly, how awful I was, and that she needed to leave me immediately because I supported Trump. They told her, without having met me, that I was racist, sexist, physically abusive, would oppress her creativity, and a downright awful human being. A psychiatrist in this group demanded she leave me, saying women must stay away from Republicans, Conservatives, as we’re toxic, violent, racist, and low IQ. Her staying with me, they one by one kicked her out of the social circle. One of these friends, recently, stood in line at a coffee shop for over three hours to get a “fuck ICE” cappuccino.

I’ve gotten nasty looks from eavesdroppers when I mentioned I voted for Trump or something conservative—a group of women in one place got up and left and went to another table, huffing and puffing along the way. Progressivism marinates Denver. Go into a local coffee shop and one is confronted instantly with the ideological fanaticism and its rules.

Mahoney gave me further understanding on why this is, and further depth to my courage and conviction to reject it wholesale when I encounter it. And how to reject it from a place of depth, not reflexiveness. Mahoney also helped me understand the disposition and the nature of the women who ejected my wife from their social circles, and of the skinny-armed men still donning a mask in 2026 while driving their cars.

Who Would Like It

Mahoney is heady. A dictionary and some lookups on Grok to understand various elements will be necessary for most readers. But he’s worth reading, he’s worth spending time with. He also will send curious readers down rabbit holes of books to read; I added a few to my Amazon lists.

Man has a political nature. I argue that it’s worth it for anyone to spend time to grasp their worldview and why they hold the positions, form the opinions, and have connections with certain people and ideas. That’s why Mahoney is a must-read for serious thinkers on the Right. He takes the red meat and dissects it to the grass the cow grazed on and in the method it was led to graze by the rancher and why the rancher does what he does. He also does this on the other side; he likely has read more of the basis of the worldview of Progressives and Democrats than the Democrats in Congress and Senate combined. Which gifts Mahoney, a man of intellectual gifts, penetrating insight and gifts readers an excellent analysis of either side. Which makes him worth the time. The book is short, but spending time with it, looking up what you don’t know, rereading a few passages here and there, makes him worth it.

1. Pierre Manent, Natural Law and Human Rights: Toward a Practical Recovery of Human Reason (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press) 55.

2. Daniel J. Mahoney, The Persistence of the Ideological Lie: The Totalitarian Impulse Then and Now (New York - London: Encounter Books)