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One of the most destructive temptations in politics is the urge to turn disagreement into moralized tribal war. Not argument. Not persuasion. Not the hard, frustrating work of governing a society full of competing interests and imperfect people. War. Friends and enemies. Allies and traitors. The pure and the contaminated. Once that frame takes hold, politics stops being about order, restraint, and judgment. It becomes a loyalty machine. Carl Schmitt gave this instinct its most famous formulation in The Concept of the Political, where he argued that the essence of politics lies in the distinction between public friend and public enemy. He was right to see that real political life can descend to existential conflict. He was wrong to treat that descent as the essence of politics rather than one of the permanent dangers civilized politics is supposed to contain. The friend-enemy distinction is not the foundation of healthy politics. It is the logic of political decay.
The danger is not only that the framework is harsh. Politics can be harsh. The danger is that it installs enmity at the center of public life and pushes everything else to the margins. Institutions, laws, debate, compromise, constitutional limits, due process, even ordinary factual disagreement all become secondary. What matters is identifying the enemy, consolidating the team, and punishing hesitation. That is why this logic travels so easily across ideologies. It can appear in revolutionary Marxism, in Maoist “enemies of the people,” in Islamist loyalty-and-disavowal frameworks, in activist binaries like ally versus bigot or oppressor versus oppressed, and in right-wing scripts about traitors, regime collaborators, and weak conservatives who supposedly enable the left. The vocabulary changes. The mechanism does not. A public enemy is named, and then a moral test is imposed: how fully will you align against him?
“The ratchet always turns one way: toward greater fanaticism, greater purification, greater moral ugliness. Truth is subordinated to solidarity. Principle is subordinated to faction.”
What makes this logic totalitarian is that it abolishes the space for dissent. Once the enemy has been declared, neutrality is no longer allowed. You either join the mobilization or you are suspected of serving the enemy’s cause. Hesitation becomes complicity. Refusal becomes betrayal. Moderation becomes guilt. That is how political movements become purge machines. You can either be anti-racist or you are helping racism. You can either be a trans ally or you are enabling bigotry. You can either fight the deep state, resist the regime, and oppose the left without reservation, or you are a RINO, a coward, a collaborator. This is the structure that matters. Not the tribe wearing it. Once politics is moralized into friend and enemy, the pressure falls hardest not only on official opponents, but on the insufficiently zealous within one’s own camp.
That is why factions organized around “no enemies to the left” or “no enemies to the right” almost always radicalize inward. The outer edge of the movement becomes untouchable because criticizing it risks helping the enemy. So the only safe targets are moderates, doubters, and fellow travelers who fail the loyalty test. The left protects its most extreme activists and attacks liberals who cannot keep up. The right protects its own hardliners and attacks conservatives who still think prudence, constitutional restraint, or factual discipline matter. In both cases, the center is hollowed out first. The ratchet always turns one way: toward greater fanaticism, greater purification, greater moral ugliness. Truth is subordinated to solidarity. Principle is subordinated to faction. Politics ceases to be the art of living together under conditions of disagreement and becomes a permanent sorting mechanism for friends, enemies, and suspects.
A civilized society cannot survive on those terms. That does not mean pretending enemies never exist. They do. Free societies are not obliged to indulge movements openly hostile to liberty, law, and peaceful coexistence. But the achievement of constitutional civilization is precisely that it refuses to make enmity the organizing principle of normal public life. It channels conflict through law, opposition, procedure, restraint, and rights. It leaves room for disagreement without turning every disagreement into proof of treason. That is the line Schmitt blurred and totalitarian movements erase completely. The mistake is not in noticing that politics can become existential. The mistake is in treating that possibility as the deepest truth of politics and then building public life around it. Once you do that, purges are no longer an accident. They are the destination. Friend-enemy politics is not realism. It is the operating system of political decay.
Totalitarianism doesn’t always arrive with jackboots and slogans. Sometimes it comes wrapped in compassion, weaponizing language to divide citizens into moral castes of “the good” and “the guilty.” As James Lindsay warns, every ideology that builds itself on purging an “enemy” eventually devours its own believers. Today’s soft totalitarianism operates not through force, but through narrative warfare—using labels like “Maple MAGA” or “anti-equity” to silence dissent and enforce ideological purity.
The Totalitarian Mindset in Our Midst
The belief in any totalitarian system is that there is some ‘enemy’ that holds back society. Once that enemy is destroyed and purged, society will flourish, or so the cult belief goes.” —James Lindsay
The Endless Enemy
James Lindsay’s observation is not a history lesson it’s a warning. Totalitarian movements always begin with the conviction that society’s ills can be traced to a corrupt class of people who must be identified and eliminated.
The logic is seductively simple: If only the enemy were gone, we could be free. But when the promised harmony never arrives, the search for hidden enemies intensifies. The hunt becomes perpetual, the paranoia self-sustaining. Every failure is blamed on infiltration, every setback on the persistence of the impure.
This cycle of purification is as old as ideology itself, but today it is being revived in softer, subtler ways—through moralized language, social shaming, and bureaucratic enforcement of political conformity.
The New Form: Narrative Warfare
In modern liberal democracies, totalitarianism doesn’t need guns or gulags. It begins with words. The authoritarian project of the 21st century is linguistic—it manufactures enemies through labels, controls discourse through moral accusation, and demands conformity under the banner of compassion.
In Canada and across the West, we see this in the weaponization of language: “Maple MAGA,” “anti-equity,” “white adjacent,” “problematic.” These aren’t analytical categories; they’re *filters of suspicion.* Once the label sticks, a person’s character and arguments no longer matter. They are marked.
This dynamic is a form of narrative warfare—the use of moralized storytelling to delegitimize opponents and consolidate cultural power. It’s the precondition of soft totalitarianism: control the story, and you control reality.
Weaponized Intersectionality: A Framework for Division
One of the key delivery systems for this mentality is **weaponized intersectionality**. Originally coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe overlapping forms of discrimination, the concept has been repurposed into a political sorting mechanism—one that divides society into immutable identity classes of “oppressors” and “oppressed.”
|Tactic |How It Works| Effect on Society |
| Labeling & Name-Calling | Terms like “Maple MAGA,” “far-right,” or “white adjacent” pre-empt debate and morally quarantine dissent. | Delegitimizes citizens instead of arguments; silences conversation. |
| Moral Purity Tests | Demands that allies demonstrate constant ideological conformity (“anti-racist,” “affirming,” “decolonized”). | Creates fear of speaking or questioning; enforces orthodoxy. |
| Institutional Capture | Activist vocabulary embedded in policy, HR, and education under “diversity” and “equity” mandates. | Bureaucratizes ideology; punishes dissent within organizations. |
| Perpetual Enemy-Hunting| “Privilege” and “bias” are re-discovered endlessly; the enemy is never gone, only hiding. | Normalizes suspicion; sustains revolutionary fervor without end. |
Each tactic reinforces the other. Together, they recreate the same cycle Lindsay describes: a social order sustained by perpetual purification.
The enemy is not gone; it is merely “in hiding.”
The Moral Mechanics of Control
Modern totalitarianism thrives on moral certainty rather than state terror. It convinces ordinary citizens that they are participating in justice, not oppression. To question the narrative is to expose oneself as suspect, and so the culture of fear spreads horizontally—through HR departments, social media platforms, and educational institutions.
This is how freedom erodes without a coup or revolution: through social coercion disguised as moral progress.
The power lies not in force, but in the internalization of guilt and fear. People censor themselves before anyone else has to.
What We Can Do About It
1. Recenter Universal Principles
Defend equality before the law, free inquiry, and human dignity—not inherited guilt or group virtue. Anchor civic life in the moral universals that totalitarian ideologies deny.
2. Name the Dynamic
When faced with ideological bullying, describe what’s happening: *“This is an attempt to morally disqualify rather than discuss.”* Naming the tactic exposes the manipulation and halts its momentum.
3. Build Parallel Forums for Open Debate
Create independent media, civic associations, and discussion circles where disagreement is respected. The antidote to coercion is community.
4. Refuse the Language of Division
Reject slurs and invented terms designed to fragment society. Language is not neutral—it’s the primary weapon of soft authoritarianism. Don’t wield theirs.
5. Practice Moral Courage
The first act of resistance is speech. Speak calmly, truthfully, and consistently—even when it’s uncomfortable. Silence is the oxygen of control.
Conclusion: The Old Lie in a New Form
Totalitarianism does not march under the same banners it once did. It arrives softly, wrapped in moral rhetoric and bureaucratic language, persuading good people that they are fighting for justice. But as Lindsay warns, every ideology that builds itself on purging an enemy eventually devours its own believers.
The only true defense is to reclaim our shared humanity—to judge one another by deeds, not descent; by actions, not affiliations. Freedom, as it turns out, depends not on the absence of enemies, but on the courage to refuse the hunt.
—
References
Lindsay, J. (2025, October 9). Why totalitarianism always produces mass murders. [Tweet]. X (Twitter). [https://x.com/ConceptualJames/status/1976724498213667156](https://x.com/ConceptualJames/status/1976724498213667156)
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum.
Orwell, G. (1946). Politics and the English Language.
Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.
Popper, K. (1945). The Open Society and Its Enemies.
Harbour no illusions – trans ideology is violent male ideology.
It is profoundly misogynistic, profoundly anti-democratic, and has no place in a society that values free speech, multiculturalism, and diversity of opinion.
Watch as so called ‘trans-rights defenders’ verbally and physically attack men, women and children. What is their crime?
They believe that men should not be exposing themselves to in a female change room. Female rights, boundaries, and safety must be defended against transactivism and the queer gender ideology behind it, which is essentially patriarchy 2.0.
I need to really hear from the ‘progressives’ that support this sort of thing and their justification for the violence against women and men who dare hold opposing views.
What precipitated this attack on innocent individuals? Why of course one of the most dastardly forces in the world. A woman said “NO” to man. A man who was naked in a female space, but inside his head, his special gender feelings ‘made’ him a woman (see misogynistic gender magic et al).
No folks, woman are adult human females and most definitively not feelings inside a man’s head.
So, the SoCal antifa branch is essentially a Men’s Rights Violent Action squad. As this ‘peaceful’ counter demonstration was planned well before the actual violent event.
These totalitarian assholes somehow believe their cause is just and their methods are noble. See their nobility in action at 6:34 as they swarm and batter a lone woman for the crime of not believing in their fucking gender magic.
More people need to see the violent face of trans activism. This movement is in no way ‘progressive’ nor is it anywhere near the ‘right side of history’. Women are waking up to this blatant attack on their rights and boundaries in society, the progress although encouraging, is incremental.
The time was last week (year) to start speaking out against gender ideology and trans activism as this is where this ‘progressive’ movement is taking us – a path filled with violence against women and those who, in a free society, have the temerity to hold a different opinion.
Did you need a starting point in Canada? Look up We the Females, Cawsbar, The Feminist Current and The Canadian Gender Report.
“The fact of the matter is that there is a little bit of the totalitarian buried somewhere, way down deep, in each and every one of us. It is only the cheerful light of confidence and security which keeps this evil genius down… If confidence and security were to disappear, don’t think that he would not be waiting to take their place. “
-George Kennan (1947).
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