There are fanatics on the far-right of American politics. But there are also fanatics on the far-left.
Nathan Robinson demonstrated as much Monday when he optimistically warned that revolution is coming to America.
Writing in the Guardian, Robinson explains that America is now imprisoned by a “totalitarian” class of “a few dozen rich white men” in the Senate and on the Supreme Court, who disenfranchise the majority of Americans. Robinson says these men are destined for destruction. “History’s bloody revolutions show us what happens when this gap becomes too large, and the government entirely ceases to effectively represent the governed.” Robinson excitedly continues, “Conservatives will continue to push unpopular policies on an unwilling United States. But it’s unclear how long people will accept having decisions made for them by a few dozen rich white men.”
He might be writing in a high-brow publication, but there isn’t much difference between what Robinson wants and what far-right white supremacists want: the violent annihilation of America as it is. Yes, Robinson, a Harvard University doctoral student and the editor of Current Affairs, is more articulate than the other side’s extremists. But his arguments, like all arguments for revolution against a fundamentally just and appropriately malleable form of government, are no more moral.
When Robinson discusses “bloody revolution,” he means specifically the destruction of the Constitution. The so-called rich white men hold power by the constitutional action of the electorate, the Senate, and past presidents. To remove their power requires the annihilation of our constitutional democracy.
In short, this is authoritarian fanaticism veiled as a liberation struggle. And it is a pathway to bloody misery.
Unless bound to constitutional and democratic will, revolutions mean either unending power struggles that bring evermore bodies, or else unjust totalitarian government. But perhaps Robinson doesn’t care about this. Perhaps, as with European traditions of far-left mythology, Robinson believes that tyranny and violence are worth giving up the free and prosperous country we have now.
For the far-left, as for the far-right, ideological absolutism matters more than human lives. History tells us as much. In late 18th-century France, the absence of a constitution defended by shared political will fostered an era of terrors and the rise of an autocrat who sparked continental war. In early 20th-century Russia, a revolution of impoverished citizens was stolen by fanatics who birthed Soviet tyranny. In late 20th-century Iran, a multisectarian revolution was usurped by Islamist extremists who retain power to this day.
The American revolution that Robinson so detests? It is the exceptional example — the revolution that actually worked because its combatants and statesmen willingly bound themselves to the strictures of enduring constitutional ideals.
So if Robinson’s revolution ever comes, we must defend the Constitution with all our might.
