When I watched the kids on college campuses take to the streets chanting “Hamas Hamas we love you, we support your rockets too,” you know what I saw? The rise of left-wing authoritarianism. When I watched protesters tell Jews to “go back to Poland,” you know what I saw? The rise of left-wing authoritarianism. When I watched elders take over the campuses and encourage students to completely shut down dissent and disengage from anybody who has an opposing viewpoint, you know what I saw? The rise of left-wing authoritarianism. When I watched the presidents of the most elite academic institutions in America umm and arr over whether students can call for the genocide of Jews and then respond that it “depends on the context,” you know what I saw? The rise of left-wing authoritarianism. When I witnessed professors, teachers, congresspeople, academics, pundits, social commentators, and social media influencers spread jihadist ideologies that directly harmed minority communities here in the U.S. with total impunity, you know what I saw? The rise of left-wing authoritarianism. When I watched these ideologies being taught to impressionable students from from high school to grad school, you know what I saw? The rise of left-wing authoritarianism. When I watched (and experienced) brutal witch hunts and doxxing campaigns against those of us who condemned jihadists for the conflict they’ve brought upon the Levant, you know what I saw? The rise of left-wing authoritarianism. For those who say that the results of this election are because America chose to endorse fascism, you missed the exact equal and opposite to fascism we warned you was rising right under your noses. Many of us have been warning for years that, though we fully understand the danger of fascism on the right, the left have remained totally intransigent about the blatant and untenable rise of authoritarianism on the left. No, we are not the ones who are “racist, homophobic, and misogynist,” many of us belong to these classes, but it is precisely this lazy accusation lodged at anyone with legitimate concerns within & beyond these issues that reveals the rigid dogmatism of leftist ideology. We are anti all of those things—and have proved it in solidarity over decades—it’s precisely because of being opposed to discrimination that we remained vigilant about the rise of it on the left that served as the threat to the very ideals you stand for, but ignored. We aren’t the ones that “don’t care about minorities,” we are the ones that care about all minorities, and watched the mask fall off as the same leftists with “humanity” in their bios suddenly went quiet in the face of bigotry against minorities they had dehumanized, or worse, became the leading proponents of harm against. The problem with the left is that it has become so righteous under the banner of populism that it is beyond reproach, and because it’s beyond reproach, it has become incapable of self-reflection, adjustment, curiosity, and growth, and because it is incapable of these things, it simply cannot course correct. It’s easy to say “I’m against hate” when it’s coming from the opposite side, but we aren’t too stupid to miss the tumbleweed and crickets when it comes from within. So the question is, does the left want to continue being righteous, or does it want to come off its high horse and open its eyes at last? Because for those of us that were betrayed by the left, it is our very desire to actually mean it when we talk about anti-hate, anti-discrimination, pro-democracy, pro-human rights and apply it across the board that shows that it isn’t us who failed the left, but the left who failed us.