Thousands of liberals will be deported from the United States, no matter what they are studying or what projects they have in progress at work. No matter how much money and effort they sacrificed in order to study or work in America. Many of them are not even hardened activists, but simply young people pleased to have gained entry into America’s prestigious institutions. They posted a status on social media, thinking this was precisely what was expected of them. A mistake.
Others are being fired from their jobs, even from comfortable positions at companies like Microsoft. And as is so often the case, it is the lower-ranked employees who suffer most—the ones with no patrons, no friends in high places, and no prospects for another position. Television programs are being canceled, and liberal nonprofits are coming under heavy pressure. Many will have to lay off staff or shut down entirely.
Until now, the path to the top seemed to require ever greater zeal and fanaticism. The more fanatical you were, the safer your standing. Today, the opposite is true: the most fanatical are the first to be cast out. And no one can exclude the possibility that past statements—every tweet, every careless post—will be scrutinized as well.
New organizations like the Charlie Kirk Data Foundation have emerged, monitoring social media and reporting authors of unacceptable speech—precisely the way liberal activist groups once operated.
In short, liberals are now tasting their own medicine. Yet their minds seem incapable of grasping the obvious: what is happening to them now is exactly what they did to others. Nor, it must be said, are conservatives much more perceptive—few seem able to recognize that both sides are engaging in the same tactics.
What is even more striking is how quickly the conservative promise of a free and open environment has evaporated. It was always an illusion. It could never have worked, for the matter at hand is not ideology but power. Those who hold more power have no incentive to allow weaker opponents the freedom to speak. That is the whole truth. Freedom is always, and necessarily, the child of a balance of power—not the child of some lofty belief in liberty. The belief comes later, and only if the balance forces it.
In the end, the Trump-era revolutionaries have no choice. Either they prove that they hold power and know how to use it, or they will lose it. The liberal establishment, needlessly and recklessly, has maneuvered them into a position it should never have wished for. In a way, it is reminiscent of the war in Ukraine: each side pushed further than was wise, only to find itself locked in a battle it could not escape.