Thread by @Doc_0

The flexibility of its alleged principles - i.e. sexual harassment is the worst of sins but Clinton, Cuomo, etc. get free passes - is a vital feature of totalitarianism. It's about power, not principle. Totalitarian elites are never held to their own ostensible standards.

Absolute principles, enforced vigorously and without regard to political privilege, tend to limit power. Laws that apply to everyone equally tend to be less oppressive because the elite, their allies, and their favored constituencies don't want to live under them.

As every corner of life is politicized, mobilized, and weaponized under totalitarian ideologies, the elite always reserve free passes and exemptions for themselves and their friends. Exemptions are among the most valuable commodities politicians sell to top financial supporters.

"Believe all women, except those who accuse Democrats" is a perfect statement of totalitarian principle. Due process becomes a privilege reserved for the Party; all others are guilty without trial, based solely on the accusations, even when they're patently absurd.

"Rules for Radicals" taught Saul Alinsky's disciples to use the standards and principles of their enemies as weapons against them.

The corollary lesson they all learned was: Never let your own principles become an obstacle to gaining or keeping power.

Even murderous terrorists can be rehabilitated to become important figures in left-wing academia and politics. Ted Kennedy killed a young women and became a "liberal lion" hero of feminism. Of COURSE sexual harasser governors and presidents have little to fear from "MeToo."

Movements like MeToo function the same way as Xi Jinping's endless crusades against "corruption" in China: they're either created as, or perverted into, political purges on behalf of totalitarian elites. People with good Party credentials don't get destroyed.

This has the important side effect of teaching grievance groups to seek the patronage of the totalitarian Party if they want to be taken seriously. Free passes for the elite reinforce the lesson that nothing happens without the blessing of Party leadership.

The Party decides which groups will be treated by its media as brave speakers of truth to power, noble grassroots crusades for justice and equity... and which will be treated as dangerous lunatics, reactionaries, or domestic terrorists.

Activists who seek the Party's favor MUST relax their standards for Party elite, and their application for patronage should emphasize how their crusade will increase the power and wealth of the central State. Totalitarians demand to be portrayed as the solution to all problems.

That's how we went from contempt for the "censorship" and "narrow-mindedness" of Moral Majority types to left-wing book-burners and Speech Police in a single generation. Conservative moral standards are conducive to individuality and responsibility, not total state power.

Today's far more militant and intolerant left-wing morality, on the other hand, is perfectly compatible with totalitarianism. The New Morality makes people angry, divided, confused, frightened, and atomized. It destroys the families and institutions that nourish independence.

It takes HUGE amounts of compulsive force to make normal people comply with left-wing moral standards. Normal people would laugh at the demands of the Left... if they weren't backed up by threats, boycotts, social media hate swarms, lawsuits, fines, pink slips, and regulations.

The old standards of free expression still kinda-sorta exist - they're reactivated with gusto when attempts are made to "cancel" a powerful lefty or Democrat politician. Vicious racists campaign daily against racism. Watch what happens if you try to burn a left-wing book.

Totalitarianism rests on the bedrock assertion that "it's okay when WE do it." Real power - total, nation-transforming, society-wrecking power - is exempting the elites from rules imposed vigorously against their enemies. True power is the ability to violate principle. /end