It’s Called “Leftism” — but Is It Actually Something Far Darker Than Politics?

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,” early-20th-century occultist Aleister Crowley infamously said. He was dubbed “the wickedest man in the world” at the time, but he had much competition. Communist Vladimir Lenin was an example, popularizing the formula “Who Whom?” This meant that politics is all about which class dominates which. Policies, treaties, and slogans were mere tactics inside that war; compromises were pauses, not principle or peace.

The New Criterion called this “Leninthink” in 2019. Others would say it’s something far more fundamental: pure evil. Whatever you label it, one thing is certain.

It lives on — and its ideological descendants are metastasizing like a cancer in our midst.

The signs are all around us in neon, and many are noting them in various ways. The New York Post, for instance, lamented, “The no-standards left is run by scoundrels, fraudsters and morons now.” Of course, “no standards” is actually one standard: “Do what thou wilt.”

Degraded Moral Compasses

Writing last week, the Post’s Isaac Schorr made his case, weaving together a series of examples of leftist amorality.

First up is a private arbitrator’s decision that “journalist” Karen Attiah must be rehired by The Washington Post. Attiah had been fired for, first, disgorging what some describe as bigoted, anti-white-male sentiments. There were other transgressions, too — such as lying about late conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

“Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously,” she quoted Kirk as saying. “You have to go steal a white person’s slot.”

In reality, Kirk stated the above about four specific black women, whom he named — not about black women generally. Mischaracterizing it as the latter is gross journalistic malpractice.

But it isn’t just that this didn’t matter to the arbitrator. As Schorr relates, referencing her rehiring:

Jim Acosta called it “Great news!”; George Conway congratulated her; Peter Beinart marveled at her “courage.”

It gets worse, too, though, as Schorr also informs that

none other than former President Barack Obama came rushing to her [Attiah’s] defense in the aftermath of her ouster by mendaciously spouting off about the First Amendment.

That the single most influential figure in Democratic Party politics felt compelled to associate himself with this lowlife is telling.

And what does it tell? Obama does what he wilt.

Continuing, Schorr then writes about

the meteoric rise of Hasan Piker.

Piker believes the United States got what was coming to it on September 11, 2001, has made light of Kirk’s murder and is among the country’s leading purveyors of antisemitism.

In one recent Twitch stream, he pinned the blame for American Jews’ persecution on their affinity for Israel, which he referred to as “Jewish ISIS.”

Oh, Piker also doesn’t flinch at being called a “communist,” a status that once (rightly) brought scorn and ostracism.

Unfazed

Today, though, Democratic politicians such as Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed welcome him as a campaign partner. And socialist senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) criticized Democratic strategist James Carville when the latter rejected Piker’s influence.

“Perverse, yes,” writes Schorr — “but hardly unexpected.”

The Democrats have, after all, no small number of followers who celebrated after Kirk’s assassination. In 2020, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shrugged off the toppling of a Christopher Columbus statue. “People will do what they do,” she said. Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) went even further that riot-replete year, encouraging “unrest in the streets” during an MSNBC interview.

These are just a few of countless such examples, too.

Yet amidst all this criticism of party officeholders, a point made two millennia ago is missed. Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero once pointed out that the blame for Julius Caesar’s demagoguery lay not just with Caesar. It also lay with those who supported and enabled Rome’s first dictator perpetuo.

Cultural Rot

And so it was 2,000 years ago, so it was 109 years ago, so it is today. The world’s Caesars, Lenins, Pikers, and Mamdanis don’t rise on their own. The wind beneath their wings is many millions of followers without eyes to see.

And what breeds such eyes? The issue was encapsulated well by commentator George P. Brooks just yesterday. It is, as exemplified by so many Lindsay Clancy supporters, the “death of moral absolutes.”

Or, to be precise, it’s the death of the belief in moral absolutes.

An analogy: Imagine that people ceased believing in the rules of human health, but instead embraced dietary relativism. Would you then expect them to be able to discern the difference between healthful and unhealthful food? After all, “healthful” and “unhealthful” then wouldn’t, under their relativistic premise, even exist as real qualities. So-called junk food can’t violate the laws of health — of nutrition — if the laws of health don’t exist. It’s then just another preference. And, hey, “Don’t impose your food values on me!” If it tastes good, eat it.

This is just as how right and wrong, moral and immoral, don’t exist as real qualities if the laws of moral health — of Truth — don’t exist. This is, too, what most Americans (not just leftist politicians) now believe.

Bearing this out is a study I’ve often cited from the Barna Group research company. That is, only six percent of teenagers believed “moral truth is absolute,” the organization discovered in 2002. (Most adults didn’t believe in it, either.) Those youths were into middle age in 2025, of course. So it’s no surprise that updated research that year found essentially the same results. They had grown up — but not wise.

The Truth, and the Philosophy Revealing It, Will Set You Free

Perhaps, though, they’d be a bit wiser if they understood the folly of relativism. As to this, I’ll present, for the first time in a while, two of my patented explanations.

First, what’s the origin of what we call “right and wrong”? There are only two possibilities: Either man determines it (social-construct theory), or something outside of man does. Let’s consider each thesis’ implications.

Regarding social-construct theory, imagine that 90 percent of humanity said it preferred chocolate over vanilla. This wouldn’t mean chocolate was “right” and vanilla “wrong.” Nor would it mean that chocolate was better in any objective sense. It would simply mean that people happened to like chocolate better. But, question:

Would it be any more logical saying murder was wrong, if we say this for no other reason than the fact that 90 percent of humanity preferred others not kill in a way we call unjust?

So what can we say about the idea of murder’s wrongness being simply a function of man’s collective desires? It would then fall into the same category as the collective desires regarding flavor: that of taste — or preference.

The Other Point to Ponder

As to the second argument, consider: A man I know of actually told someone close to me, “Murder isn’t wrong. It’s just that society says it is.” While this statement is disturbing to many, it also accords with what Barna found most Americans to believe. For how could they refute this proposition? I know what I could say:

That’s not true because God exists and has established unchanging, absolute moral law.

Of course, someone could disagree with my premise. But the logic is airtight.

If you don’t believe in God, however — or suppose He’s just some flower-child-like “force” who essentially says, “Hey, dude, whatever works for you” — what could you say? For your premise is the same as that murder-justifying man’s.

That is, it is only society that says murder is wrong because society is all there is to say anything. For ours then is a universe devoid of God or, at least, of God’s will regarding human behavior.

If this is true, then Lenin’s “Who Whom?” is, objectively speaking, as “good” a guide as any. If it is true, all we can rightly say about Crowley is that he boiled matters down to unvarnished reality.

And if it is true, it makes sense that spreading this moral relativism/nihilism would breed people who can’t differentiate between right and wrong. For you don’t learn to differentiate well between things you don’t believe exist.

And beliefs have consequences. What we’re seeing in today’s “leftism” is a dark, misbegotten premise accepted and taken to its coldly logical conclusion. “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”