Niccolo Machiavelli by Santi di Tito

In his suicidal naïveté, President Obama believed his high-minded rhetorical approach to foreign policy would lead to greater peace and order in the world. In fact, it had the opposite effect; nations became insolent and haughty, taking liberties they would not have dared to under the previous administration: Because in politics, as in the hearts of men, it is evil that rules. And it is similarly foolish to expect Antifa to respect or resist from defying an authority it does not fear.

Machiavelli, if he were our philosopher-king, would not hesitate to have Antifa publicly tortured as a frightening example to any citizens who might wish to attack their own nation. In this way, as in war, the enemy would be psychologically devastated, and a deep lesson learned since potential transgressors would be struck with terror instead of inclined to act on their insolence and thereby cause terror of their own.

Again, that this approach is unthinkable to most people is mainly owing to their naive bias, whereby they take it for granted that their paper-thin liberalism suffices when it comes to dealing with phenomena like Antifa. On the contrary, since we first learned of Antifa it has only become bolder and more brazen. That is no wonder. For it has yet to suffer, to be taught the hard, irreplaceable lesson of moral fear. Nor is there any reason to believe Antifa will go away anytime soon. After all, it is the function of the leftist academy to produce such treasonous groups, whose deluded members sincerely believe they are fighting for “social justice.”

It would be futile, given their delusional character and historical ignorance, to try to convince Antifa of their striking resemblance to the actual fascists of Germany, Russia, and China. They are no more interested in understanding that than they are in recognizing that their beloved socialism has been a horrible failure wherever it has been attempted. Meanwhile, it is probably only a matter of time before an incident like Charlottesville affords a much graver illustration of the growing political and racial animosity in the culture. In such an awful scenario the best thing, for both Antifa and the nation, would be for these false friends of liberty and justice to be mowed down like grass. For, as with our foes abroad, that is precisely the will-breaking lesson these enemies on our own soil must learn.

“Anyone who listens to a child’s crying and understands what he hears,” said Wittgenstein, “will know that it harbors dormant psychic forces, terrible forces different from anything commonly assumed. Profound rage, pain and lust for destruction.” The baby boomers have left us a nation—with its self-esteem movement, therapy culture, and administrative state—full of people who, having never learned to understand, let alone respect, legitimate authority, are strongly disposed to vent their “lust for destruction” on those who hinder their claim to entitlements and the progressive path generally. To whom will it fall, the difficult endeavor of teaching these degenerate animals what justice, law, and order really mean? On the state and its agents, the very authorities groups like Antifa most despise.

Consider the galling injustice and sheer lunacy of “men” like George Ciccariello-Maher and fellow professor Michael Isaacson showing such contempt for the very men and women—the brave and frequently thankless members of the police and the military—without whom there could be no state. One looks at these weak leftist resenters and perceives that in the anarchism and socialism they call for, they themselves would fare the worst by far. Such persons seem hardly more capable of self-defense than my small beagle, and yet it is they who are most eager to do away with the very people who enforce the law and defend the state, just as they are the most vociferous critics of our invaluable public servants.

The education in moral fear that I am describing would be especially useful in inculcating a general sense of gratitude and deference in the culture. This is an ennobling disposition that young Americans in particular now lack. Americans would learn to feel a manly reverence for the state, which protects it from traitors like Antifa and those ignoble savages the jihadists.