They Are Eating Their Own

Honestly, I thought it would take much longer. But there are signs that the Far Left is purging those who veer from ideological purity. In historic lingo, eating their own.

For 40 years. every New York mayor has followed Ed Koch’s decision to remove people from the streets when temperatures dropped to freezing. Not Zohran Mamdani. During the recent extreme weather, 13 individuals sleeping on the streets died. As the New York Post noted, so much for the warmth of collectivism.

Now protesters are outside Gracie Mansion, shouting at the mayoral residence. One man with a bullhorn yelled, “We advocated for you. You ain't getting NOTHING, get up in here and you lie to us. You lied, Zohran. Shame, Zohran.”

In Minnesota, anti-ICE agitators stormed Gov. Tim Walz’s office, furious he negotiated a deal with the Trump White House to cooperate with federal officials. In Illinois, the state warned a non-profit called Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender that they can go to prison for using the word Democrats in their name. Talk about ideological purity — it is illegal to oppose gender puberty blockers and mastectomies and castrations for children if you are an Illinois Democrat. And in Philadelphia in June 2024, pro-Hamas protestors blocked a Pride Parade.

This is always the way with totalitarian regimes. When a movement is built on grievance, power is absolute, and no one is safe. Just ask the teachers’ union.

Joseph Stalin was famous for banishing his perceived enemies to Siberia while cutting them out of official photos. Twenty years after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, he commenced a bloody purge of an entire generation of military leaders and party leaders who had created the Soviet Union. Loyal comrades from Lenin’s era were denounced, forced to confess fabricated crimes, and eliminated.

In the early years of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in China, Red Guards attacked or killed former allies in the name of ideological purity. In 1969, Liu Shaoqi the president of China, was publicly humiliated, tortured, died in prison. Former Defense Minister Peng Dehuai was beaten and died in custody. Scholars believe millions died in re-education camps or under the boot of Marxist betrayal. In Guangxi Province (1967–1968), factional fighting led to massacres of 100,000 people, who suffered mutilation, live burials or torture. They were even hundreds of cases where victims were eaten, to demonstrate revolutionary zeal, echoing the ideological cannibalism.

Of course communist cultures are not the only culprits. In the French Revolution, Robespierre and others were themselves guillotined after leading the Terror, victims of their own ideological purity. And in Nazi Germany, Hitler’s war on the Jews began with a major political purge carried out a year after he took office, consolidating absolute power by eliminating former allies and comrades within the ranks.

Purging is a bit more extreme than disagreeing within a party — as Sen. John Fetterman does when he defends ICE, or as MAGA does sometimes over Israel. Fetterman may be primaried from the Left, but I don’t think they’ll kill him.

That said, campuses have been rife with censorship in the last few years. Riley Gaines, who stood up for women’s sports, could not do so at SF State, where students chased her into a room, forcing her to isolate there for hours. And Charlie Kirk, our icon, was killed for views that were allegedly not shared by his assassin.

Now, with universities purging conservatives and libertarians, students are turning on liberal speakers. This week, reports Jonathan Turley, students at Sarah Lawrence College set upon NYTimes columnist Ezra Klein for his speech topic: “How we can collectively move beyond polarization toward shared solutions.”

In the name of ideological purity, reaching across the aisle is a sin. And free expression is only allowed when it comports with the reigning orthodoxy.

That’s why it’s probably best to stay out of their way when they’re devouring their own.