Right-Wing Activist Christopher Rufo Became the One Thing He Claims to Hate

The late philosopher Herbert Marcuse once wrote that a true democratic marketplace of ideas is impossible in a society with social inequities. His prescription was as simple as it is chilling: We must restrain the liberty of “self-styled conservatives” who create the inequities, even if doing so requires “undemocratic means.”

In his new bestselling book, America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything, conservative journalist and activist Christopher Rufo accurately observes that critical theorists like Marcuse call for suppressing speech based on “a racial and political calculus.” He correctly concludes this would be “tyranny.”

But while Rufo presents himself as a critic of Marcuse and his ilk, he is all too willing to employ critical theory's tyrannical means for his own ends—trading constitutional principles for political expediency.