I am not saying that we live in Nazi Germany.
I am not saying that today's radical left has built concentration camps, planned genocide, or done anything that can even be compared to the horrors of the Holocaust.
That would be historically unserious. It would be disrespectful to the victims. And it would miss the point.
But I am saying this, loud and clear:
You would have to be blind to believe that totalitarian societies begin with death camps.
They don't begin there.
They begin in language.
They begin with labeling.
They begin when a group of people is singled out as the problem.
They begin when certain people are no longer treated as opponents in a debate, but as morally contaminated. As dangerous. As evil. As a threat to society.
And that is exactly where we must dare to look.
Not at the end point. At the beginning.
Because it is the beginning that people miss.
When we today see parts of the radical left call everyone who disagrees with them Nazis, racists, fascists, homophobes, misogynists, transphobes, narcissists or “right-wing extremists”, we must stop.
Not because the right is always right.
Not because conservatives never get it wrong.
Not because real racism, real extremism, or real hatred don't exist.
They do.
But when these words are no longer used to describe actual actions, but as weapons to destroy people's reputations, silence their voices, and place them outside the moral community — then something dangerous has happened.
Then it is no longer debate.
Then it is labeling.
And labeling is one of the first steps in every authoritarian culture.
Nazi Germany did not begin with ordinary people accepting mass murder overnight. It began with propaganda. With posters. With speeches. With laws. With social exclusion. With Jews being portrayed as a problem, a threat, a disease in the body of society. It began with people being taught to see other human beings through an ideological lens. [1]
First the language changes.
Then the gaze changes.
Then the conscience changes.
And once the conscience has fallen silent, almost anything can be justified.
That is why history matters so much. Not so that we can walk around casually calling everything we dislike “Nazism”. On the contrary. That is exactly why we must be precise.
But we must dare to recognize the mechanisms.
And one of those mechanisms is this:
You are not allowed to simply be wrong. You must be evil.
It is one of the most toxic ideas of our time.
In a healthy society, two people can say:
“I don't agree with you.”
“I think you are wrong.”
“I believe your politics will have bad consequences.”
That is democracy.
But in a sick society, people say:
“Because you don't agree with me, you are a racist.”
“Because you don't use my words, you are hateful.”
“Because you don't share my ideology, you are dangerous.”
“Because you won't bow to my moral map, you are an enemy.”
That is not democracy.
That is ideological control.
And that control becomes even more dangerous when it comes disguised as goodness.
Because the most frightening thing about authoritarian movements is not always that they believe themselves to be evil. Often they believe they are good. Often they believe they are protecting the world. Often they believe their hatred is righteous because it is aimed at “the evil ones”.
That is how people can treat others cruelly and still feel morally clean.
That is how you can claim to fight hatred while hating.
That is how you can claim to fight exclusion while excluding.
That is how you can claim to fight oppression while wanting to silence, fire, shame, and destroy people who refuse to submit.
And let us be honest:
There is today a political culture where people are not just expected to follow the law. They are expected to think right. Speak right. Feel right. React right. Care about the right things. Hate the right people. Use the right words. Confess the right worldview.
It is not enough to be decent. You must signal correctly.
It is not enough to treat people with respect. You must use exactly the right ideological phrases.
It is not enough not to hate. You must actively take part in the hatred of those the ideology has designated as the haters.
And if you refuse?
Then comes the label.
Racist.
Nazi.
Fascist.
Homophobe.
Transphobe.
Right-wing extremist.
Dangerous.
The problem.
These are not small things.
Words do something to us.
When a human being is described as a monster again and again, others eventually stop feeling responsible for how that human being is treated.
When a group is described as dangerous again and again, people begin to accept that the group must be controlled.
When an opinion is described as hate again and again, people begin to accept censorship.
When a person is described as a threat again and again, people begin to accept that the person loses their job, their platform, their friends, their reputation and perhaps, in the end, their freedom.
All of this can happen without anyone ever saying: “Now we shall become totalitarian.”
It happens step by step.
With good intentions.
With beautiful words.
With moral slogans.
With applause from people convinced they are standing on the right side of history.
But standing on “the right side of history” has become one of the most dangerous phrases of our time. Because it makes it possible to stop listening. It makes it possible to stop thinking. It makes it possible to treat other human beings as obstacles in the way of progress.
And when people become obstacles rather than people, we are on very dangerous ground.
This is what I want to say to the radical left:
Stop.
Look in the mirror.
You say you are fighting hatred. But how do you speak about those who disagree with you?
You say you are fighting racism. But how do you speak about white men?
You say you are fighting fascism. But how do you treat people who refuse to bow to your ideological demands?
You say you are defending vulnerable groups. But why do you demand that all of society submit to your worldview, your language, your priorities, and your moral judgments?
You say you want freedom. But freedom for whom?
Only for those who think like you?
Only for those who use your words?
Only for those who confess your dogmas?
Only for those who accept being corrected, reshaped, and socially punished?
That is not freedom.
That is control.
And control does not become less dangerous just because it uses progressive words.
An ideology does not become good just because it calls itself inclusive.
A movement does not become loving just because it claims to fight for justice.
A political culture does not become democratic just because it hates the “right” enemies.
Hatred is still hatred.
Contempt is still contempt.
Labeling is still labeling.
And authoritarian methods are still authoritarian, even when they come from the left.
This does not mean that the left itself is the problem.
A society needs different political perspectives. We need people who talk about justice, poverty, vulnerability, working conditions, welfare, and social responsibility. We need a left. We need a right. We need liberals, conservatives, socialists, Christian democrats, libertarians, social democrats, and people who don't fit into any simple category.
A healthy society needs debate.
But a healthy society cannot survive if debate is replaced by moral blackmail.
There is a difference between saying:
“I think taxes should be higher.”
And saying:
“If you don't agree with me, you are evil.”
There is a difference between saying:
“I want to protect minorities.”
And saying:
“Everyone who questions my method is hateful.”
There is a difference between saying:
“I believe the state should do more.”
And saying:
“The state should be able to punish or silence people who express the wrong opinions.”
The first kind of conversation is democracy.
The second kind is the beginning of something much darker.
And here is the crucial point:
History rarely repeats itself exactly.
It does not come back in the same uniform.
It does not always use the same symbols.
It does not always sing the same songs.
It does not always single out the same group.
But the mechanisms can return.
The labeling.
The image of the enemy.
The propaganda.
The demands for purity.
The collective guilt.
The contempt.
The censorship.
The fear of saying the wrong thing.
The social punishment.
The ideological confession.
That is why it is so dangerous to simply say: “That could never happen here.”
That is exactly what people always say before it happens.
And no, this does not mean that every activist is dangerous. It does not mean that everyone on the left is totalitarian. It does not mean that every progressive idea leads to oppression.
But it does mean that every person, every movement, and every political side must be scrutinized when it begins to use authoritarian methods.
Even when it claims to be good.
Especially then.
Because power that believes itself morally infallible is one of the most dangerous kinds of power there is.
It does not apologize.
It does not doubt.
It does not listen.
It crushes people and calls it justice.
That is why we must say stop.
Not with hatred.
Not with revenge.
Not with the same methods.
But with clarity.
With backbone.
With a voice that does not tremble.
We must say:
You may hold left-wing views.
You may want to raise taxes.
You may want to change society.
You may criticize the right.
You may fight for what you believe in.
But you may not dehumanize people who disagree with you.
You may not use words like racist, Nazi, and fascist as clubs against everyone who refuses to submit.
You may not destroy people's lives because they think differently.
You may not call it love when you spread contempt.
You may not call it freedom when you demand obedience.
You may not call it democracy when you want to silence your opponents.
Because that is not democracy.
It is not justice.
It is not goodness.
It is the beginning of the kind of social culture history warns us about.
The Nazi regime did not only use violence. It used laws, symbols, and propaganda to gradually make Jews legally, socially, and morally different in the eyes of the majority. The Nuremberg Laws made Jews a separate legal category. Anti-Jewish legislation between 1933 and 1939 restricted, step by step, Jews' rights and place in society. The Jewish star later became a visible mark of identification. And all the while, the propaganda worked to shape the image of the enemy. [2][3][4][5]
That is not a minor detail of history.
It is a warning.
Not because all situations are the same.
Not because every modern political conflict leads to the same end point.
But because people often accept dangerous things in small steps, long before they understand where the steps lead.
And if we have truly learned anything from history, we must understand this:
The most dangerous thing is not only what happens at the end.
The most dangerous thing is what people accept at the beginning.
Because at the beginning, it always sounds reasonable.
At the beginning, it always sounds moral.
At the beginning, they only say they want to protect the good from the evil.
But a society where people are divided into good and evil according to political obedience is not a free society.
It is a society about to lose its soul.
A society does not first lose its democracy in parliament.
It loses it first in how it sees human beings.
When people are no longer seen as people, but as labels, threats, problems, and enemies — then something sacred has already broken.
Because in the end, this is not only about freedom of speech.
It is about human dignity.
About the truth that no human being becomes less human for holding the wrong opinion.
About the conscience that tells us we must not treat our opponents like dirt.
About the freedom to think, speak, ask, and seek the truth without being threatened with social or political annihilation.
And therefore this must be said clearly:
I am not afraid of left-wing politics.
I am afraid of authoritarian moralism.
I am not afraid of people who think differently.
I am afraid of people who no longer allow others to think differently.
I am not afraid of debate.
I am afraid of a society where debate is replaced by labeling, shame, silence, and fear.
It is not left versus right that is the most important battle here.
It is freedom versus control.
Conversation versus labeling.
Humanity versus dehumanization.
Truth versus propaganda.
Conscience versus ideological blindness.
And if someone hears this and responds only with yet another label, they will have proven exactly what needed to be said.
Because a healthy person can discuss.
A healthy movement can examine itself.
A healthy ideology can withstand questions.
But an authoritarian ideology can do only one thing when it is challenged:
It labels.
And that is exactly why we must dare to speak.
I am not attacking the left as an idea. I am warning against authoritarian patterns in radical political culture.
— By Giovanni Vivanco
Written · Revised