The article critiques the Trump administration's authoritarian approach, particularly its crackdown on academic freedom under the guise of combatting anti-Semitism. Critics on the left argue that liberal opposition to cancel culture has unintentionally facilitated Trump’s agenda. By condemning specific far-left tactics, they claim that liberals have provided justification for Trump's oppressive actions towards academic institutions and students. The author suggests that responsibility lies with the left's rhetoric and strategies, which may have inadvertently supported Trump's rise and his assaults on free speech within academia.
The implication of these arguments is that Trump would not have won, or would now be having a harder time carrying out his neo-McCarthyite campaign of repression, if liberals had only refrained from denouncing left-wing cancel culture.
According to many left-wing critics, this sequence of events shows that, as David Klion writes in The Nation, 'erstwhile free speech champions' have 'helped lay the groundwork for Trump's second term.'
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