In his famous 1855 letter to his old friend Joshua Speed, Abraham Lincoln explained (emphases in original):
I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].
Our contemporary Know-Nothings literally know nothing except perhaps the mechanics of demagogy and power. What historical parallel or resonant gibe carries any sting in our current lexicon? “Fascist,” “socialist,” “Communist,” and “Nazi” have become such common currency that one may reasonably wonder if “our progess in degeneracy” is approaching the speed of light. Indeed, for Democrats, “socialist” has become a badge of honor rather than an insult.
Drawing on his historical expertise, Victor Davis Hanson describes the contemporary Democrats as “Jacobins.” Whodat?
Does anyone read Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France)? Thomas Carlyle (The French Revolution)? Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)? Stanley Loomis (Paris In the Terror)? Simon Schama (Citizens)?
Professor Hanson, what are you talking about, sir?
[T]he current Democrat Party is no longer truly democratic at all. Its new spirit and methods resemble the radical Jacobin Party of the French Revolution. Today, Democrats claim that if any opponent gives a Roman salute, he is a Nazi — while insisting that one of their own with a Nazi tattoo is not.
Jacobinism rejects Martin Luther King Jr.’s emphasis on the “content of . . . character.” It instead prefers fixating on “the color of . . . skin.”
It aims to divide the nation arbitrarily between the noble oppressed and the toxic oppressors.
So these new Jacobins have institutionalized racially separate college dorms and graduation ceremonies, along with hiring and promoting on the basis of race.
The new Jacobins destroyed the southern border and welcomed in 10-12 million illegal aliens, seen as a future proletariat constituency. Today’s Jacobins would now ridicule Bill Clinton’s 1990s calls for secure borders and an end to illegal immigration as “fascist” and “racist.”
The most recent nihilist developments in American society can be attributed to these Jacobin “Democrats”: biological men competing in women’s sports; critical legal theory that normalizes cashless bail; race-based reparations; violent felons arrested and back on the street hours later; radical abortion on demand until birth; attacks on the concept of the cultural “melting pot”; and opposition to organized Christianity.
These agendas lack broad majority support. So street theater and violence focus on Tesla dealerships, ICE officers, conservative campus speakers, and, at times, any journalists covering the unrest.
Jacobins make excuses for pro-Hamas campus violence, which often targets Jewish students. The often violent and corrupt Black Lives Matter movement was a Jacobin ancillary.
Free speech is labeled “disinformation” and “misinformation” — synonyms for not toeing the Jacobin Party line. Until recent pushbacks, near-religious radical green agendas warred against fossil fuels and cost the working classes billions of dollars for sky-high fuel and electricity costs.
Like the Robespierre brothers of old, the most radical Jacobins are so often to be found among the wealthiest and most privileged Americans. Radical New York mayor Zohran Mamdani grew up as a rich Ugandan. Radical, self-described communist Maine senatorial candidate Graham Platner attended one of the most elite and expensive prep schools in the United States.
The Jacobins were of course the head choppers of the French Revolution. The fun didn’t really begin until they started chopping each other’s heads off. Robespierre supported the use of the guillotine until the guillotine came for him. His beheading triggered the so-called Thermidorian Reaction, ending the most extreme phase of the French Revolution. We aren’t there yet and the prospect isn’t even in sight.
