There is a reason Jamie Glazov has spent much of his life studying political extremism. He grew up as the son of Soviet dissidents, people who understood firsthand what happens when an ideology stops being an argument and becomes a system of belief. That experience gave him an unusually long memory, and it is one reason his new book, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny, Terror, and Hamas, lands at such an interesting moment.
Because the argument Glazov makes is bigger than another book about the political left. It is about what happens when people become so committed to an ideology that they begin embracing movements, governments and causes that contradict the freedoms they claim to value.
That was the central subject when Glazov joined A.J. Rice on Dangerous Laughter, and it produced exactly the kind of conversation the show does best: political, historical, uncomfortable and, naturally, pretty funny.
Glazov's basic argument is that there is a recurring attraction on parts of the left to revolutionary movements that promise to destroy the existing order, even when the replacement is something profoundly illiberal. He sees a historical romance with communism, Marxism, revolutionary Islam and now Hamas, tied together by a willingness to excuse authoritarianism when it is directed against the right enemy.
Rice put it another way during the conversation: revolutions always look more glamorous from the university café. It is easy to romanticize revolution when you are watching it from a comfortable distance, preferably with a croissant in hand. The harder question is what happens after the revolution wins. The 20th century gave us plenty of answers. Glazov's warning is that we keep forgetting them.
And that makes the discussion about the so-called Red-Green alliance particularly relevant. The political left and radical Islamist movements obviously have profound ideological differences. Yet Glazov argues that they can find common ground in opposition to the same civilization, the same institutions and, increasingly, the same enemies.
October 7 and its aftermath have made that argument much harder to dismiss. Hamas murdered Israeli civilians, took hostages and launched a war that transformed the political conversation throughout the West. Yet instead of producing universal condemnation, it also produced demonstrations, slogans and political rhetoric that Glazov argues effectively rationalized or celebrated the perpetrators.
The result has been an explosion of antisemitism, and an increasingly bitter argument over Israel's place in the West.
But Glazov doesn't let the right off the hook, either.
One of the more interesting parts of the conversation is his criticism of people on the populist right who have begun making excuses for radical Islam or attacking the historic Judeo-Christian alliance. He and Rice discuss the strange new alliances developing around Israel, Islamism and the American right, including the temptation to embrace anyone who happens to oppose the political left.
That is where political purity becomes dangerous.
The right has its own version of ideological fanaticism. Glazov argues that the feverish demand for ideological purity can become remarkably similar whether it comes from the far left or the far right. Suddenly a politician who was good enough yesterday becomes a traitor today because he failed a newly invented test of ideological perfection.
Ronald Reagan wouldn't pass many of today's purity tests. Neither would Abraham Lincoln. Neither would Winston Churchill. The idea that political leaders must be flawless representatives of some perfectly consistent ideology is itself a form of utopian thinking. And utopianism has a nasty habit of becoming authoritarian.
Glazov understands this because he has spent his life studying it. He also understands something about Europe that Americans increasingly need to understand. The debate over mass migration is no longer simply about economics or humanitarian policy. It is also about what happens when a civilization loses confidence in its own identity, and becomes afraid to enforce the boundaries necessary to preserve it.
The recent chaos in Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta is a striking example. In late July, tens of thousands of migrants surged toward the Spanish territory from Morocco, with reports of people swimming around border barriers and authorities deploying additional police and troops. The episode became a major political crisis and a fresh reminder that Europe's migration question isn't disappearing.
And Spain is hardly alone. Across Europe, governments are wrestling with migration, integration, national identity, Islamist extremism and the political backlash produced when citizens believe their leaders have lost control of their borders. The European Union's new Migration Pact was supposed to provide a common framework for dealing with precisely these pressures.
The fact that a single border crisis could trigger renewed arguments between European governments demonstrates just how unresolved the underlying problem remains.
Glazov's larger point is not that every migrant is an extremist, nor that immigration itself is synonymous with Islamism. It is that Western societies need to be capable of asking what kind of culture they intend to preserve before they discover that the question has been answered for them.
That brings the conversation back to the left's attraction to revolutionary politics. The promise is always paradise. The destination has a habit of looking rather different.
And then there is laughter.
That might sound like a strange place to end a conversation about communism, Hamas, antisemitism and Western civilization, but it is actually one of the most important points Glazov and Rice make.
Totalitarian ideologies demand seriousness. They require sacred slogans, approved language, mandatory outrage and conformity. They cannot easily tolerate mockery because mockery punctures the mystique. It turns the terrifying into the ridiculous.
As Rice tells Glazov, “ridicule sometimes moves faster than rebellion.”
That seems to be the philosophy behind Dangerous Laughter itself. Rice has built an entire show around the idea that humor isn't merely entertainment. Sometimes it is a weapon against people who desperately want to control the terms of the conversation.
Dictators can censor speech. Governments can enforce slogans. Movements can demand conformity. But getting everyone to stop laughing is a much harder assignment.
That is what makes this conversation with Jamie Glazov worth hearing. United in Hate isn't merely an argument about what the left has done. It is a warning about what happens when any political movement becomes so obsessed with defeating its enemies that it forgets what it is supposed to be defending.
Freedom requires more than picking the right enemy. It requires remembering what you're fighting for. And sometimes the first step toward remembering is being willing to laugh at the people who insist you aren't allowed to.
Tim Tapp is the host of the syndicated, conservative talk show “Tapp” into the Truth. He calls East Tennessee home, where he broadcasts and writes. He also still works in Quality Assurance for a food manufacturing company as he takes up the cause of defending our republic. Find out more at www.tappintothetruth.com
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