 CNN's John Alvlon recently released a segment for his reality check series titled The surprising common psychological traits between the far left and the far right Now the segment itself is fairly long, but unfortunately I suffered through its entirety So we're not going to get into all of it But primarily I do want to look at particular portions of this where he draws or tries to draw direct comparisons between the far left and the far Right because as you're going to see he is grasping at straws and the reason why it looks really silly when you try to compare the far left in America to the far right in America is Because these sides are not similar one side wants to give every single American healthcare and the other side wants to install Donald Trump as a permanent dictator and enact a white ethno state so to draw these comparisons It's it's stupid. I mean to both sides this for purposes of Neutrality that's bad because if you think that the far right is indeed a threat and they do state why the far right is an issue Well, then you're tacitly normalizing them by comparing them to people on the left Now, you know, it doesn't just focus on the psychological similarities because I could understand how maybe if you take a really hard line Stands politically and you're hyper-engaged in politics. Sure. There might be some Similarities psychologically across the political spectrum. Who knows? But that's not really what they do and the issues that they bring up with respect to the left are laughable But first let's get to the portion that a lot of people saw on Twitter Where he directly compares the far left prejudices to the far right prejudices shout out to emo dragon on Twitter without this person I would not have been able to find this full clip. So thank you for that without further ado. Let's watch Reason study out of Cambridge University found that mental rigidity is tied to intense political partisanship on the left and right Another study out of the Netherlands broke down the common characteristics in the psychological features of people who gravitate towards extreme ideologies On the right and the left they found four broad underlying psychological features a sense of distress about society an overly simplistic black or white perception of the world a Consequent overconfidence in their own judgments and beliefs Which translates to an intolerance for different groups based on those prejudicial assumptions? For example, they found that social categories subject to right-wing prejudice Include ethnic minorities gays and lesbians and feminists While social categories subject to left-wing prejudice include Christians business people and the military For both the left and right, they say such prejudice is attributable to an ideological conflict That's based on the assumption that people with a different social identity Also have different ideological beliefs in other words people with politically extreme beliefs tend to downgrade the humanity and Individuality of people with whom they perceive they'll disagree This is the essence of prejudice and illiberalism and it can lead to some very dangerous things So I feel like I shouldn't have to really break this down too much because I think that you can see pretty easily Why that is? Laughable now just to get to the first study that he cited there about mental rigidity between extreme left and right I mean honestly that makes sense to me I don't really view that as an insult and it makes sense because if one side Really really really wants a white ethno state then I think it's natural that the other side will be equally rigid and not Want an ethno state so you know if somebody wants to hurt you then sure on the opposite side That's going to create a lot of feelings of not wanting to be hurt So the mental rigidity thing and the site psychological differences here that doesn't really Mean much to me with regard to you know similarities We're all human beings and there is going to be a reaction to every action So doesn't really matter to me But where it gets downright idiotic is when he talks about the prejudices so when it comes to the right-wing prejudices That includes ethnic minorities gays lesbians and feminists now. I'm not sure why the study Had feminists instead of women but put women in that category instead of feminists I mean they hate feminists, but they also hate women as well just last week Nick Fuentes a far-right individual was talking about how He believes that women should have as much rights as the Taliban allows them to have so it's not just Feminism that the far right is against it's women period. I mean in Texas They just passed a law this year banning abortion effectively. So I don't know why they use that but here's where it gets comical So on the left the prejudices that we have includes Christians business people and the military now notice how these two groups are entirely different categories of people So the right is prejudiced against people based on immutable characteristics Whereas the left is quote prejudiced against the drivers of injustice. I mean business elites They drive income and wealth inequality which creates unjust economic conditions for working people whereas the military isn't used Defensively it's a hyper capitalist murder machine. That's wreaking havoc on the globe and when it comes to Christians I mean to say that left-wingers are prejudiced against Christians is idiotic because we all have Christians in our family and There's no institutional power that the left is using to crack down on Christian rights In fact, they're political and institutional influence has only grown over the years So the dispute that they're seeing is the politicization of Christianity the rise of evangelicals And because evangelicals and you know Christianity is something that Republicans are trying to legislate, you know They are targeting people who have no power marginalized groups LGBTQ plus people and whatnot, but you know, they they view fighting injustice and being prejudiced against marginalized minorities as Virtually indistinguishable. It's truly a brain-dead segment now He's gonna bring on Jonathan Hyde who's an expert. He's a social Psychologist and he's going to explain to us specifically why the left is You know, basically a mirror image of the far right how authoritarian we have become and Ironically by describing the left in the way that he's going to as you're about to see he's going to play right into the far Right's narrative. I want to say, you know, you're a self-described Centrist and liberal but you've been very concerned about the rise of illiberal ideas on the left Saying that you see this is creating a mirror image of conservative populism on the right explain Yes, so first let me just say I'm a liberal not because I'm on the left I'm not on the left anymore I'm a liberal because I believe that the only solution to living together with diversity that has ever been found That works is the liberal tradition in which we try to grant each other maximum freedom to live together and create Lives that we want to live Now traditionally as we were just saying We found that oh these rigid people these people threatened by diversity. They're all on the right That's the problem right-wing authoritarianism and that is pretty visible and especially in the last five or seven years We're seeing a rise of right-wing populism that has authoritarian elements around the world But here's another interesting twist in recent social psychological research people have been looking for left-wing authoritarianism for a long time Some have called it the Loch Ness monster of political psychology But in recent years, it's become a lot more visible the left has been getting more authoritarian There's interesting research showing that in 2015. There is what we now call the great awoken egg Something happened to white people on the left. They become much more strided They moved much further to the left and they became in some ways much more illiberal more focused on telling people Here's what you can't say here's what you must say So it's a really interesting time to be studying political psychology that's changing fast Really? so your evidence of left-wing authoritarians is essentially SJW's I just I Don't even know what to say now He's talking about this as if it's some sort of a new phenomenon, right? But you see the rise of SJW's isn't so much of a rise. It's just that, you know, it's being politicized more People on college campuses protesting certain speakers individuals, you know being politically correct. This isn't a new thing This isn't some new thing They're literally trying to shoehorn SJW's into this conversation just so they can appear neutral just so they can say well Yeah, we're attacking the far right, but we're also attacking the far left and they even tacitly admit that you know This isn't really an issue. There's not a lot of extremism on the left He called it a Loch Ness monster of political psychology for quite some time. I wonder why it's because it's the right Who is radicalizing in this country to the extent that the far left exists? I don't think it's that common now I personally I will admit that I have moved to the left over the last couple of years I used to be a social Democrat and now I'm explicitly anti-capitalist But that's because I am a product of my generation capitalism has failed millennials and Gen Zer So of course, I think it's natural to not like the system that has kind of fucked you over created this environment Where you don't know whether or not the planet will be habitable for future generations or when you're older So, you know, I don't necessarily think that that is far left, right? I think that being a socialist advocating for universal healthcare of some sort I don't think that that makes you far left. I think that what makes you far left is if maybe you are Overly authoritarian in the sense that you know, you support policies like the Chinese government cracking down on free speech banning criticism of the government and whatnot I think that leftist like that perhaps they exist But what are there like 12 in the united states? Is that really a big issue? Is there really a need to compare the far left the 12 people like that are deeply explicitly authoritarian to the rest of the far Right, which is a growing phenomenon that literally threatens democracy Is that really important to compare these two and he kind of uh subtly plays into the bernie bro trope? He says, you know in 2015 there was what we call the great the great awokening Something happened to white people now. He's hinting at bernie sanders, right because I do think that it's fair to say Yeah, 2015 something did happen You know, it was kind of like a political wake-up call where we realized how broken the system was because bernie sanders had You know made everyone aware of the flaws in our system like no other politician has in the past But he makes it seem as though. Oh, it's just these white bernie bros But then the actual example that he gives is sjw's. Well, if you look at bernie bros first and foremost It's not just white people. Second of all, uh, they're advocating for worker rights universal health care, you know, uh Education that's free is student that cancellation So where's the authoritarianism that you're speaking of he cites these sjw examples and it's just it's not It's not convincing. It's not persuasive enough Now john ablon said that the far left is quote creating a mirror image of conservative populism on the right Is that so you really believe that john you really believe that the far left the woke sjw's on college campuses Is creating a mirror image of conservative populism on the right you honestly believe that Okay, well then be honest In the event you had to choose one the far left in america or the far right Who would you prefer to be in power? Ask any centrist this who tries to equate or conflate rather the far left with the far right Ask them who'd you prefer to be in control? The group of people that desperately want to give everyone health care and education Or the group of people that want a white ethno state with donald trump as a permanent dictator ask them If they're being honest, they're gonna tell you well, of course I prefer the people Who want to give everyone health care and they'll say that because they know one side is fucking bonkers And one side is actually compassionate One side might be viewed as extreme because we are very vocal, but it's because we care about fighting injustice The prejudices that the far left has stems from the fact That certain groups elites the business interests that they're hurting workers Christians in power are hurting marginalized people by pushing anti-gay policies We are trying to fight injustice. That's what we care about and jonathan I talked about how you know, I think that the best solution is to have this liberal society That's what the far left is supporting idiot The far right does not support that and what he doesn't realize is that if you truly want to live in a liberal society You must not Tolerate intolerance. There's a really popular graphic by carl popper That a lot of people will share whenever this comes up whenever there's this idea that we should work with the far Right or collaborate with them or maybe normalize them You cannot allow this to happen if you become so tolerant that you normalize and elevate fascists into positions of power Who are against free speech and marginalized communities? Then we let them use our freedom against us and we lose freedom as a result liberal societies survival hinges on fascism's demise So pushing back on increasing fascism isn't in itself Authoritarianism, right? I think that it is the case that you can say maybe sometimes kids on college campuses They get a little bit too sensorious and they don't allow certain speakers to come And maybe some of those speakers should be allowed to speak But if you are suggesting that there's an equivalence here just so you can appear neutral Then you are doing the far rights bidding for them So as dangerous as you think they are perhaps maybe you shouldn't play into their memes and their lies about the far left Because it's it's not right and the segment from cnn is dangerous. This is why you know neutrality media is just bad because some things just Don't require neutrality. There aren't two equal sides to every single political issue And the far left is nothing like the far right and shame on these two folks for pushing that narrative