John Irving and the New Fascism - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
John Irving and the New Fascism
by

It all sounds so righteous. Soooo tolerant.

There is the Oscar-winning novelist John Irving (in 2000, for the screenplay of his novel The Cider House Rules) saying this as the Oscars approach:

“In our community, tolerance of intolerance is unacceptable.”

And there it is. The Orwellian world view come to Hollywood.

What, pray tell, is “intolerance”? And how about the politically incorrect idea that maybe — just maybe —it is John Irving who is making himself the very symbol of intolerance?

Way back there in 1932, Benito Mussolini himself wrote out his doctrine of Fascism. In which he said this:

Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity.

John Irving could not have said it better. The “State” in the Irving conception is clearly the State of Hollywood… and the U.S. government itself if in the hands of a far-left liberal (but I repeat myself) who is all too willing to use the State to enforce leftist demands.

So what if one rebels? Or, to borrow a word from the moment… resists? What if one resists from the Leftist dogma of Hollywood? What if one believes the Irvings and Meryl Streeps of America are in fact the real bullies and fascists here?

Ask Chadwick Moore, the 33-year-old gay guy in New York who came out of the closet to announce he was… gasp!… a conservative. Here is his tale in the New York Post, which says in part this, headline included:

I’m a gay New Yorker — and I’m coming out as a conservative

Chadwick Moore, a 33-year-old journalist who lives in Williamsburg, had been a lifelong liberal. Then, last September, he penned a profile for Out magazine of Milo Yiannopoulos — a controversial and outspoken critic of feminism, Muslims and gay rights (despite being openly gay himself). Although the Out story didn’t take a positive stance — or any stance — on Yiannopoulos, Moore found himself pilloried by fellow Democrats and ostracized by longtime friends. Here, he tells Michael Kaplan his story — including why the backlash drove him to the right.

“When Out magazine assigned me an interview with the Breitbart.com rabble-rouser Milo Yiannopoulos, I knew it would be controversial. In the gay and liberal communities in particular, he is a provocative and loathed figure, and I knew featuring him in such a liberal publication would get negative attention. He has been repeatedly kicked off Twitter for, among other things, reportedly inciting racist, sexist bullying of “Ghostbusters” actress Leslie Jones. Before interviewing Yiannopoulos, I thought he was a nasty attention-whore, but I wanted to do a neutral piece on him that simply put the facts out there.

After the story posted online in the early hours of Sept. 21, I woke up to more than 100 Twitter notifications on my iPhone. Trolls were calling me a Nazi, death threats rolled in and a joke photo that I posed for in a burka served as “proof” that I am an Islamophobe.

I’m not.

Most disconcertingly, it wasn’t just strangers voicing radical discontent. Personal friends of mine — men in their 60s who had been my longtime mentors — were coming at me. They wrote on Facebook that the story was “irresponsible” and “dangerous.” A dozen or so people unfriended me. A petition was circulated online, condemning the magazine and my article. All I had done was write a balanced story on an outspoken Trump supporter for a liberal, gay magazine, and now I was being attacked. I felt alienated and frightened.

I laid low for a week or so. Finally, I decided to go out to my local gay bar in Williamsburg, where I’ve been a regular for 11 years. I ordered a drink but nothing felt the same; half the place — people with whom I’d shared many laughs — seemed to be giving me the cold shoulder. Upon seeing me, a friend who normally greets me with a hug and kiss pivoted and turned away.

Frostiness spread far beyond the bar, too. My best friend, with whom I typically hung out multiple times per week, was suddenly perpetually unavailable. Finally, on Christmas Eve, he sent me a long text, calling me a monster, asking where my heart and soul went, and saying that all our other friends are laughing at me.

Note: Milo Yiannopoulos is at this moment embroiled in a controversy over a video tape in which he appears to endorse pedophilia. Suffice to say, we have written in this space years ago about this issue, and whether it involves Nancy Pelosi or Milo, the answer is the same.

But the issue with Irving is the same as it always is with far leftists. They engage in what Orwell called “doublespeak” — and in this case the goal is to disguise the fact that the “Fascists”— here the likes of Irving — have the whip hand. In this case, in Hollywood. Irving clearly gives no fig about dissent — if it is left-wing orthodoxy that is being dissented from. Like the gay Chadwick Moore or the black Clarence Thomas or the female Sarah Palin or the Hispanic Mexican/American Bush 43 Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the moment one dissents from liberal orthodoxy then one is toast. You can be gay, black, a woman, Hispanic — if you have left the liberal plantation you will be trashed.And plantation managers like John Irving are there to make sure you obey the ole massa.

Need further proof of what Irving is really about? Way back there in the mists of 1994, I wrote this piece in the Los Angeles Times as the Oscars approached. Headline:

Oscar Is One Award the Gipper Earned but Hasn’t Won–Yet: Hollywood: The President who was proud to be an actor deserves the academy’s notice.

The piece began thusly:

Here we go again. Oscar time approaches and there is no hint of recognition for a man regarded by some in the film community as simply a B-movie star from the 1940s and ‘50s. Not only did he never win an Oscar for his acting, but he actually played straight man to a monkey.

Then, of course, there is his politics. In an industry decimated by AIDS and dominated by influential men and women who were intensely liberal on the Soviet Union, the air-traffic-controller’s strike, the U.S. defense buildup, economics, abortion and Central America, the mere mention of his name causes seething tempers.

The very idea of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarding an honorary Oscar to Ronald Reagan does not appear to have the slightest support from the Academy’s members.

And so it didn’t. For all of the “give peace a chance” stuff — and it is stuff (this is a family publication) that flows from Hollywood, the idea that giving formal recognition to one of their own who really did give peace a chance by ending the Cold War was a non-starter right from the get go.

And for the very same reason that is epitomized by John Irving.

The American left is, just like Mussolini and his fellow Fascists (and yes, Mussolini was a guild socialist), intolerant of dissent. Which is why John Irving is out there calling for fascist behavior at the Oscars.

Shocking, yes?

From the Hollywood Hard Left? Hardly.

Jeffrey Lord
Follow Their Stories:
View More
Jeffrey Lord, a contributing editor to The American Spectator, is a former aide to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. An author and former CNN commentator, he writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com. His new book, Swamp Wars: Donald Trump and The New American Populism vs. The Old Order, is now out from Bombardier Books.
Sign up to receive our latest updates! Register


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: . You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Be a Free Market Loving Patriot. Subscribe Today!