SCANNING THIS WEEK’S POLITICAL HORSESHOE May 1, 2026
A political theory holds that the extreme left and extreme right draw close at the opposite ends of a horseshoe-style curve.
Differing views between traditional left and right leave a wide, but respectful, ideological gap in the middle of that curve. The extremes narrow the gap because they share similar views about exercising power and limiting free speech:
Moral superiority entitles them to rule. Anyone who disagrees with them is a traitor to be silenced.
Last Wednesday, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Sporting Green scanned the far-left’s place on the horseshoe. Ann Killion reported that an investment firm, Thrive Eternal, is buying a minority stake in the San Francisco Giants pending MLB approval. The firm was founded by Joshua Kushner, brother of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
How dare the Giants sell a piece of the club to a Kushner!
In “Giants’ Kushner link sounds alarm,” Killion called the purchase a “head-scratcher.” Many Giants fans don’t like the politics of the team’s far-right majority owner Charles B. Johnson. Killion wrote, “The Kushner connection is startling. The optics aren’t great.” Some ultra-liberal fans believe that Johnson has no right to donate his own money to conservative political groups.
Then Killion set the record straight. “But optics can be misleading…. Kushner has, at least in the past, been the opposite of Johnson…. Kushner has donated almost exclusively to Democrats…”
Does that make Thrive Eternal a legitimate minority owner?
Wednesday’s Sporting Green also featured an article on Golden State Warriors (NBA) head coach Steve Kerr: “Kerr still speaks out despite internal unease.” In the New Yorker, Kerr again expressed his liberal views and distaste for Donald Trump. According to writer Ron Kroichick, the Warriors organization is not pleased with Kerr making political statements. “Kerr acknowledged he needed to soften his tone given his role as the public voice of the Warriors.”
So, was the left muzzling the right? The right muzzling the left? Who is entitled to First Amendment rights? And can Americans capably judge between democratic principles and the tenets of autocracy?
Also on Wednesday, the far-right weighed in (again) on who is a real American. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth testified before Congress about the Iran War. Combative as ever, Hegseth said, “The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.”
Seemingly, Iran—a dangerous theocracy—poses less of a threat to America than members of Congress who question administration policy.
But Americans can take heart. A limited-edition U.S. passport featuring Donald Trump’s portrait will soon be available. It’s not the default issue; it must be requested.
Should the nation advance the cult of personality? In my novel coming this fall, The Double, about a fictional autocracy, I note a government minion’s observation:
“Viktor maintained his gaze at the portrait long enough to notice that the President displayed a suppressed smile that appeared both fatherly and sinister. Like all the portraits exhibited in great number throughout the Ministry—Viktor once spotted one in a janitor’s closet—it cautioned officials and functionaries alike that they served only at the President’s pleasure.”
Let me paraphrase a line about the Tsar from the classic Broadway musical “Fiddler on the Roof”: May God bless and keep wannabe kings—far away from us.”
To understand the background of today’s far-right, authoritarian descent, read my new novel, RIDE THE TYGER. Order from Amazon, barnesandnoble.com, iuniverse.com, or your favorite bookstore.
It’s true that at their authoritarian fringes, the left and right tend to converge on issues like free speech (for me, not for you) and the exercise of state power. But there’s a significant difference between where those fringes actually stand, so the “plague on both your houses” argument doesn’t hold water.
The left-lunatic fringe has essentially no power. The furthest left members of Congress — AOC and the other progressives — have actual policies, not conspiracies. Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and the like are debatable policy proposals. One may or may not agree with them, but people of good will can discuss them, compromise them or reject them, as actually happened under Obama and Biden.
By contrast, the right-lunatic fringe is in or close to the centers of power. The furthest right members of Congress are willing conspiracy theorists — the 2020 election was stolen, etc. The cabinet is filled with sycophants who are more than willing to embrace Trump’s authoritarian impulses. And that’s not to mention his informal advisors — Steve Bannon, Laura Loomer.
We frequently hear implicit and explicit calls for violence from people within or close to the administration. There is nothing from the left that compares. We need to be critical of our own side’s worst impulses, but we should not lose sight of the radical asymmetry between the left and the right. “What about” is not a real argument — for the sake of heaven or anything else.
You are right, David, that the far-right in this nation has power and the far-left does not. In the Soviet Union, the far-left held power. In Nazi Germany, the far-right did as it does today in Russia and China—which sprang out of Mao’s far-left. To be clear: the far-left is not part of “my side,” and I am not a conservative. I don’t see the far-left in the U.S. gaining power in my lifetime—admittedly not all that long a period of time. If they did, they would take the same (or very similar) approach as taken by Trump, MAGA and those at that end of the horseshoe.