Leftists, such as those in Hollywood and academia, comprise only 10 percent of the American population yet they wield a disproportionate amount of power because of the attention and influence their positions in society garner, author Dan Flynn says.
Flynn, author of Why the Left Hates America, spoke at the Law Center of the University of Chapel Hill on March 25. He explained not only the book’s title, but also who he considers the left to be.
Flynn asserted that the left is a political faction associated with but distinct from mainstream liberal ideology and the Democratic Party. Party affiliation of Hollywood is visible through its open and consistent support of Democratic candidates and politically liberal causes, such as the antiwar group Not in Our Name.
As for the bias of academia, Flynn cited recent surveys on party affiliation at college campuses, which show the ratio of Republican professors to Democratic professors is at best one to 10 and at worst, as in the History Department at UNC, one to 46. Such numbers are not coincidences to Flynn. He said they belie a deep-rooted establishment of liberal bias in American college departments.
This bias conflicts with the most popular campus watchword of late, diversity. The inconsistency has caused him to question how a college community can claim diversity when only one viewpoint is represented. “They look like the United Nations, but they all think like a San Francisco coffee house,” Flynn said. The only reason he was giving the lecture at UNC-CH was because a student group, not an administrator or professor, had invited him, he said.
This has been the rule in the majority of forums in which Flynn speaks. Animosity toward him has manifested itself in more sinister ways, he said. When Flynn spoke at the University of California at Berkley, a group held a Nazi-style book burning during his lecture. At other places fire alarms were activated in the middle of his talk, his microphone was disconnected, and sometimes, audience members—including professors—drowned out his voice with jeers and chants.
Flynn described this as hatred under the guise of political dissent. Such hatred is best evident in one of the left’s most frequently used forms of protest, burning the American flag, he said. This act is not a show of displeasure with current American policy, he said, rather it is an act of hatred against the United States.
Explaining Why the Left Hates America, Flynn said, “America in practice refutes what the left touts in theory.” Such theories claim that America is an economic failure and a disgrace in racial relations.
Flynn argues that America has thrived under capitalism, flying in the face of socialism and communism, which the left espouses as ideals. America has poverty, he said, but the United States’ definition of destitution is a far cry from the international poverty manifested as pandemic deprivation. These conditions create a mass exodus of immigrants each year, who flee their homelands in search of better chances at survival. The immigrants usually come to America.
Flynn rejected another notion espoused by leftists that Americans are racist and xenophobic. Not only do immigrants risk their lives to come to the United States, but Americans also accept them when they come, Flynn said. In the past 100 years America has taken in 60 percent of the world’s immigrants.
In order to understand the United States, Americans need to know the good, the bad, and the ugly about their nation, Flynn said. He said he hoped to provide the good, which does not get enough attention. He warned the audience not to compare the United States to Utopia, because America was guaranteed to fail in comparison to perfection. Instead, Americans should strive to improve and acknowledge the nation’s mistakes and its successes.
Hood is an editorial intern at Carolina Journal.