In the aftermath of the 2024 U.S. elections, it’s clear that America is facing an ideological divide that nearly swung a victory to the Left. While the election results brought a surprise win for Trump, the liberals and the woke uploading videos of their mental breakdown and hair-shaving protests online underscores the pervasive influence of leftist cultural norms in American institutions. This was no simple electoral contest; it was a struggle over the very narrative that has dominated Western societies—a battle between established ideologies and those who resist their grip.
Much of the leftist dominance, particularly in academic and media sectors, has established an environment where freedom of expression and dissenting ideas are systematically suppressed. From accusations of “toxicity” to cancellations over “incorrect” viewpoints, the left has weaponized social justice language to silence differing voices, labelling anyone outside their ideological framework as a threat. In institutions, once renowned for critical thinking, debates are often suffocated by politically driven accusations rather than genuine dialogue. As a result, this totalitarian-like influence has alienated many—especially younger men and professionals—who crave spaces free from ideological intimidation.
Such dynamics aren’t unique to America. In countries like India, where the left has had strongholds within universities and media, the suppression of dissent is a familiar issue. Here, narratives dominated by the left have fostered a national struggle, forcing India to confront not only external threats but also a domestically driven agenda intent on reshaping the Indic narrative to fit Western liberal frameworks. In both the U.S. and India, media landscapes amplify certain voices while excluding others, further dividing societies already grappling with identity and security concerns.
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Claire Lehmann, an Australian journalist and the founding editor of Quillette in her essay, ‘Revenge of the Silent Male Voter’, explores Donald Trump’s unexpected 2024 election victory through a cultural lens, especially the shifting attitudes among male voters across different demographics. She observes a sense of liberation among New York’s Trump supporters—from elderly women to young men seeking alternatives to mainstream values. Lehmann suggests that this support reflects deeper discontent with modern social narratives, particularly around masculinity, ambition, and historical achievement. Trump’s win, she argues, symbolizes a pushback against cultural norms that dismiss traditional male traits and celebrates figures like Elon Musk as examples of individual greatness and progress.
Jake, an Associate Professor of Classics at Academic Freedom Alliance going by the handle @omni_american posted a thread on X. His statement describes his experience over the past four years as one marked by increasing ideological intolerance, not imposed by a single authoritarian leader but by a pervasive “left-wing culture” that pressures conformity in thought and expression. He highlights the impact on academia, where professors fear career-ending accusations, and in the arts and healthcare, where individuals risk “cancellation” for nuanced or divergent viewpoints. This cultural climate, he argues, creates a society where fear of social and professional retaliation stifles open discourse, driving many professionals to self-censor out of self-preservation.
Reading the accounts of US citizens post the election of Donald Trump as the 47th President, it turns out the American narrative was also dominated by the Left, the regressive left as I call it, in alliance with Islamists (or the Intifada factory). If they could infiltrate and control the media of the superpower of the world, what chance did India and our part of Kashmir have in the 2000s as the 24-hour news channels of the original ‘godi media’ (media in their lap) boomed and the digital media made an advent?
In his book ‘The Demon Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies’, Ryszard Legutko discusses how modern liberal democracies are often tempted by totalitarian ideologies, including leftist ones. He touches on how young people, especially those grappling with existential or social issues, are drawn to ideologies that appear to challenge capitalist or conservative norms. We have the same problem in our leftist bastions of knowledge. It’ll be another decade before objective history, academia, and media will emerge. To fasten the process, India needs a purge of left-leaning ideologues in positions of power who control the media and academia, the two ivory towers of information, disconnected from reality with their echo chambers.
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India is always bothered about its image internationally and is often led by its nose, whenever a hue and cry occurs in Western media on its democracy index or the persecution of minorities. By now it has been clear to even the most lay Indian that this narrative is part of the disinformation warfare against India by West-funded Left-liberals and Islamist mouthpieces themselves. Things are the same as they were when the Muslim league ideologues convinced the Brits to partition India and the weak Congress Party members gave in. Things are still the same when we have balkanising of India slogans from the left-bastion Universities in the country, left-liberals defending seditious students and creating alliances with the far-right Muslim supremacists who oppose reforms to personal laws and create conditions for the creation of mini-Pakistans.
National security interests have to be paramount and it is not bigotry, racism, xenophobia or hatred to call out the citizens hell-bent on balkanising India, be it people of Muslim heritage or the useful idiots of Hindu heritage. The only way to secure our cities, which have borne the brunt of terrorism is to hold the urban naxals, the anti-India elements within accountable and penalise them. The ‘bleeding India with a thousand cuts’ official policy of Pakistan, has already crossed the 1000 mark with the number of our soldiers in body bags coming at a steady pace from before 1990 till yesterday too in the Kupwara forests.
Too long has the ‘regressive left’ and the ‘fiberals’ been dominating the Indic narrative through the voices of the brown sepoys. They keep labeling bold voices as fascists while cancelling us or the liberal democracy of India as fascism while enjoying the freedom to bash India and Indians, on domestic portals and the international digital media. The American people have taken their country back and their President-elect now controls the Senate, the House of Representatives and the White House. India, a multi-party country can at least start draining the swamp while learning from the near-victory of left-leaning ideologies in the US election. We can reinvest in individual liberties, protect voices that challenge groupthink, and, above all, remember the strength of balanced discourse.
The columnist is a Fellow of the Foundation for Indian Historical and Cultural Research (FIHCR)