On Building “a Big Tent”
American politics has discovered the perfect phrase for people who are terrified of having principles:
“We're a big-tent party.”
Republicans say it.
Democrats say it.
Political consultants say it with the solemnity of men announcing the discovery of penicillin.
“We need a bigger tent.”
“We need to expand the tent.”
“We can't afford to throw anyone out of the tent.”
Apparently American politics is now primarily an exercise in competitive camping. And yet everyone invoking this metaphor has somehow forgotten the most obvious thing about a tent:
It has walls.
That's rather the point. A tent without walls is not an especially inclusive tent. It's a tarp. Come on in. We've got constitutional conservatives, democratic socialists, Marxists, libertarians, racial nationalists, antisemites, anarchists, people who hate Western civilization, people who allegedly want to conserve Western civilization, and one guy in the corner who has been explaining the Federal Reserve to a folding chair for forty-five minutes.
Don't worry.
It's a big tent.
This is supposed to reassure us.
It should terrify us.
Because “big tent” once meant something perfectly reasonable: people who share fundamental principles can disagree about secondary questions.
Now it increasingly means:
“We don't know what our fundamental principles are, and we'd rather not find out because somebody might get mad.”
That isn't pluralism.
It's cowardice.
The Tent Is Not the Point
A political coalition exists to accomplish something. This is apparently breaking news. A Republican coalition might contain free traders and protectionists, interventionists and noninterventionists, libertarians and traditionalists.
Fine.
A Democratic coalition might contain moderates, labor liberals, environmentalists, social democrats and various other factions.
Also fine.
These people can argue.
That's politics.
But if your coalition becomes so broad that it includes people who reject the foundational principles the coalition supposedly exists to defend, then you have not broadened your coalition.
You have abolished it.
Imagine the American Dental Association announcing a bold new membership initiative:
“We've historically been too narrow. Beginning immediately, we're welcoming dentists, orthodontists, hygienists, and people who believe teeth are bourgeois propaganda.”
Someone raises his hand.
“Should the last group really be here?”
The chairman recoils.
“Excuse me? Are we conducting purity tests now?”
No.
We're conducting a dentistry test.
That's different.
Every institution does this.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals probably doesn't need a cockfighting caucus. Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't need a two-drink minimum. Weight Watchers doesn't need Joey Chestnut running the buffet.
And a political movement dedicated to preserving constitutional government, ordered liberty, private property, equal citizenship and Western civilization does not need a caucus dedicated to explaining why constitutional government, private property, equal citizenship and Western civilization are all terrible.
This isn't complicated.
Bad Ideas Exist
We need to recover an ancient concept. It predates social media. It predates cable television. It may even predate the Iowa caucuses.
The concept is this:
Some ideas are bad.
Not “problematic.” Not “challenging.” Not “important perspectives that deserve to be centered.”
Bad.
Wrong.
Stupid.
Destructive.
Civilizations used to understand this. You could study an idea without pretending it deserved respect. You could understand an argument without embracing it.
You could permit someone to speak without immediately handing him a microphone, a caucus, a keynote address and a blue checkmark.
We seem to have lost this distinction. Now whenever a poisonous ideology appears, someone inevitably says:
“But shouldn't we hear them out?”
No. We've heard them out.
Humanity has been conducting the focus group for several thousand years.
The results are in.
Antisemitism Is Not an Interesting New Perspective
Take antisemitism.
This one should be easy.
Human beings have spent centuries testing the proposition that Jews are secretly responsible for whatever happens to be bothering everyone at the moment.
Economic collapse?
Jews.
War?
Jews.
Communism?
Jews.
Capitalism?
Also Jews.
Banking?
Jews.
Hollywood?
Jews.
Your toaster stopped working?
Give the internet fifteen minutes. Somebody will draw a red string from BlackRock to Jerusalem.
Antisemitism is the Swiss Army knife of stupid conspiracy theories. It can supposedly explain everything precisely because it actually explains nothing. Historically, antisemitism has relied heavily upon conspiracy mythology, scapegoating and collective guilt.[1]
And yet it periodically crawls back into political discourse wearing a fake mustache. On the Left, it sometimes disguises itself as sophisticated geopolitical analysis. On the Right, it sometimes disguises itself as courageous opposition to “globalism.”
How convenient.
Apparently hatred becomes intellectual if you give it a sufficiently vague noun. No.
There are political subjects. Israel, Gaza, whether Palestine is a “thing”, Judea and Samaria or the West Bank.
But the moment your explanation of world events becomes:
“Well, you see, the Jews…”
Congratulations.
You've stopped doing political analysis and begun reenacting a pamphlet from 1897. Out of the tent.
“But he's influential!”
Wonderful.
So was smallpox.
Influence is not an argument.
“But he agrees with us on immigration!”
So what? A broken septic tank may also be technically located on your property. You don't bring it into the living room because you have something in common.
Marxism: The Idea That Refuses to Notice Its Own Résumé
Then there is Marxism.
Marxism enjoys one of the most extraordinary privileges in intellectual history: it is forever permitted to separate itself from everything ever done in its name. No other idea gets this deal.
Whenever capitalism produces a bad outcome, capitalism goes on trial.
Whenever Marxism produces a catastrophe, Marxism receives another semester at Columbia.
“That wasn't REAL Marxism.”
Of course. Real Marxism apparently exists in the same metaphysical realm as unicorns, square circles and affordable airport sandwiches.
You can never actually see it. You can only believe it exists—like Bigfoot.
Marx and Engels explicitly described history in terms of class struggle and anticipated the revolutionary overthrow of the existing bourgeois order.[2]
This wasn't hidden in the director's commentary. They wrote it down.
And yet every generation produces another crop of university students who discover Marx with the excitement of archaeologists unearthing a lost civilization.
“Guys, have you heard about this?”
Yes.
We have.
Everybody has.
There were flags. And walls. And Corpses. Lots of corpses.
Democrats Have Their Own Traveling Circus
For years, portions of the progressive Left have engaged in a strange ritual where increasingly radical ideas emerge from universities, activist organizations and social media, and Democratic politicians pretend they have no idea where any of it came from.
Suddenly we're discussing whether mathematics is culturally oppressive.
Nobody knows how this happened. We're renaming schools.
Nobody knows why.
Someone wants to abolish the police.
Very mysterious.
A statue of Thomas Jefferson needs to disappear because the presence of an eighteenth-century man with eighteenth-century sins apparently makes twenty-first-century adults physically unsafe.
Again, nobody knows how we got here.
And somewhere a Democratic consultant is whispering:
“Remember. Big tent.”
At some point the tent is going to need a structural engineer.
You can acknowledge, in context, the supposed “sins” of Western civilization without despising Western civilization. This is another concept that should not require an advanced degree. The West has committed atrocities.
And so has every other civilization—ever.
Western civilization has also produced extraordinary mechanisms for criticizing, correcting and restraining its own abuses. The Western inheritance includes Athens and Jerusalem, Roman law, Christianity, natural-law philosophy, universities, constitutionalism, representative institutions, freedom of conscience, modern science and the long development of individual rights.
It also contained slavery, imperialism, religious wars, racial persecution and innumerable hypocrisies. Just like every other civilization.
Civilizations are made by human beings.
This tends to complicate the résumé.
But there is a substantial difference between saying:
“Our civilization has committed terrible wrongs.”
and:
“Our civilization is fundamentally a terrible wrong.”
The first is historical maturity. The second is adolescent rebellion wearing a Che Guevara shirt. A civilization incapable of criticizing itself becomes decadent. A civilization capable only of criticizing itself becomes suicidal.
Republicans Have Their Own Traveling Circus Too
Republicans should stop laughing.
Because the Right has developed its own peculiar inability to throw lunatics out of the tent.
A man appears online.
He agrees with conservatives about immigration.
Excellent.
He opposes progressive ideology.
Excellent.
He criticizes bureaucratic government.
Excellent.
Then, somewhere around minute 43 of the livestream, he begins explaining that every significant event since the Battle of Hastings was secretly orchestrated by a cabal of Jewish financiers. And suddenly conservatives become philosophers of nuance.
“Well, I certainly don't agree with everything he says…”
Stop. Out of the tent.
You sound like a mother explaining her son's arrest.
“He's really a good boy once you get past the arson.”
If somebody believes the Constitution should be replaced by racial authoritarianism, he isn't a conservative ally with some eccentric opinions. He's an authoritarian who occasionally agrees with conservatives.
There is a difference.
If someone hates Jews, he doesn't become useful because he also hates DEI seminars. If someone embraces racial collectivism, he doesn't become conservative because he watches Tucker Carlson. The Right cannot defeat the Left's bad ideas by collecting bad ideas of its own.
That is not counterrevolution.
It's dumpster diving.
“Purity Test” Is the Magic Phrase
Whenever someone proposes excluding genuinely destructive ideas, the political consultant reaches for his emergency vocabulary.
“Purity test.”
Ah. The purity test. The phrase is wonderfully useful because it allows you to pretend there is no distinction between demanding total agreement and demanding some agreement.
Suppose I establish an organization called People Who Believe the Earth Is Round. Our membership includes Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, atheists, Republicans, Democrats, libertarians and people who put pineapple on pizza.
Very broad coalition. Then Steve arrives.
Steve believes Earth is shaped like a quesadilla.
We reject his membership application. Suddenly:
“ROUND EARTH GROUP IMPOSES PURITY TEST.”
No. We imposed the one test inherent in the organization's name. A political coalition can tolerate disagreement about ten thousand things while maintaining ten things that are nonnegotiable.
That is not ideological purity.
It is ideological existence.
Madison Wasn't Running a Daycare
James Madison understood the problem more than two centuries ago.
In Federalist No. 10, Madison defined a faction as citizens united by some passion or interest adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent interests of the community.[3]
Notice that.
Madison did not assume every faction was merely another beautiful flower in democracy's diverse garden. Some factions were dangerous. The problem was how to control their effects without destroying liberty.[4]
That distinction is everything.
A free society permits bad ideas. It does not have to honor bad ideas.
It permits Marxists to speak. It doesn't have to pretend Marxism is brilliant.
It permits antisemites to publish. It doesn't have to invite them to CPAC.
It permits people to despise Western civilization. It doesn't have to give them control of institutions established to preserve it.
Freedom of speech means the government generally cannot silence you. It does not mean everybody else must pretend you're interesting.
The First Amendment protects your right to say something stupid. It does not require me to provide the folding chair.
Civilization Is an Exercise in Discrimination
The word “discrimination” has become almost entirely negative, but its older meaning is indispensable. To discriminate is to distinguish. Civilization requires distinctions.
True from false.
Beautiful from ugly.
Just from unjust.
Virtue from vice.
Wisdom from stupidity.
Friend from enemy.
Civilization from barbarism.
A society that loses the ability to make distinctions does not become tolerant. It becomes defenseless. Imagine applying modern Big Tent reasoning anywhere else.
The hospital announces:
“We've decided medical licensing is exclusionary.”
The airline announces:
“Our cockpit is a big tent. Everyone deserves an opportunity to land the aircraft.”
The Baltimore Ravens announce:
“We don't believe in arbitrary distinctions between our players and the Kansas City Chiefs.”
The military announces:
“Enemy is such a divisive term.”
Nobody would call this compassion. We'd call it insanity. Yet political movements routinely congratulate themselves for essentially the same behavior.
“We have principles!”
Which ones?
“All of them!”
Even contradictory ones?
“Especially those! Diversity!”
Put the Bad Ideas Outside
So here is the proposal. Build the Big Tent. Make it enormous.
Invite people who disagree about taxes.
Invite people who disagree about trade.
Invite people who disagree about foreign policy.
Invite people who disagree about entitlement reform, environmental regulations, immigration levels, infrastructure spending and whether politicians should be permitted to use TikTok without adult supervision.
Argue. Debate. Compromise. Persuade. That's republican government. But establish walls.
Antisemitism?
Outside.
Marxism?
Outside.
Racial supremacy?
Outside.
Political totalitarianism?
Outside.
The belief that Western civilization is merely an oppressive structure to be dismantled?
Outside.
And no, this does not mean government suppression. Quite the opposite. Let the bad ideas speak. Let them publish books. Let them create podcasts. Let them march around wearing matching hats. Let them explain themselves at enormous length.
Nothing discredits many bad ideas quite as efficiently as allowing their adherents to finish a sentence. But political movements are under no obligation to adopt them. Put them outside the tent. Give them directions to the ideological wilderness. Maybe a canteen.
We're not monsters.
Then let them wander into the cold, unforgiving landscape of failed ideas where Marxism can build another workers' paradise, antisemitism can search for Jewish fingerprints on the weather, racial supremacists can measure each other's skulls, and professional enemies of Western civilization can complain about Western civilization using smartphones, antibiotics, constitutional protections and communications technologies produced by the civilization they despise.
They'll be fine. Or they won't. Either way, the tent remains standing.
The Wall Is What Makes the Tent Possible
This is the lesson our political parties refuse to learn. Boundaries are not the enemy of pluralism. They make pluralism possible. A football field requires sidelines. A country requires borders. An argument requires definitions. A political party requires principles.
And a tent requires walls.
Otherwise you don't have a larger tent. You have surrendered the distinction between inside and outside. Which means eventually someone enters who doesn't merely want a seat. He wants the tent poles. Then the ropes. Then the canvas.
Then he explains that the entire concept of tents is structurally oppressive.
And while everyone else is standing in the rain, the political consultants will assure us that this unfortunate development demonstrates the remarkable diversity of the coalition.
No.
Build the tent. Make it broad. Welcome disagreement. Reject ideological conformity. But keep the walls. Because the test of a political movement isn't merely whom it welcomes.
Sometimes the more important test is whether it possesses enough confidence in its own principles to look at a poisonous idea, point toward the wilderness and say:
No.
Not this.
Not here.
You are not welcome.
Out.
Endnotes
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Antisemitism: An Introduction,” Holocaust Encyclopedia. The Museum describes antisemitism as prejudice against or hatred of Jews and documents the recurring importance of scapegoating, stereotypes, conspiracy theories and collective accusations in its historical manifestations.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), especially Parts I–II. Marx and Engels describe historical development in terms of class struggle, call for the overthrow of existing bourgeois social conditions, and famously conclude by calling upon workers of the world to unite.
James Madison, The Federalist No. 10, November 22, 1787. Madison defines a faction as citizens united by a common passion or interest adverse to the rights of other citizens or the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
Ibid. Madison argues that removing the causes of faction would require either destroying liberty or imposing uniformity of opinion; he therefore focuses upon constitutional mechanisms for controlling faction's effects.
Ibid. Madison expressly identifies proposals including abolition of debts and equal division of property among examples of “improper or wicked” projects whose spread an extended republic might inhibit.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia, materials on antisemitism and antisemitic conspiracy theories. The historical record illustrates how political, economic and social crises have repeatedly been interpreted through conspiratorial claims assigning collective responsibility to Jews.
Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875); Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848). These works are useful primary sources for distinguishing Marx's actual critique of bourgeois property and class society from the indiscriminate modern habit of labeling virtually any government expenditure “Marxist.”
Pew Research Center, “Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology.” Pew's political-typology research illustrates substantial ideological diversity within the major American partisan coalitions. Such heterogeneity supports the distinction drawn here between legitimate intracoalitional disagreement and rejection of a coalition's foundational commitments.
The distinction throughout this essay between legal tolerance and institutional acceptance is grounded in a basic principle of liberal constitutionalism: protecting a person's freedom to advocate an idea does not require private organizations, political parties or other citizens to endorse, honor or associate themselves with that idea. The argument here is therefore for political and intellectual exclusion of certain doctrines, not governmental suppression of their expression.
