There is a strange contradiction at the heart of identity politics.
The American Left is constantly warning about the dangers of "Islamophobia," while ignoring the plight of one of the world’s most persecuted minorities: Christians.
When it comes to the oppression of Christians, we're not talking about “microaggressions,” a sideways look at a grocery store, or even being called a derogatory name.
We're talking about Christians being abducted, tortured, forcibly converted, driven from their homes, and murdered because of their faith.
The silence of the left speaks volumes.
A disturbing new report from the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need provides an extensive account of this persecution, including atrocities committed by Islamist militants across Africa and the Middle East.
The report, Persecuted and Forgotten? 2024–2026, examines religious freedom violations in 18 countries between August 2024 and June 2026.
Its findings are appalling. The organization estimates that approximately 220 million Christians are being persecuted. In ten of the 18 countries surveyed, conditions deteriorated during the reporting period. None recorded an improvement.
The report is filled with examples showing what “persecution” actually looks like.
- In northern Nigeria, a 33-year-old Christian named Solomon Ako said he was kidnapped by militants who demanded he renounce his faith. When Ako and others refused to convert, their captors beat them, whipped them, and shackled their legs. They were also forced to stand in cold water up to their necks for hours on end.
- In Burkina Faso, Islamist militants attacked the village of Sanaba in August 2024, separating men and boys older than 12 whom they identified as Christians. According to the report, 26 were taken to a Protestant church and murdered.
- In Mozambique, Islamic State-affiliated militants have attacked Christian communities in Cabo Delgado Province for years. Aid to the Church in Need reports that more than 1,000 Christians have been killed there since the insurgency began in 2017.
We are talking about beheadings, kidnappings, church burnings, and the eradication of entire villages.
In Pakistan, Christian women and girls face forced conversion and marriage. In Iran, authorities have intensified arrests of Christians. In Syria, a suicide bombing at a Damascus church killed 23 people and injured 65 others.
That’s the tip of the jihadist iceberg. The Christian relief organization Open Doors estimates that more than 388 million Christians worldwide experience high levels of persecution or discrimination because of their faith.
Its 2026 World Watch List documents 4,849 Christians killed for faith-related reasons during its reporting period, along with 3,632 attacks on churches and Christian properties.
Islamist extremism is also a major driver of contemporary terrorism.
According to the Global Terrorism Index 2026, the four deadliest terrorist organizations in 2025 were Islamic State, Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, and al-Shabaab. All four are Islamist extremist organizations.
The modern Democrat Party is no longer merely silent about Islam; it is wholeheartedly endorsing it, and embracing Islamists who want to embed their extremism inside our nation.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani repeatedly complains about Islamophobia in American politics, arguing anti-Muslim prejudice is an accepted feature of public life. Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has also bemoaned alleged religious prejudice.
Here’s the deal: criticism of Islamic theology is not the same thing as hatred of Muslims.
Neither is criticism of Islamist extremism, religiously motivated violence, foreign governments that enforce sharia law, or mass immigration from Islamist countries.
Muslims, for their part, reject Christian doctrines, including the Trinity and the divinity of Christ. No one accuses them of “Christianophobia.”
A free society protects the right to believe, worship, disagree, persuade, and even reject another faith's teachings. It does not require Christians to accept Islamic religious claims merely to demonstrate “tolerance.”
Dozens of Muslim-majority countries, including states that constitutionally establish Islam as their official religion, impose serious restrictions on religious conversion, worship, and minority religions, like Judaism and Christianity.
Why do Democrats pretend like this isn’t happening worldwide?
Instead, they constantly attack Israel, the world's only Jewish-majority state. They attack Americans who want their nation to be rooted in Judeo-Christian values as “Christian nationalists.”
If you want to protect your nation and your culture, you are called a “bigot.” This conveniently evades a deeper conversation about whether or not it is rational and justified to preserve a culture that does not lead to thousands of people being oppressed or even slaughtered because of their religious views.
What the modern liberal fails to appreciate is that “tolerance” is ultimately a unique feature of Western Christian culture.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “Turn the other cheek.” “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”
Such familiar refrains of Christian culture are embedded in our mindset. Obviously, those admonishments deserve context: God does not require believers to adopt what Christians believe are tenets of false religions.
Which brings us to the Left’s ideology. Why is Christian culture attacked, while Islamism is defended? It is because of the nature of the New Left’s war on “capitalism.”
Karl Marx famously dismissed religion as the "opium of the people," a phrase later picked up by Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin. Marxists ultimately regard religion as a mass delusion that is in the way of their “proletarian revolution.”
Later Marxist thinkers, including the Frankfurt School, developed Marxist theory by adopting Hegelian, Freudian, and Nietzschean elements to pursue a “culture war.” Italian communist Antonio Gramsci instructed the left that revolutionary movements couldn't simply seize government power and expect society to transform itself.
In developed Western societies, political authority is reinforced by what Gramsci called cultural hegemony: the influence of churches, schools, intellectuals, newspapers, traditions, and prevailing ideas about morality and social order.
Gramsci’s revolutionary strategy preys on national conditions. He developed his revolutionary movement in Italy, where Catholicism had shaped the country's institutions and popular consciousness for centuries.
Gramscian revolutionary strategy has been adapted in the United States, where the Left has carried out a “long march” through our institutions; used them to wield “cultural hegemony” (marginalizing Christianity in popular media); and propped up rival religions like Islam that can be used to further put Christians’ backs against the wall.
The Left ultimately hopes that Christians lash out in “reaction.” This would further the left’s bogus argument that Christians are the “oppressors,” and Muslims are the “oppressed.”
That is why you see politicians like El-Sayed and Mamdani constantly harp about “Islamophobia” (meaning that some Muslim women in burqas get suspicious looks in subways), while ignoring that Christians are being tortured and murdered in Muslim-majority countries.
The radical Left does not make a big deal about Muslims persecuting Christians and Jews around the world because it exposes its ideology as self-serving and warped.
Socialists quite simply do not care about ideological consistency, nor do they care about intellectual honesty. All they care about is power.
That is why radicals attack Christians for imagined “cultural hegemony,” while debasing our culture with as many anti-Christian themes as possible. Their entertainment media constantly push sexualization, violence, and nihilism to get religion out of their way.
But their aim isn’t to liberate mankind by removing cultural hegemony; their actual aim is to replace our elites and wield power for their own ends. They aren’t against cultural hegemony; they are against American patriotism and Christian culture, because they are barriers to their power.
They don't want people to be loyal to America. Or to their families. Or to their religion. They want them to be loyal to whatever socialist leaders tell them to be loyal to at any given moment, because it serves their ends of taking power and remaining in power.
Socialists will say anything, and ally with anyone, who can help them seize power. If that means criticizing tolerant Christian culture on one hand, and defending intolerant Muslim culture on the other, then so be it.
