In recent weeks, and most especially in the last four days since Charlie Kirk's assassination, there has been a lot of virtual ink spilled on the American left's increasing propensity towards violence, towards violent politically-motivated attacks, and now, even what is starting to look a lot like a politically-motivated murder. We might remember that the current President of the United States was the subject of not one but two politically-motivated assassination attempts.
Why is this happening? It wasn't always like this. As recently as the Bill Clinton era, the American left was by and large peaceful and willing to engage in civil discourse. (One can't make that claim for the left in other places, like Communist China and the former Soviet Union.) What changed?
On Saturday morning, a respected colleague directed my attention to a Substack by Noah Smith of "Noahpinion" that makes some interesting observations, in a piece called "The Bluesky-ization of the American left." Let's look at a few of those. First, on cancel culture and the clout it could bring to a virtual bomb-thrower:
But to get that clout, you have to stand out. Attacking the same old progressive targets — Donald Trump, Republican senators, conservative influencers — is a low-yield activity, because the field is too competitive. Everyone attacks those people. But finding more novel targets for mob attack — like an NYT writer who calls a second-generation American an “immigrant” — can be a high-yield activity. It’s basically outrage entrepreneurship.
Of course, this means that there was an incentive for progressive purity spirals and tent-shrinking. If you’re a progressive looking for new people to denounce, the most tempting targets are probably center-left liberals who have heretofore been safe from cancellation. Hating Donald Trump is old news. But hating Matt Yglesias? That could get you some real attention!
This is a key concept. The purity spiral idea is that, for cancel culture and its usefulness to the left to continue, the activist left had to continually find new targets. They had to narrow their search for outrage to individual statements, to people who showed insufficient zeal for the left's pet causes. People like Elon Musk, like Joe Rogan, who were originally left of center, were identified, marginalized, attacked, and frozen out - so they reacted predictably, by moving slightly to the right while the left dragged the Overton Window far, far to the left. This is why President Trump, who in many of his policy positions and personal convictions was, in 2016, essentially a Truman Democrat - but now he, too, has moved to the right, in part by being driven there by the increasingly strident ideologues on the left.
As for tent-shrinking, that's self-explanatory, and we're seeing it happen. Just look at party registrations, especially among young men.
Social media, now, there's another interesting topic. There can be little doubt that social media platforms have driven many - to be honest, many on the left and the right - into socio-political bubbles, where their existing opinions and biases aren't challenged.
The threat of progressive cancel culture in America has been defused.
Part of that, of course, is because of a general conservative shift in American politics since 2021. And part of it is because Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned it into X, causing some progressives to abandon the platform. Many of those progressives went to a similar platform called Bluesky.
Like right-wing platforms such as Gab, Parler, and Truth Social, Bluesky’s reach is limited. Its usage rates remain far, far below those of X, and a bump of new users following Trump’s election is slowly fading:
— Ward Clark (@TheGreatLander) September 13, 2025Practically all the important progressives — academics, commentators, activists, politicians — are on Bluesky, talking to a much smaller audience than they used to have on Twitter. But what they say just doesn’t seem to matter at all. “They’re dragging your ass on Bluesky” is a statement that strikes fear into the heart of practically no one. A mob denouncing you as transphobic, racist, misogynist, etc. on Bluesky will have essentially no chance of negatively impacting your career.
The same applies to some degree to the right; we have to admit that as well. The advent of many of these platforms has limited discourse by allowing too many people to join communities consisting only of people they agree with. Too many people do not seek out other viewpoints; they don't challenge their own biases and opinions. But the left is notorious for this, and it's not new; it goes back at least as far as members-only, moderated Usenet groups.
And, in the case of Bluesky, and the excerpts we are seeing over the last few days, it sure seems to be focusing the left's hate - and drawing others into that pattern of thinking.
On September 10th, we saw the results.
Read More: Ohio BBQ Joint Co-Owner Makes Foul Statement About Charlie Kirk - Now He Meets the Backlash
Here's the thing: Cancel culture may be fading away, but the people radicalized by it, by the advent of social media bubbles, and with the spiraling focus on an increasingly toxic ideology, they aren't going anywhere soon. They may (and likely will, if you ask me) continue to push the edges of sanity. Charlie Kirk, I expect, won't be the last target some nutcase lefty tries for. And this branch of the left won't return to the center-left of the Tip O'Neill days. The Overton Window will not be dragged all that way back without a political pruning of that far end.
No, the left will keep trying; most of them don't realize they are in the position of being surrounded by millions of cans of "Whoop-A**," and wondering which one to open first, not realizing that what emerges won't be to their advantage. There is no way this ends well. Not for the left, nor the right, nor the republic.
