Prominent American Islamic scholar Hamza Yusuf once observed, “The fear tactic is a tactic that's used by people who want to maintain control, and it's very effective.”

When Hillary Clinton appeared on MSNBC last month, many Americans couldn’t help noticing that fear tactics remain an integral part of the progressive political playbook.

In the wake of the tragic campus shooting of Christian free-speech activist and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, Charlie Kirk, Mrs. Clinton told Morning Joe viewers that “white men of… a certain religion” are doing damage to America.

The former U.S. First Lady, New York Senator, and Secretary of State took aim at Turning Point USA’s efforts to restore Christian virtues, encourage marriage, support family formation, protect free speech, and celebrate American liberty. She asserted that “The idea that you could turn the clock back and try to recreate a world that never was, dominated by white men of a certain persuasion, a certain religion, a certain point of view, a certain ideology, is just doing such damage.” Mrs. Clinton went on to accuse the right of attempting to erase history—slavery, suffrage, and “anything inconvenient.”

Conservatives such as Family Research Council president Tony Perkins were shocked by such divisive rhetoric from a prominent American political figure. Yet Mrs. Clinton’s message was not new. Western elites have repeatedly depicted Christianity—particularly in its evangelical expressions—as a lurking danger to democracy and progress.

Chronic Christian Derangement Syndrome

Over the past half century, political victories by faith-based coalitions—from the “Reagan Revolution” to Donald Trump’s “MAGA movement”—have induced a kind of chronic derangement syndrome within the Western intelligentsia.

After Ronald Reagan’s landslide re-election in 1984, award-winning Canadian author Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid’s Tale. The novel received widespread acclaim in North American literary circles and earned a permanent place on progressive reading lists. Decades later, and coinciding with Christian pro-life support for Donald Trump’s 2016 victory, The Handmaid’s Tale was reintroduced as a television series, renewed for five seasons, with a final sixth premiering in April 2025.

Atwood’s novel imagines that under certain conditions, America could descend into a Christian theocracy. She envisioned Gilead—a totalitarian Christian regime born from political division, ecological collapse, and domestic terrorism that wipes out the U.S. Congress. In the ensuing chaos, a theocratic elite seizes power, strips women of rights, and imposes rigid roles justified by scripture. Dissent is crushed by force.

But the Canadian author’s cautionary tale of a Christian theocracy and the subjugation of women was, and remains, wildly out of step with reality. In fact, the 1980s were a time of remarkable advancement for women. At the highest political levels, Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as British Prime Minister (1979–1990) virtually institutionalized the breaking of glass ceilings. In the United States, Geraldine Ferraro’s 1984 vice-presidential candidacy represented another milestone. The decade saw accelerating progress for women in management, academia, and politics—developments often credited to feminism’s “second wave.”

The Real Danger from Islamo-gauchisme

Radical progressives continue to invoke Margaret Atwood’s dystopian warning whenever conservative Christians gain political visibility. But the fear they stoke bears little resemblance to the historical record.

Real theocratic threats have not arisen from dwindling pockets of Christianity, but rather from a toxic form of Islamo-gauchisme—an ideological alliance between parts of the Islamic world and the radical Western left.

Consider the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which replaced the Shah with Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Republic, enforcing Sharia law, suppressing women, and jailing or executing dissenters. The Taliban in Afghanistan, both in the 1990s and again today, have banned girls from education and reduced women to near-invisibility in public life. Organizations such as al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Hamas have committed atrocities across the Middle East and beyond—through terror attacks, mass executions, hostage-taking, and the destruction of ancient cultures. Unlike Atwood’s imagined Christian dystopia, these regimes have created a living hell for millions of innocent people.

Bitter Irony

And yet, many Western progressives remain reluctant to condemn genuine theocracies. Instead, they rationalize or even align with radical Islamist movements. Segments of the Western left have excused the Iranian regime as an “anti-imperialist” force, and some activist groups openly defend Hamas despite its violent, theocratic rule in Gaza. Intersectional rhetoric has made such alliances appear fashionable—even as these movements oppress women and minorities far more severely than any Western church ever would.

The irony is hard to miss. The Christian West has not been the enemy of modern liberty but its incubator. From the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, Christian institutions and ideas were deeply interwoven with the rise of science, human rights, and democracy. Yet progressives persist in portraying “white men of a certain religion” as the gravest threat to those very achievements.

The real danger lies not in imaginary Gileads but in the cultural amnesia of Western elites. As George Orwell once remarked, some ideas are so foolish that only intellectuals will believe them.

By depicting Christian conservatives as villains while excusing or partnering with genuine theocrats abroad, progressives undermine the very civilization that secured the freedoms they claim to defend. And as long as radical intellectuals dominate the cultural and educational institutions of the West, these distortions are likely to persist.

William Brooks——Bio and Archives

William Brooks is a Canadian writer and a Senior Fellow at The Frontier Centre for Public Policy