They agree with Lenin's clever aphorism that "in order to make an omelet you have to break a few eggs." They also agree with Lenin when he said that he "repudiates all morality that proceeds from supernatural ideas....Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war. Everything is moral that is necessary for the annihilation of the old exploiting social order..."
For the Leninists violence, censorship, intimidation, dissimulation, and judicial prejudice are all morally legitimate means to be employed in the struggle to bring about the rule of the people.
Their aim is to do away with all laws, customs and institutions, such as the church, which have traditionally served as bulwarks against moral chaos. They wish to overwhelm these institutions, both legal and religious, until they collapse under the strain, and they expect to be able to exploit the ensuing disorder to assert their own power and impose a socialist utopia.
If we picture the Left as a series of concentric circles, like a target, the Leninists might occupy the center ring. They're not particularly numerous, but they're extremely dedicated and have an outsized influence on our politics and culture.
The next ring out from the center are the Lennonists who aspire to a world similar to that of their Leninist brethren but who are of a rather different psychological timber. The Lennonists also want to do away with traditional institutions like the church and anything else, such as national borders, that stands in the way of individual autonomy and the "brotherhood of man," but they're much more mellow about their aspirations.
Whereas the Leninists bring to mind Survivor's Eye of the Tiger, Lennonists are more like Bobby McFerrin's Don't Worry, Be Happy.
The Lennonist creed is captured in the lyrics of John Lennon's Imagine:
Imagine there's no heavenYes, yes, it's incredibly naive and, well, unimaginable, but it's precisely the dream of those secular progressives who wish to impose a socialist economy while doing away with national borders and religion. The proponents of the Green New Deal, for example, are at least sympathetic to Lennonism.
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today ...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
The third and outer ring of the Left is the largest in terms of numbers and is comprised of neither Leninists nor Lennonists, but of folks only tangentially engaged in our day to day politics. Their understanding of what's going on consists of vague impressions picked up as scraps of information overheard here and there, or snippets gleaned from social media.
Their worldview is simple: Conservatives are bad. Progressives are good, and anything which would upset that settled understanding is ignored and dismissed. They haven't the time or interest to study or think about the affairs of state and thus exert no real influence on those affairs.
There are others, of course, bright people and good, who, though they'd call themselves liberals or progressives, fall into none of these rings, but, they're not wielding many of the levers of influence either. The steering wheel of the Left of 2019 is firmly in the grip, it seems, of the Leninists and the Lennonists.