How did progressives become the new Puritans?

Today, it is rightwing personalities like The Daily Wire’s Michael J. Knowles, comedian and Fox News host Kat Timpf, Mary Katharine Ham and Vic Matus on the Getting Hammered Podcast, and Twitter sensation “Comfortably Smug,” who seem to be having all the fun. Shows featuring online shock jocks like Louder with Crowder and PragerU revel in entertaining their audiences by trolling liberals and mocking the bizarre beliefs held by extreme progressives. Between the copious amounts of Bang Energy drinks, the irreverent speeches, and the presence of adult film stars, companies like Turning Point USA have conferences that can almost resemble a rock concert. Further, compared to the straightlaced image of former Republican presidents, Donald Trump’s opulent lifestyle, crude demeanor, and ridiculous memeablity seem to have been attractions, not drawbacks, for many voters. All of this has led some commentators to declare conservatism the new “punk rock,” a sentiment that has been echoed and embraced across much of the MAGA right.

In turn, the left—once the bastion of people eager to “stick it to the man” and preachers of anti-conformity—has become the home of “the new Puritans,” according to Commentary’s Noah Rothman in his new book. While moral panics have been constant fixtures of the post-New Left university campus, as Rothman highlights, they have now begun to manifest in parts of the food industry, the entertainment business, and the publishing world, just to name a few. As Rothman’s subtitle denotes, a “war on fun” is being raged by energized activists and nothing the average American enjoys can escape it. From the entertainment we watch, to the comedy we laugh at, to the clothing we wear, to even the food we consume, a new kind of fun policing has emerged over recent years to take issue with all of it. So many of the things Americans take for granted as sources of enjoyment, entertainment, and escapism are now deemed “problematic,” precisely because they remain avenues for fun. As evident from so many online outrages, those willing to dissent and criticize these everchanging progressive orthodoxies might soon find themselves at the wrong end of the Twitter mob and quickly jobless. But for Rothman, this isn’t just a kind of puritanical progressivism, but rather, a new manifestation of Puritanism itself.