Christopher Rufo has done vital work exposing the truth about Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the insidious ways it has infiltrated America’s public schools. For that he deserves the thanks and congratulations of all patriotic Americans. Having achieved notable success at a relatively young age, however, Rufo may be tempted to overestimate the impact of his victories. In many ways—not the least of which is the re-election of Donald Trump—the left does seem to be in retreat today. But this poses a tremendous hazard for the right, which is that it might decide to “declare victory and go home.”

Rufo seems to be encouraging this unfortunate error with his essay, “America’s Verdict,” at IM1776. The essay argues, correctly, that the acquittal of Daniel Penny in New York City is a vindication of common sense and the rule of law. But then Rufo jumps to an unwarranted conclusion, claiming that “Americans are finished with the failed regime of the Left.” “Today’s verdict,” he continues, “marks the end of an era. BLM, which seemed unstoppable four years ago, is finished…. [A] brutal and stupid decade of moral and judicial corruption has come to a close.”

As much as we might want this to be true, it is dangerous wishful thinking. Does Rufo really think that CRT or wokeism is America’s first and last confrontation with radical politics? Can he really believe that leftism as an intellectual and political force has been defeated? No one on the right should be so naïve as to forget one of the oldest lessons of politics: there is no final answer to “the human problem”—at least not here on earth. Conservatives, especially, should always reject the utopian temptation, which holds that the perfect society and “the cessation of all evils” can be achieved if we are just radical or revolutionary enough—if we just show sufficient commitment. Wiser thinkers from Plato to James Madison, by contrast, understood that we can aspire, as the Constitution says, to a “more perfect” Union; but we must never forget that some men will always want to tyrannize others, and the institutions of self-government must tirelessly guard against that threat.

To his credit, Rufo acknowledges that there are still challenges ahead. We now have the opportunity to “truly confront the problems that have plagued American cities for a generation,” he writes, by dismantling the whole system of social justice “in academia and media, where it generates its alibis, but above all in criminal justice.”