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The Paradox of Tolerance and what it means for political discourse & social interactions. [1]

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Date: 2025-07-30

I’ve thought about the phrase, Paradox of Intolerance for several months, and longer than that before I knew of the term.

Shortly after tfg won in 2016, someone famously punched a Nazi on the street. My nephew shared that story on Facebook and scolded people who cheered it on. Granted, we were early into the whole nightmare of having a racist, bigoted and narcissistic president so I gave him some slack, despite his voting or non-voting helped bring about tfg as president in 2017. Maybe we should be better than people who punch Nazis? But deep in my heart, and based on my reading of WWII resisters, I thought perhaps it wasn’t so wrong. I’m not talking about inciting violence, I’m talking about pushing back on people that aren’t following societal norms.

We are, and always have been a racist country...no doubt about that. However, in modern times overt racism, and bigotry has been considered mostly taboo.

And despite the anti-democratic Electoral College, and gerrymandering, we are most definitely a country that by and large believes in democracy.

But how do we deal with those that don’t believe in democracy and openly campaign for a white supremacist run government? That brings us to today’s subject — the Paradox of Tolerance.

I was heartened and felt better about myself when I read and discussed this concept with friends and family. I’ve come to realize that out in the open we really should be intolerant of intolerant people. It should never be worse to be called a racist than to be a racist. We should be shouting out the intolerance of those that support racism and bigotry and cruelty. We can’t let intolerant people be comfortable in their intolerance.

I think we can see this in our day to day lives as acknowledging that it’s ok to not invite racists/bigots to our home for Thanksgiving. It’s ok to say we don’t want someone in our lives that votes for intolerance. And to those that say they voted for the felon in 2024 because of inflation, I say, nope, that’s a cover for voting for his racism, bigotry and cruelty. In the year 2024, when everything is on the internet, feigned ignorance over his positions is not good enough.

Check this post out for another good explainer of the concept:

At a high level, the Paradox of Tolerance discusses what can happen in society when tolerance for intolerance becomes too widespread.

We might also it view it as the idea that people who’ve broken the social contract are now no longer protected by it. Kindness is something that’s valued in our society, but do those neo-Nazis marching around the country deserve kindness? I think not; and I don’t think I’m alone in that view. We must be willing to call them what they are — racists.

Do the people celebrating the building of concentration camps, the illegal deportation of people, and the militarization of Los Angeles deserve kindness? Nope. If they are our family, friends or neighbors we must tell them why they’re wrong and if they can’t see it, then we should exclude them from our lives.

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Another good example of how we should respond to someone breaking the agreed upon norms — Gov. Abbott’s attempt to gerrymander the already gerrymandered Texas congressional seats. Gov. Newsom calls this out perfectly, and explains why he is willing to do all he can to respond in kind to any successful reapportionment by the Texas State Legislature. My understanding is that Gov. Pritzker has also agreed to do the same.

This entire clip is worth watching. It’s only a little more than two minutes, and it’s worth every single second.

“If we want to still be in this game we need to disabuse ourselves, disenthrall ourselves of the status quo of the past. We have got to enter a new mindset, and we’ve got to get back on this playing field.” x History will judge us. pic.twitter.com/UV3MrEMaHd — Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 26, 2025

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By now it’s clear what this corrupt administration wants to do...very clear. We can’t stand by and not do what we can to prevent a full fascist takeover.

I’m not suggesting violence. Non-violence is the BEST way to raise our voices together. That said there may come a time where each of us, like Indiana Jones, may need to punch a Nazi.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/30/2318047/-The-Paradox-of-Tolerance-and-what-it-means-for-political-discourse-amp-social-interactions?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

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