Modern progressive movements have built much of their identity around concepts of inclusivity, diversity, and acceptance. On paper, these movements frequently champion values of tolerance and understanding of diverse political, economic and ethical positions. Yet, a troubling pattern emerges when these values are applied in practice: those groups that vocally advocate for inclusivity often demonstrate remarkable selectivity about who and what deserves inclusion. Namely, those universal values do not apply when encountering people who hold different views on “critical” issues.
As recently published by the Network Contagion Research Institute and noted by the Italian political scientist Luigi Curini, political violence – including assassination – has surged and become “normalized” among (extreme) left-leaning individuals in the United States. This is clear by looking at viral social media narratives which legitimize political violence, especially in the aftermath of the United Healthcare CEO’s assassination by Luigi Mangione. Data showed that 48% of survey respondents that self-identified as leftists somewhat justify the assassination of Elon Musk; this percentage moves to 55% when the target is the President Trump.
This represents a stark departure from stated principles of universal human worth and dignity. Social media platforms became venues where the United Healthcare CEO’s assassination was openly celebrated. Users criticizing this assassination culture became victim to online harassment.
Similar dynamics appear across various political contexts where movements advocating for tolerance demonstrate remarkable intolerance toward those holding dissenting views. Academic institutions that champion intellectual diversity sometimes create hostile environments for faculty or students with non-conforming political perspectives. Organizations promoting anti-discrimination policies may in fact discriminate against individuals based on their political affiliations or beliefs.
Carl Schmitt and moral exclusion
To understand this phenomenon more deeply, we must turn to Carl Schmitt’s thoughts applied to identity politics. Schmitt argued that the essence of politics lies in the distinction between “friend” and “enemy”, where the latter is not a personal enemy but a public one – for instance, a social or political group – who represents an “existential” threat to one’s own community.
This Schmittian logic helps explain the paradox of inclusivity. Progressive movements that champion the need to include and embrace all types of people and ideas must still maintain group coherence and identity. As a consequence, when faced with genuine ideological challenges (e.g., conservative thoughts), these movements categorize their opponents not as fellow citizens with different views, but as existential threats to the values movements represent.
We might say that this selective application of inclusive values relies on a sort of “moral exclusion”, the process by which progressive movements categorize certain individuals or groups as falling outside the boundaries of moral acceptability, effectively placing them beyond the scope of the very inclusivity these movements champion. Thus, ideological differences are reframed not as political disagreements but as fundamental threats to the movement’s existence – which, for the movement, corresponds to the society’s (or the planet’s) existence. In this way, “out of group” threats justify a movement’s behaviors and actions that would normally be considered unacceptable but that become necessary for the survival of the movement, society or the planet.
This moral exclusion also relies on labels which function as markers of enmity. For instance, some peace movements recently categorized political and social groups who call for military support to Ukraine as “warmongers”. Other examples are about pro-natalism initiatives, which have been labeled as responsible of environmental problems, or pro-life initiatives, which have been labeled as “rooted in white supremacy, the exploitation of Black women, and placing women’s bodies in service to men”. Once such a categorization occurs, the supposed universality of inclusive values no longer applies; by contrast, tolerance to enemies would itself be a betrayal of the movement’s core values.
Conclusion
The above arguments reveal the fundamental contradiction within progressive movements that simultaneously embrace universal inclusivity and Schmittian political logic. They cannot coherently maintain both positions: either all humans and ideas deserve moral consideration (genuine universalism), or political communities must exclude their enemies to survive. The practice of selective inclusivity does not solve the above paradox. More importantly, selective inclusivity contributes to both political and affective polarization, which might lead to the dehumanization of certain categories of people. Such polarization climate makes both sides – progressive movements and their “enemies” – more susceptible to misinformation that reinforces their core values and more resistant to evidence that challenges their preconceptions. In sum, when political opponents are viewed as enemies rather than fellow citizens with different perspectives, the normal processes of democratic deliberation break down.
One practical solution to this problem involves distinguishing between opposing ideas and the people who hold them. This does not mean abandoning criticism of harmful policies or failing to challenge problematic ideologies. Rather, it means maintaining basic human decency and recognition of shared humanity even while vigorously opposing certain political positions. It requires treating ideological opponents as fellow citizens with different ideas – that can be challenged, of course – rather than existential enemies. This distinction would shift Schmittian enmity from the realm of people to the realm of ideas, targeting ideological positions rather than the individuals or groups who advocate them. However, I doubt this will happen.
Photo by Markus Spiske
