Writing by Dr. Dannielle Blumenthal

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Progressivists and Islamists Are Both Members Of A Cult

Written with the help of Grok AI and Gemini AI.

People often wonder at the coexistence of radical leftists and radical Islamists, who seem to have opposing views of the world. Analyzing the parallels between disparate ideologies like radical Islamism and certain fringes of progressive leftism often reveals a shared authoritarian architecture that makes them operate similarly in the subject’s mind. Thus it is not surprising that the cults can control their followers even to the point of telling them that completely contradictory ideas do in fact support each other.

While their theological and secular goals differ, the sociological mechanisms they use to enforce conformity and target individual freedoms are strikingly similar (Bezmenov, 2023). Both movements frequently utilize “sacred” language to bypass rational debate, framing dissent not as a difference of opinion, but as a moral failing or “blasphemy” that justifies emotional or physical retaliation.

To understand the convergence of these two seemingly opposite ideologies, one must look past their stated goals and examine their operational blueprints. While one claims to be rooted in ancient scripture and the other in modern “progress,” they both function as totalizing systems that demand the surrender of the individual to a collective, sacred will. Here is an analysis of that narrative intersection, tracing the path from indoctrination to territorial control.

The Comparative Checklist: Pattern Analysis

  • Symbolic Dress
    • Radical Islamism: Hijab, Niqab, or specific modest dress as a sign of piety/submission.
    • Progressive Leftism (Radical Fringes): Masks (e.g., during protests) or specific “signifier” clothing/pins to denote allyship.
  • Linguistic Mantras
    • Radical Islamism: Use of specific Arabic phrases or Takbir to signal faith and unity.
    • Progressive Leftism (Radical Fringes): Usage of “intersectional” jargon and ever-evolving slogans that signal “in-group” status.
  • The “Holy Month”
    • Radical Islamism: Ramadan: A period of heightened religious observance and public visibility.
    • Progressive Leftism (Radical Fringes): Pride Month: A period where public and corporate spaces are mandated to display specific iconography.
  • Expansionism
    • Radical Islamism: The concept of the Global Caliphate; spreading the faith through Dawah or conquest.
    • Progressive Leftism (Radical Fringes): Globalism/Universalism; exporting “woke” ideology through international NGOs and institutions.
  • Demand for Obedience
    • Radical Islamism: Strict adherence to Sharia law; no room for personal interpretation (Ijtihad) in radical sects.
    • Progressive Leftism (Radical Fringes): Strict adherence to “The Science” or current social orthodoxy; “cancel culture” for those who stray.
  • Sacred Figures
    • Radical Islamism: The Prophet and Imams; criticism is viewed as a punishable offense.
    • Progressive Leftism (Radical Fringes): Protected “marginalized” identities or ideological leaders; criticism is labeled as “hate speech.”
  • Treatment of Blasphemy
    • Radical Islamism: Physical violence or Fatwas against those who insult the faith, including terrorist attacks and executions by groups like ISIS or Al-Qaeda.
    • Progressive Leftism (Radical Fringes): “Digital execution” (shunning), loss of livelihood, and justification of “punching up” against “oppressors,” extending to actual physical assaults during Antifa-led riots where violence is directed at perceived fascists or police.
  • Institutional Capture
    • Radical Islamism: Madrassas used to instill religious dogma from a young age.
    • Progressive Leftism (Radical Fringes): Control of K-12 and University curricula to instill “critical consciousness” and ideological framing.
  • Territorial Signaling
    • Radical Islamism: Flying the black flag; establishing “Sharia-controlled zones.”
    • Progressive Leftism (Radical Fringes): Flying the Progress Pride flag on government buildings; “Autonomous Zones” (e.g., CHAZ/CHOP).
  • Target Narratives
    • Radical Islamism: Explicit rejection of Western liberalism and Christian “Crusader” influence.
    • Progressive Leftism (Radical Fringes): Framing Western civilization and Christianity as inherently “oppressive” or “settler-colonialist.”

These patterns highlight how both ideologies operate as cults of control, coercively indoctrinating adherents and suppressing individual rights through shared tactics of conformity and exclusion (Bezmenov, 2023).

The Intersectional Threat: Propaganda & Emotional Violence

The most potent similarity lies in the weaponization of the sacred. By elevating their political or religious goals to the level of “divine truth,” both movements remove the possibility of compromise.

  • Emotional Violence and Shunning: Both groups utilize “social death” as a tool. In radical religious circles, this is Takfir (excommunication). In progressive circles, it is “Deplatforming.” The goal is the same: to isolate the individual from their community, making the cost of free thought too high to bear. This emotional violence often escalates to actual physical violence, such as Islamic terrorist bombings targeting civilians or Antifa’s use of improvised weapons in street clashes to enforce ideological purity.
  • The Inversion of Language: Propaganda is used to redefine violence. Radical Islamism may frame defensive jihad as a “peaceful” necessity; radical leftism often frames “silence as violence” while simultaneously suggesting that actual physical rioting is the “language of the unheard.” This linguistic twist justifies real-world acts of terror, like suicide bombings in radical Islamism or arson and assaults during progressive-led protests.
  • Targeting the Future: Both ideologies prioritize the “indoctrination” of children. By controlling early childhood education, they aim to bypass parental influence and create a generation that views the world through a binary lens: Believer vs. Infidel or Oppressor vs. Oppressed.

A Shared View on Bodily Autonomy

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and targeting/grooming children represent a subordination of the individual body to the ideological collective. Whether through traditional mutilation in radical religious contexts or the push for medical interventions in minors within radical gender ideology, both prioritize the “validity” of the movement’s dogma over the biological and long-term physical integrity of the individual (Bezmenov, 2023).

Note on “No-Go Zones”: Both ideologies seek to create spaces where the state’s standard laws do not apply—whether it is a neighborhood where police are hesitant to enforce secular law or a university campus where “safe spaces” function as zones where free speech is suspended in favor of ideological comfort.

The Liturgy of the Movement

The journey begins with the dismantling of the secular self. Both movements introduce sacred words and figures that are beyond reproach; to question them is not a debate, but a “hate crime” or “blasphemy.” This is reinforced through religious mantras—be it the repetitive chants in a street protest or the ritualistic phrases of a call to prayer—designed to bypass critical thinking and induce a trance-like state of belonging (Bezmenov, 2023).

In this world, time itself is reclaimed. The establishment of a holy month (such as Ramadan or Pride Month) serves as a temporal flag, signaling to the “unbeliever” that the public square now belongs to the ideology. During these times, the face covering becomes a symbol of the new order: the niqab or hijab signifies submission to a divine modesty, while the black mask or political face-covering signifies the erasure of the individual in service of a revolutionary mob.

The Architecture of Control

Both ideologies view the child as the primary site of conquest. By targeting and grooming children through the use of early childhood education, they ensure the movement’s longevity. Whether it is a radical madrasa or a gender-theory-focused kindergarten, the goal is “critical consciousness” or “submission”—indoctrinating the child to see their parents or their country as the enemy before they have the cognitive tools to disagree (Bezmenov, 2023).

This control extends to the physical body. In radical Islam, this can manifest as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) to control female sexuality; in radical progressive fringes, it manifests as the push for irreversible medical interventions on minors. In both cases, the biological reality of the individual is sacrificed to fulfill an ideological vision.

The Enforcement of the Sacred

Once the ideology takes root, it demands absolute obedience. Dissenters are met with emotional violence, such as shunning or “cancelation,” which mimics the religious practice of Takfir (declaring someone an apostate). This social death is a precursor to—and a justification for—actual violence, including Islamic terrorist acts like beheadings or mass shootings, and Antifa’s physical confrontations involving beatings and property destruction.

The movements justify violence against blasphemers, arguing that those who offend the sacred (or the “oppressed”) have no right to free speech or self-defense. In this framework:

  • The “infidel” or “oppressor” is sub-human.
  • The “Christian” or “American” identity is a target of specific hate, viewed as the ultimate barrier to global expansion (Bezmenov, 2023).

The Conquered Territory

The final stage is the physical manifestation of power. Both ideologies seek to fly their flag in conquered territory, whether it is the black flag of a caliphate over a captured city or the ideological banners raised over government buildings and occupied “autonomous zones” (Bezmenov, 2023).

These areas often devolve into no-go zones, where the laws of the host nation are suspended in favor of ideological enforcement. Here, the “intersectional threat” is fully realized: a space where individual liberty dies, and the only path to safety is total submission to the new sacred order.

Actual Physical Violence as a Core Threat: Antifa and Islamist Extremists

Beyond emotional and social coercion, both radical fringes readily employ or justify outright physical violence to silence opposition and advance their totalizing visions. This escalation from ideological enforcement to street-level terror represents one of the most immediate dangers to individual rights and public safety.

  • Islamist Extremism: Groups such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah have carried out thousands of terrorist attacks worldwide, including suicide bombings, mass shootings (e.g., Paris 2015 Bataclan, Mumbai 2008), truck rammings, stabbings, and beheadings. These acts are explicitly justified as punishment for “blasphemy” against Islam or resistance to the establishment of Sharia-dominated societies. Lone-wolf attacks inspired by radical preaching—such as the Manchester Arena bombing (2017) or the Nice truck attack (2016)—further demonstrate how the ideology mobilizes individuals to commit lethal violence against civilians.
  • Antifa and Radical Leftist Militants: Operating under the banner of “anti-fascism,” Antifa cells in the United States and Europe have engaged in sustained physical violence, including targeted assaults on political opponents, police officers, and journalists. Notable examples include the 2020 Portland riots involving Molotov cocktails, fireworks launched at federal buildings, and beatings of counter-protesters; the 2017 Berkeley battles where black-bloc militants used bike locks, pepper spray, and improvised weapons against Trump supporters; and repeated doxxing followed by physical confrontations. Violence is framed as “preemptive self-defense” against “fascists,” with public figures on the far left often downplaying or justifying it as necessary to combat “oppression.”

In both cases, violence is not aberrant but doctrinally sanctioned: Islamists view jihad as a religious duty against unbelievers, while radical progressives invoke “punching Nazis” or “Bash the Fash” as moral imperatives. The shared pattern is the dehumanization of the ideological enemy, rendering physical harm not only permissible but obligatory. When these two forces occasionally align (as seen in joint protests), the combined threat amplifies, creating environments where state authority is challenged through coordinated intimidation and assault.

The Mechanics of Linguistic Inversion

The redefinition of language is the “software” that allows these “hardwares” of control to function. By changing the meaning of foundational words, both ideologies create a psychological environment where dissent becomes literally unthinkable.

In both radical Islamism and radical progressivism, language is not used for the pursuit of objective truth, but as a tool for power and protection. They utilize a “dual-dictionary” system: one meaning for the public (the “uninitiated”) and a much more aggressive meaning for the true believers.

  • “Peace” / “Social Justice”
    • Often redefined not as the absence of conflict, but as the total absence of opposition. Peace is achieved only when the ideology is globally dominant; until then, conflict is “liberation.”
  • “Violence”
    • Redefined to include speech, silence, or biology. By labeling a dissenting opinion as “violence,” they justify using actual physical violence as a form of “self-defense.”
  • “Safety”
    • Transitioned from physical protection to ideological insulation. A “Safe Space” is a zone where no “blasphemy” or challenging thought is permitted to exist.
  • “Freedom”
    • Redefined as the “freedom from error.” In this view, allowing someone to speak a “wrong” idea is seen as a violation of the collective’s right to a pure environment.

This manipulation serves a vital legal and tactical purpose. By framing their actions as “defensive,” they exploit the protections of the very liberal democracies they seek to dismantle:

  • Weaponizing Victimhood: By identifying as “perpetual victims” (either of Islamophobia or systemic “phobias”), they claim a moral high ground that exempts them from standard laws regarding harassment or public order.
  • The “Hate Speech” Trap: By successfully lobbying to have their “sacred” ideas protected under “hate speech” laws, they essentially reinstate blasphemy laws by another name. This prevents the state or critics from questioning their more radical tenets (like the treatment of women or children) without facing legal or professional ruin.
  • Defining the Enemy as “Non-Human”: Through labels like “Infidel,” “Zionist,” “Bigot,” or “Fascist,” they strip the target of their individual rights. Once a person is labeled with these terms, the movement’s followers feel morally justified in bypassing the target’s right to free speech or self-defense.

The Psychological Result: Linguistic Prisons

When you control the words people use, you control their ability to perceive reality. If a parent cannot find the words to describe what is happening in their child’s classroom without being labeled a “hater,” or if a citizen cannot question the expansion of a “no-go zone” without being called a “blasphemer,” the ideology has effectively built a prison without walls.

The intersectional threat is that these two movements—despite their different origins—have realized that if you control the language, you never have to win an argument; you simply silence the opposition before the argument begins.

The Tactical Cooperation: The Red-Green Alliance

The tactical cooperation between these two groups is often referred to as the “Red-Green Alliance” (red for the radical left, green for Islamism). Historically, these two forces have acted as “allies of convenience” because they share a common institutional enemy: the Western liberal order, secular capitalism, and the traditional Judeo-Christian framework (Lake, 2025). Here is an analysis of how these tactical alliances function and where they have historically converged.

  1. The Philosophical Bridge: “Political Spirituality”

Perhaps the most famous intellectual endorsement of this alliance came from the French philosopher Michel Foucault. During the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Foucault was captivated by what he called “political spirituality” (Lake, 2025).

  • The Intersection: Foucault, a pioneer of the progressive left’s critique of power, saw the Islamist uprising not as a step backward, but as a revolutionary “spirit” capable of overthrowing the rationalist, secular structures of the West.
  • The Result: He supported the movement even as it began to execute homosexuals and subordinate women—realities he dismissed as secondary to the goal of dismantling “Western imperialism.”
  1. The Anti-Imperialist Narrative

The most consistent glue between the two is Anti-Americanism and Anti-Zionism.

  • The 1920 Baku Congress: Shortly after the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks actively courted Muslim leaders, calling for a “holy war” (Jihad) against Western colonial powers. They framed Islam as a “revolutionary” force that could help bring down global capitalism.
  • Modern Protests: In contemporary London, Paris, and New York, we see the physical manifestation of this alliance. Groups like “Queers for Palestine” or the “Democratic Socialists of America” march alongside Islamist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood or CAIR (Providence Magazine, 2023).
  • The Logical Inversion: Progressivism’s “intersectional” hierarchy places the “Western oppressor” at the top of the evil pyramid. Therefore, any force fighting that oppressor—even a deeply patriarchal or homophobic one—is viewed as a “strong partner” in liberation.

The campus protests following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel epitomized this alliance, with groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)—often accused of supporting Hamas—collaborating with progressive activists in widespread demonstrations that blended anti-Zionist rhetoric with broader leftist critiques of Western imperialism (PBS, 2023; AJC, 2024). These protests highlighted how radical leftists and Islamists unite against shared enemies, despite ideological contradictions.

  1. Institutional Capture and “Hate Speech” Alliances

Tactically, these groups have learned to work together within Western legal systems to create “No-Go Zones” for criticism:

  • Educational Influence: Both have found success in the university setting. Radical leftists provide the theoretical framework (Post-colonialism, Critical Race Theory), while Islamist organizations provide the funding or the “victimhood” narrative to shield those theories from criticism (Policy Exchange, n.d.).
  • Censorship Alliances: They often join forces to lobby for expanded “hate speech” definitions. By equating any criticism of religious dogma with “racism” or “Islamophobia,” they successfully reinstate a form of blasphemy law that protects the ideology while silencing secularists and Christians (INSS, 2024).

The “Betrayal” Pattern: A Historical Warning

The Red-Green Alliance has a consistent historical ending: The Islamists eventually discard the Left (Providence Magazine, 2023).

  • Iran (1979)
    • The Alliance Phase: Marxists and Islamists fought side-by-side to depose the Shah.
    • The Final Outcome: Once in power, Khomeini declared the Left “infidels” and executed or exiled his former communist allies.
  • Egypt (2011)
    • The Alliance Phase: Secular “progressive” students and the Muslim Brotherhood united in Tahrir Square.
    • The Final Outcome: The Brotherhood quickly pushed for a Sharia-based constitution, marginalizing the secularists who sparked the protest.
  • The West (Future?)
    • The Alliance Phase: Progressives provide cover for “non-Western” ideologies under the banner of diversity and anti-colonialism.
    • The Final Outcome: Critics argue the Left is building a “Trojan Horse” for a system that, once dominant, will have zero tolerance for progressive values like LGBTQ rights or feminism.

The Intersectional Threat Summary

The danger of this alliance is that it creates a double-blind. If you criticize the radical Left, you are labeled a “fascist.” If you criticize the radical Islamist, you are labeled an “Islamophobe.” By working in tandem, they create a linguistic and social environment where individual freedom is squeezed out from both sides, leaving the public square to be claimed by whoever can scream their “sacred mantra” the loudest (JCFA, n.d.). This total system poses a profound threat by coercively indoctrinating people into a cult-like adherence, suppressing individual rights in the process.

References

Note: The author “Yuri Bezmenov” is pseudonymous and anonymous, used as a tribute to the historical figure.