The bougie nihilism that is killing America

Spiked ^ | 27 April 2026 | Brendan O’Neill

[Rummyfan]

The third attempt on Trump’s life confirms it: polite society is becoming violently intolerant.

We now have an extraordinary situation where the university campus, once the great refiner of minds, seems to be indoctrinating the young with a fancy for violence. It seems that if you teach people that their self-esteem is the most sacred thing on Earth, and anyone who dents it deserves instant cancellation, then you will give rise to an army of the intolerant. That’s what we are witnessing, in the UK too: a style of politics that feels haughty, dogmatic and tinged with violence. From the trans lobby (‘Kill all TERFs’) to the orgy of Israelophobia that followed 7 October (‘Globalise the intifada’), silence through violence is the dream of those who LARP as progressive. A society where the educated openly clamour for the death of women and Jews is a society that is ill indeed. This is the jagged debris of cancel culture.

Ours is the age of bougie nihilism. That was brought home to me by Zohran Mamdani’s tweet about Saturday’s shooting. ‘Political violence is absolutely unacceptable’, said the New York City mayor. This is a man whose wife liked social-media posts that celebrated the most catastrophic act of political violence of this century so far: 7 October. This is a man who rubs shoulders with Hasan Piker, the leftie influencer who just last week was titillating the silver-spoon socialists of the keffiyeh classes by celebrating bank robberies and making excuses for Luigi Mangione’s murder of healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Bougie nihilism has broken free of the quad and now infects even City Hall. Where next?

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[ClearCase_guy]

Bfl

[DesertRhino]

A lot of it is the death of religion in America, the spreading of socialism, atheism, and every kind of deviant behavior out there. But, I wonder if a certain amount of this has come from the ruthless cruelty with which the government and Epstein class has inflicted upon the middle class in this country.

To be clear, not all of it. But the gleeful disdain that government shows for normal people today, I think that pushes the increasing numbers of already unstable people right on over the edge. The Covid depredations, the brutality of the January 6 prosecutions, the assault on the Weaver family, Waco, stolen elections, Trump’s flippant happy remarks when someone dies. It all adds up.

And then, of course, abortion culture has normalized murder and dehumanizing to a sickening degree.

[dfwgator]

It all started with “The Pill”.

[Vermont Lt]

I look at the words these clowns use. The “influencers” —the people actually starting this crap—know where “Bougie” comes from. The lemmings think it’s a cool word. The lemmings don’t know communism when it is literally right in front of them.

Just wait until Friday when all of these idiots prance around protesting having no idea of the significance of May Day.

[cross_bearer_02]

Sad, isn’t it? Our institutions of higher learning have devolved into echo chambers of lunacy. Fountains of knowledge, now cesspits of degeneracy and madness.

No longer do they produce learned men and women who engage in scholarly pursuits. Now, they produce barbarians with rotten brains.

What a waste.

[LouAvul]

They produce idiots who will never be able to run a country. Imagine if these were the adults in charge December 7, 1941.

[Rummyfan]

They produce idiots who will never be able to run a country. Imagine if these were the adults in charge December 7, 1941.

It would be a very different world no doubt.

[DesertRhino]

Yes, actually a solid case CAN be made for that!

[cross_bearer_02]

Then you and I would be speaking in German right now.