For 100 years, American leftists have been mostly unwilling to condemn any form of extremism that claims to be leftist. Heck, they've even had a hard time condemning Communism, which has caused more state-sponsored death than any other idea in the history of the universe. They even fawned over Stalin during his slaughters of the 1930s, for Pete's sake. Today they still trot out the same tired excuses and equivocations: "Well, sure, there have been some unfortunate excesses, but in principle it's a great idea."

With that entrenched heritage of stupid, willful delusion, it should not surprise anyone that today's "progressives" are no better.

Contrast that to the supposed hard-right demagogue, autocrat, and arch-racist Winston Churchill, who pulled no punches in condemning right-wing totalitarianism at every opportunity, including referring to it as "a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime." THAT is telling it like it is.

Of course, he also had the good sense not to fall into the trap of condemning all sides equivalently, viz.: "I refuse to remain neutral between the fire bridgade and the fire."