In the days preceding last week’s election, the downtown corridors of many American cities resembled coastal hurricane zones. Business owners boarded up their stores, fearing that the election might unleash another wave of destructive rioting. In Washington, D.C., luxury shops and office complexes constructed fortifications with boards, chains, fences, and barriers. In the neighborhood surrounding the White House, the Secret Service, laborers, and left-wing protesters all prepared for Election Night. 

For Black Lives Matter supporters whose goal is addressing substantial problems with excessive force by police, the means to that end shouldn’t be those used by two of the most notoriously brutal political movements of the Left — the French Revolutionaries of the Terror — and the Right — modern Germany’s National Socialists. History has something to teach us about what must absolutely be avoided. Here’s the history lesson.

Unfortunately, it will take much more than a single wager between two scholars — or, for that matter, this article — to rid the world of the old and very pernicious idea that population growth and resource depletion go hand in hand. But, we have to start somewhere.

Center on Wealth & Poverty Director Christopher Rufo speaks with Professor of Political Science Patrick Deneen about his most recent book Why Liberalism Failed, the civil unrest sweeping the nation, and the upcoming election. Watch the full interview at discovery.org.