Naomi Wolf on Threats to Liberty in America and the West

Naomi Wolf, author of "Facing the Beast" and "The Bodies of Others," in Washington on Nov. 17, 2023. Jack Hsu/The Epoch Times

In a recent episode of “American Thought Leaders,” host Jan Jekielek sits down with Naomi Wolf, CEO of DailyClout and author of the new book, “Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith, and Resistance in a New Dark Age.” Their discussion centers on today’s grave threats to liberty in America and the West.

Jan Jekielek: People are extremely concerned about what has happened in our society over the last three years, yet this remains probably the freest place in the world. What does that say?

Naomi Wolf: People think democracies die with a sudden shock and you see black shirts or brown shirts protesting in the streets. That’s not how democracies die. More often than not, democracies die through a thousand cuts. We are the freest country in the world, but that doesn’t mean we’re healthy, and it doesn’t mean we’re not in danger.

Our Justice Department has been turned against citizens. That’s what happens in an advanced tyranny. People are languishing in prison without due process. That’s what happens in advanced tyranny. I found out that the administration for whom I'd voted had spent taxpayer money to lift out my accurate tweet of June 2021 that got me de-platformed. They colluded to put pressure on Twitter and Facebook, and had me smeared globally. That’s what happens to dissidents in an advanced tyranny.

Mr. Jekielek: You talked about the January 6 protesters in the book, and this was a moment where you apologized to conservatives.

Ms. Wolf: What happened on January 6th is complicated, but I do understand that I was lied to about it by legacy media and that I believed a lot of those lies.

One interesting thing I relearned while researching that chapter—“Dear Conservatives, I Apologize”—is legacy media on the Left, CNN and the New York Times, represented citizens entering the capitol as the insurrection, as if to enter is violating some norm and that legislation in Congress only took place when the public couldn’t be part of it.

Historically, the Capitol is called the People’s House, and galleries were built to allow the public to witness the proceedings.

People are allowed to walk peacefully into the Capitol. That was an important lie because, apart from what happened to those people, that lie allowed the narrative to be propagated that half of America was violent and sought to overturn our democracy, and that the people who entered the Capitol represented that half of America.

That story was used to demonize Red America. You may not believe this because you don’t hang out with liberals in New York maybe as much as I did. They thoroughly believed what they were told, that all of Red America wanted to overturn our democratic institutions.

Mr. Jekielek: In the book, you talk about the level of coordination that happened so quickly in 2020—this whole process of the pandemic policies. You felt there must be something else at work.

Ms. Wolf: What unfolded around the world in 2020 and 2021 didn’t look like human history at any other time. It was so coordinated and so many heads of state were saying the exact same things in multiple languages at the exact same time, rolling out the same plan based on the same lies with almost no crack in the uniformity.

“Don’t kill grandma by hugging her,” was repeated in 152 languages. I had to conclude that what I was seeing was beyond human capabilities. I’m a journalist. You can’t coordinate the same message in 152 languages at the same time with hundreds and hundreds of editors.

I reluctantly had to conclude that the conflicts were a symptom of a larger spiritual battle, the battle between good and evil. I was moved by a book called “The Return of the Gods” by Jonathan Cahn, a Messianic Jew. He has accepted Jesus as his savior, and he’s now a pastor. Because he’s both Jewish and Christian, he was able to get at something that was persuasive to me. There had been a covenant with Judaism, and then a covenant with Jesus and Christianity, and this became the Covenant of the West.

It’s a covenant to do certain things: Thou shalt not kill, don’t steal, don’t lie, engage in sexual morality, don’t kill children. Whether we are observant or not, the Judeo-Christian covenant shaped our institutions.

From 2020 on, I saw that covenant vanish. Journalism used to be about truth and facts. Now, it was about lies. Hospitals used to be about saving people. Now they were willing to let people die.

Jonathan Cahn’s thesis is that we in the West took our hands away from God. We abandoned our commitment to uphold our end of the Covenant, and all these demons took up residence. God said, “Okay, you want to do it yourselves, do it yourselves.” This is what it looks like, and then these dark forces rushed in.

America and the West lived through something catastrophic that will change its nature if we don’t name what really happened. That’s part of my goal in writing “Facing the Beast.”

Mr. Jekielek: The thing that I’m incredibly grateful for from this time period is an unbelievable group of people I’ve managed to meet. It has instilled hope in me because these people will lay everything on the line to seek truth and justice.

Ms. Wolf: I agree. I had amazing conversations with conservatives, libertarians, and people of faith that I never had before. I began a whole range of new friendships.

And I see a rising across the country, and maybe even across the West; a groundswell of people unwilling to let the darkness prevail—who are creating alternative medical, media, and educational systems and rebuilding America from the ground up. The better angels have an opportunity to remake this country closer to its ideal as a nation of freedom and justice.

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.