Allies Are Not Friends – or – Extremism Is An Important Issue.

Tuesday, October 21, 2025

We spent decades in a Cold War with the Soviet Union, but just prior to that Cold War we called them “ally” in the fight against Hitler’s Germany.  Stalin was a mass murderer of Hitlerian proportions, and antisemitic to boot.  The United States and The United Kingdom did not share values or philosophies with the USSR, but we did share an enemy and that was enough to form an alliance, but a wary one.   I wonder if, in these times, we are able to operate in a such a subtle fashion – to ally with someone while at the same time hold them as far from your heart as possible.

The host has called for just such a maneuver in urging New York Republicans to vote for Andrew Cuomo.  Cuomo is no friend of Republicans but he can be an ally in a fight against a communist.  It is just that simple.

But things get much more complex when the ally, but not friend, is from your own side of the aisle.  The Democrats have fallen into this trap and now seem unable to escape.  The rise of Mamdani – example 1.  The shutdown in which Chuck Schumer is held hostage by AOC, et al. – example 2.  That Abigail Spanberger in Virginia cannot bring herself to call for Jay Jones to withdraw from the race – example 3.  We could go on like this for a while.  The mainstream Left as allied itself with the extreme left to the point where they cannot be distinguished and the extreme left wields way too much power.

Back in June Rod Dreher wrote about the radical right coming for our sons.  The Free Press yesterday carried two pieces very much mining the same vein.  Eli Lake wrote of the mainstreaming of Nick Fuentes.  Seth Dillion writes, “The Foolishness of ‘No Enemies to the Right.’”  The Dillion piece is particularly interesting.  Dillion seems unable to distinguish between allying oneself with someone and embracing them.  He relies on the word “unite” a lot.  But there is unity and then there is unity.

Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin sitting together at Yalta is a truly odd portrait – especially when viewed from this place in history.  But when they were planning together to defeat Hitler, Churchill and Roosevelt, in private and with each other, knew well that the fight with Stalin was coming.  In the end the fight with Stalin lasted much longer and cost much more money than could have been imagined when it all began.  But we needed Stalin then, and so he became an ally.

The day is coming when the forces of reason on the right will have to do battle with our radical allies.  At this juncture we cannot forget that they are allies, but not our friends.  They must remain our allies and not become our enemies.  Dreher, Lake, and Dillion, along with others, are right to remind us that we are, to some extent, dancing with the devil.  But there is a much bigger devil out there and we need the little devil’s help to beat him.  And so the dance continues.

For now.