Naomi Wolf became well known over the years as a third-wave feminist, a member of the Clinton camp, an adviser to Al Gore during his 2000 presidential campaign, and a reliable leftist on most issues.  On Monday, though, she surprised the heck out of Tucker Carlson and, probably, most of his audience, when she turned out to be a fierce defender of individual liberty.  A mesmerized Tucker listened as Wolf fluently expounded on principles of liberty and tagged the Biden government as creating "a totalitarian state before our eyes."

For most people, their first exposure to Naomi Wolf came in 1991 with her groundbreaking third-wave feminist tract The Beauty Myth.  In it, she argued that society's beauty standards exist to keep women constantly chasing chimerical perfection and, through constant and inevitable failure, never achieving their full potential.

With degrees comparable to Bill Clinton's (Yale and a Rhodes Scholarship), in the 1990s, Wolf became part of the Clinton crowd.  Famously, she advised Al Gore during his ill fated presidential campaign, telling him to wear earth-toned clothes to present himself as reassuring and fatherly.

After Gore lost, Naomi became a bit of an intellectual gadfly, coming out with eccentric opinions, some of which make no sense and some of which are honest, although not always sensible.  Over the years, she admitted that abortion is a form of homicide but still believes it's acceptable, argued that pornography deadens men's libidos, claimed that burqas can be empowering, celebrated the vagina, worried about chemtrails, defended Julian Assange against rape charges, supported Occupy Wall Street, suggested that Edward Snowden was a Deep State plant, and questioned Islamic state executions.  In 2019, she faced ridicule for major errors in a book about executions for homosexuality.  Wolf is a woman of many contradictions.

There is one thing, though, about which Wolf has been consistent: she worries about attacks against America's democratic principles.  In 2007, she wrote The End of America: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot, in which she outlined the ten steps that invariably lead to a totalitarian movement to destroy a free state.  Back then, she worried about the Bush response to the 9/11 attacks.

In 2020, she expressed the same concerns in response to the various state governments using the Wuhan virus to deprive Americans of their constitutional rights.  Immediately after Biden's election, she tweeted, "If I'd known Biden was open to 'lockdowns' as he now states, which is something historically unprecedented in any pandemic, and a terrifying practice, one that won't ever end because elites love it, I would never have voted for him."

Tucker Carlson is also one of those worrying about the Biden administration using the excuse of the Wuhan virus to turn America into a totalitarian state with the Bill of Rights a forgotten dead letter.  Therefore, he invited Naomi to be his guest to discuss the issue.

Tucker was stunned — as were those of us who know Naomi — to hear her give a fluent, impassioned disquisition on American liberties and the threats they're facing as states and Biden use them to grab permanent power.  (For technical reasons, we can't embed the video but you can see it here.)

Wolf asserts that what we are witnessing in America "is not a partisan thing."  Instead, "it transcends everything that you and I might disagree or agree on.  That should bring together left and right to protect our Constitution."  Gathering steam, she told Tucker:

The state has now crushed businesses, kept us from gathering in free assembly to worship as the First Amendment provides, is invading our bodies ... which is a violation of the Fourth Amendment, restricting movement, fining us in New York state ... the violations go on and on.

She's right, too.  According to Wolf, totalitarian dictatorships always start the same way.

Whether they are on the left or the right, they do these same ten things and now we're at something I never thought I would see in my lifetime ... it is step 10 and that is the suspension of the rule of law and that is when you start to be a police state, and we're here. There is no way around it.

Wolf then sounded an ominous warning: "I really hope we wake up quickly because history also shows that it's a small window in which people can fight back before it is too dangerous to fight back."  She's right about that, too.

Naomi's an odd bird, but she is extremely smart, and she does understand the principles of individual liberty (helped, perhaps, by the fact that, in 2018, she married a U.S. Army veteran).  People on both the left and the right would be wise to heed her warning and to act upon it to preserve their liberties.  The Bill of Rights has meaning only if our government does not use its police power to destroy those rights, but, instead, honors its obligations under the Constitution.

(You can read more here regarding Naomi's ten steps to fascism and COVID.)

Update from Thomas Lifson: Here is video of Naomi Wolf's interview with Tucker Carlson:

Image: Naomi Wolf on Tucker Carlson’s show.  Fox News screen grab.