How far can political persecution truly go in the United States of America? When it becomes verbal open-season on supporters of the current president, it is perhaps safe to say that things have gone too far. Not content with shutting down the voices of individuals and even entire social media companies, the radical left – aided by powerful anti-Trumpers – is seeking to ostracize millions of Americans. Naughty-list databases are being openly created and shared online for naming and shaming Trump supporters and administration officials; citizens are being doxed and harassed – and it is only just the beginning of what may soon be a case study in how not to unite a country.
Former CIA Director John Brennan made his position on what should happen to Trump supporters all too clear. He tweeted:
“Anyone now seeking national redemption by claiming to no longer support Trump must acknowledge how wrong it was to ignore & enable his corrupt, dishonest, & divisive agenda. Total denunciation of a despot’s legacy is necessary to eradicate any remaining malignancy.”
Is this the mark of a rational mind? With echoes of Stalinism and China’s Cultural Revolution, Brennan is asking for confession and self-abasement. Sadly, he’s not alone in this historically pertinent madness. ABC’s Political Director Rick Klein, in a now-deleted Jan. 7 tweet, wrote, “Trump will be an ex-president in 13 days. The fact is that getting rid of Trump is the easy part. Cleansing the movement he commands is going to be something else.”
Brennan’s demands for denunciation by those who wish to be accepted have one purpose: public humiliation. Klein’s calls for a “cleansing” are not much better.
Students of history may have concerns about what comes next.
History Repeating?
Former California governor and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger released a video that is being praised by those in the legacy media who have stopped short – just barely – of making the same connection. He said, “Wednesday was the ‘day of broken glass’ right here in the United States,” making a parallel between the Capitol attack and Germany’s Kristallnacht. He continued:
“The mob did not just shatter the windows of the Capitol. They shattered the ideas we took for granted. They did not just break down the doors of the building that housed American democracy. They trampled the very principles on which our country was founded.”
Schwarzenegger’s comparison, however, is deeply flawed. The events that led up to Kristallnacht in November 1938 began many years before, with the new German chancellor isolating Jewish citizens. Then Germans were encouraged to boycott businesses owned by Jews. Eventually, this led to Jews being removed from civil service posts. The unfortunate souls were silenced, demeaned, and outcast. Kristallnacht was performed at the behest of the government who had been persecuting the victims; it was not, in any way, the citizens responding to what they see as top-down tyranny.
The former Republican governor proclaimed that “America will come back from these dark days and shine our lights once again. I believe, as shaken as we are by the events of recent days, we will come out stronger because we now understand what can be lost.” What precisely are the dark days he refers to? He could mean the thousands of Americans trapped in their homes as their businesses are torched by rioters and looters. Or he could just as easily be referring to the growing purge of conservatives on social media platforms. But neither of these very real darknesses would fit the narrative as well as the historically inaccurate comparison he was attempting to create.
Language Matters
One thing that has been thumped into the ears of American media consumers over the last five years is that what people say, the language they use, matters a lot. But it appears this applies only to a specific group of people. President Trump calls for a peaceful protest, and it is wilfully interpreted as a call for insurrection. Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, and Kamala Harris tacitly encourage BLM/Antifa riots, and the precision of speech is deemed irrelevant.
Brennan urges public denouncement of American citizens, Klein calls for a cleansing of human beings for their political views, and – all of a sudden – words don’t matter quite so much.
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Read more from Mark Angelides.
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