“The MAGA hat is a KKK hood. And his [Trump’s] evil, racist scourge must be eradicated from society.” So tweeted former CNN host Reza Aslan last August after insisting that “all” the president’s supporters “are by definition white nationalist terror supporters.” Far from a one-off, leftist calls to punish opponents have continued, with statements about how “lists” of Trump supporters be made and how such partisans should “burn.”
Writing Monday, commentator Brian C. Joondeph called this the “coming purge if Trump loses.” Stating that this election’s massive vote fraud is “the stuff of banana republics,” Joondeph warns that the Left won’t just let bygones be bygones if the coup against President Trump succeeds.
Providing his own examples, Joondeph first points out that “David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s former campaign manager, tweeted in June 2016” the following:
(Image credit: American Thinker.)
For me at least, this brings to mind a statement by the man with whom the term “purge” is perhaps most closely associated, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
“We will destroy every enemy, even if he is an Old Bolshevik, we will destroy his kin, his family,” he once vowed. “Anyone who by his actions or thoughts encroaches on the unity of the socialist state, we shall destroy relentlessly.”
In fairness, there is a marked difference between the two statements: Plouffe’s is pithier.
Is it unfair comparing such people to Stalin? Perhaps. But the statements certainly can be compared. How do you interpret “eradicated from society” and “His kind must never rise again”?
Of course, many people are all talk. Stalin killed millions; Plouffe and Aslan haven’t. Stalin also had the means to kill millions, something no one in our country yet has.
Joondeph further quoted Bernie Sanders staffer Kyle Jurek, caught on hidden video saying in reference to whether “MAGA people could be re-educated,” “There’s a reason Joseph Stalin had gulags, right?”
Jurek also talked about how he wanted the Clintons dead via a “reign of terror,” how “liberals get the f*****g wall first,” and specified what type of people should be lit “on fire in the streets.”
Then there’s BLM sympathizer Michelle Taylor, who wrote in an August 27 tweet, “Violence is the only way, of course.”
Sure, these are a few individuals in a nation of 331 million. But not only do they reflect a wider trend, they’re also never repudiated by the Democrat powers-that-be or mainstream media; rather, the response ranges from tolerant denial to wink-and-nod encouragement to open endorsement.
As for consequences, Aslan is still a University of California professor; Plouffe holds a few prominent positions; Jurek wasn’t fired from the Sanders campaign, to the best of my knowledge; and Taylor is a “frequent guest lecturer at prominent American universities,” related the College Fix September 25.
If you’d say, “Well, what? You want them to be out of jobs?” know that this is precisely what many left-wingers have planned for their opponents. Consider some other leftist sentiments Joondeph highlights:
Then there’s the “Trump Accountability Project,” which writes at its website:
We must never forget those who furthered the Trump agenda.
Those who elected him.
Those who staffed his government.
Those who funded him.
Don’t worry, “Those who elected him” only amount to 62 million people, though Joondeph warns of a larger number. “In other words, half the country wears a scarlet T, ready to be purged by the ruling class,” he writes. “This ‘Trump Purge Project’ [tweet below] as it should be called, concurred with AOC’s Stalinesque threat.”
(Image credit: American Thinker.)
Also concurring is “conservative” Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, as the tweet below relates.
She also issued her own tweet:
In other words, people should be ostracized for following the advice Hillary Clinton gave Joe Biden shortly before the election: Do “not concede under any circumstances….”
Then there’s 2016 NeverTrump presidential candidate Evan McMullin, another B-lister with a list:
And all “these ‘lists’ conjure up memories of a bad time,” laments Joondeph. “Who else had a list? The above-mentioned Joseph Stalin had one. It was called ‘Stalin’s Shooting Lists,’ 44,500 names, his political opposition, but only a fraction of the 720,000 shot during Stalin’s purge of the late 1930s.”
In fairness, “most” our liberal list-makers are thinking currently of killing careers, not bodies. Yet this is nothing new. We’ve for a while heard about “cancel culture,” which has been around for decades and was previously just called “political correctness.” Having ended many a career, its power to silence is attested to by the “hidden” Trump vote and is why Trump’s and the GOP’s election showing defied the polls: Many were afraid to express their Republican leanings to pollsters.
The persecution they feared is largely driven by hatred, yet there’s another motivation among the most Machiavellian list-makers: If you want to cement power, you have to make clear that opposing your agenda will bring complete and total destruction. Our leftists are trying to set an example.
Of course and in fairness, every time and place has had its social codes which, when violated, could bring scorn and ostracism. Being revealed as communist didn’t do you much good in 1950s America, for example, and ancient Greek philosopher Socrates was executed for, the allegations went, “corrupting the young” and “mocking the gods” (it wasn’t just Christians who had “heresy” laws). But the problem today is that, increasingly, it’s not espousing vile lies, but truths, that brings consequences.
This brings us to an important lesson here: Political persecution is downstream of cultural persecution. Cancel culture exists because conservatives never could, or would, cancel the culture that gave it to us. What becomes strong enough culturally will, eventually, likely be imposed politically.
