Please disable your Ad Blocker to better interact with this website.

Opinion

The Most Poisonous Time Since The McCarthy Era

Exhilarated after retaking the Senate and the presidency, the Democrats are behaving as though they have carte blanche to destroy all vestiges of their political opposition by whatever means are necessary. Elected officials are demanding the purging of Republicans. Social media is leading a campaign to censor all conservative voices out of existence. The US has not witnessed anything this poisonous since the McCarthy scare of the 1950s.

The McCarthy Era, also known as McCarthyism or the Red Scare, was the most frightening period in recent US history. Lasting from the late 1940s into the 1950s, it consisted of accusations—without proof—of communist subversion that led to hundreds being imprisoned and more than ten thousand losing their jobs. The entire country was caught in the grip of political repression. The average citizen was unable to speak his mind out of fear of reprisals. In 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith spoke out against McCarthyism. She called for an end to “character assassinations” and named “some of the basic principles of Americanism: the right to criticize; the right to hold unpopular beliefs; the right to protest; the right of independent thought.” She said “freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America.” The similarity to current events is undeniable.

The same principles are under attack today by the Left. But this time, it’s a different situation. A majority is not trying to marginalize a minority. As in the American Civil War, half the country seeks to defeat the other half. The current civil war is not a war of armies and weapons, it is a war of visions. Liberals and conservatives each have a different vision for the future of the nation. While conservatives tend to be more tolerant of different viewpoints, progressive liberals want to completely eradicate anyone with an incompatible vision. “Conservatives think liberals are stupid,” said the late political commentator Charles Krauthammer. “Liberals think conservatives are evil.” When you believe your enemy is evil, anything goes. The end can easily justify the means.

It is impossible for half the country to marginalize the other half without civil war. The Democrats don’t seem to care. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking on MSNBC, referred to President Trump and his Republican colleagues as “domestic enemies” and “enemies of the state.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went one better. “Let’s begin ‘The Purge’ to round up all Conservative traitors!” she demanded. “Democrats, let’s make Auschwitz look like a picnic!” ABC News Political Director Rick Klein called for the “cleansing” of Trump supporters. PBS Chief Counsel Michael Beller thinks that Homeland Security should take children of Republican voters away from them and put them into “re-education camps.” Forbes Magazine wants the corporate world to cancel all Trump staffers.

Social media has entered the fray as the new arbiter of free speech. Facebook, Twitter, and others are openly censoring conservative comments on the grounds that they violate hate speech policies, while allowing the most hateful liberal statements to remain. In the opinion of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, freedom of speech should not extend to hate speech. This is partisan censorship plain and simple. As Sen. Smith said in 1950, freedom of speech is not what it used to be. A handful of Big Tech billionaires are doing to the US what Stalin did to the Soviet Union.

The ultimate ploy of social media is the total blocking of President Trump. His best strategy for countering fake news media has been via his many tweets. Now he is silenced. “This is what Kamala Harris called for when she ran for the presidency,” said former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. “She urged Twitter to ban the president. Now [that] the Biden-Harris administration is coming in, Twitter acts in accordance with their wishes. This doesn’t look good and it ends worse,” Fleischer said. “The Ayatollah can tweet, but Trump can’t,” said Sen. Lindsay Graham. “Says a lot about the people who run Twitter.” According to the Washington Examiner, “70 percent of all voters agree that Big Tech companies like Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple have too much power and need to be regulated to protect the freedoms and privacy of Americans.” Don’t expect the Biden/Harris administration to do anything about it.

The latest move by the Left is the second impeachment of President Trump. “This president represents an imminent threat to our Constitution and our Democracy,” Speaker Pelosi said as she recommended impeachment on the grounds that Trump incited the Capitol assault. “That is an opinion, not a fact,” responded Bill O’Reilly. “It can never be established as fact. This impeachment effort is about humiliating President Trump and his supporters—not uniting the country.” The public is not falling for it. “Sixty percent of battleground voters view Democrats’ latest effort to impeach President Donald Trump as another waste of time and money and are seeking an orderly transition of power,” writes Amanda Prestigiacomo in The Daily Wire. Pelosi doesn’t give a damn.

Rush Limbaugh told his audience that “we”—meaning conservatives and the conservative movement—are “being censored out of existence.” “Democrats are literally beginning to sound like ISIS,” tweeted conservative commentator Candace Owens. “‘Recite the Quran or get your head chopped off, now!’ Absolutely psychopathic,” Owens said. “This is how the Holocaust started,” posted a Facebook user. “This widespread demonization of conservatives is not different than the attacks on the Jews in 1933 Germany.”

The 75 million people who voted for Trump are not going to stand for this. Shutting down a minority is one thing, but canceling 75 million voters is something else entirely. “We live in terrifying times,” said journalist Sara Carter. “That’s what you do to an enemy. It’s not what you do to the American people.” The prognosis for the short term is not good. The same gang who targeted Americans in the Obama administration is going to take power again. Some people are saying, “Don’t worry, it will get better soon.” Try saying that to the prisoner about to be guillotined.

I leave you with this post from Facebook (which has not blocked it yet): “Welcome to censorship, propaganda, suppression of information, and loss of free speech and other freedoms. Americans have never lived through something like this. Many who immigrated here from totalitarian governments, such as myself, have. And we know what’s coming. We tried to warn you but were not taken seriously and even mocked. I hope you know how to live underground—off the grid, how to whisper your real thoughts because you’ll be scared to speak out loud, how to gather in secret because you’ll be watched 24/7. Start practicing suppressing your own voice lest a ‘dangerous’ statement escape your lips by accident. It’s all here. Good luck. This time there is nowhere to go. No free country will accept an oppressed refugee. America was the last one.”

Ed Brodow is a political commentator, negotiation expert, and author of eight books including Tyranny of the Minority: How the Left is Destroying America and In Lies We Trust: How Politicians and the Media Are Deceiving the American Public. He is a regular contributor to Newsmax, Daily Caller, American Thinker, Townhall, BizPac Review, and other online news magazines.

 

 

Ed Brodow

Ed Brodow is a conservative political commentator, negotiation expert, and regular contributor to Newsmax, Daily Caller, American Thinker, Townhall, LifeZette, Media Equalizer, Reactionary Times, and other online news magazines. He is the author of eight books including his latest blockbuster, Trump’s Turn: Winning the New Civil War.

Related Articles