Dick Morris: The Coming Democratic Reign of Terror
Like Robespierre, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are taking no prisoners. A new Democratic reign of terror is upon us, endangering our free speech, free press, political playing field and personal liberty.
Watch your back.
The Democrats are using the outrageous and unsupportable Capitol riot the same way that Hitler used the Reichstag Fire of 1933 — as a pretext for an authoritarian crackdown.
The impeachment of President Trump and the banning of his tweets and Facebook posts are merely the first examples.
But the threat of punitive actions and censorship in this new reign of terror hangs over us all.
Will we be banned from using the communication tools of modern technology? Will Twitter, Amazon and other tech giants determine what messages and what content can be sent out?
Will books we would like to read be dropped by their publishers because of the author’s lawful constitutional activities?
Will our favorite cable TV news stations have to face organized boycotts by their advertisers or be banned by cable systems if they criticize the election of the government?
Will the left use “lawfare” to sue frivolously for defamation, bankrupting their opponents with legal fees to defend their right to free speech
Will the Democrats equate our political speech in citing election irregularities with sedition, subjecting us to fines or imprisonment just for challenging the election of 2020?
That is the new premise of the coming Democratic reign of terror: that political statements charging that the election of 2020 was stolen or riddled with fraud are, by themselves, inciting violence by Trump supporters.
This approach harks back to efforts to suppress opposition to the World War I draft, the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by John Adams in 1798 and the 1954 law criminalizing membership in the American Communist Party (Communist Control Act of 1954). All three laws tried to criminalize political speech as seditious. They were all equally offensive to our Bill of Rights.
The reign of terror is trickling from the president on down.
The left is trying to frame the remarks of Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri — and those of President Trump and his supporters — as incendiary, false and designed to cause a riot, thereby allowing them to criminalize it.
But bear in mind:
Trump never advocated entering, much less taking over, the Capitol building and always explicitly opposed violence.
The charge that he “incited” the riots only refers to his peaceful exercise of free speech, denouncing the election of 2020 as the result of fraud and saying that it was “stolen.” That is the essence of free speech that is protected by the First Amendment.
Impeachment is a vengeful kick while the president is down. A purely symbolic act, removal from office is a logistical impossibility within the time remaining until Inauguration Day. Although the speaker and her minions claim that President Trump is so dangerous to the country that he must be removed immediately, they speak of a trial in a few months.
The reign of terror rolls on.
The publishing firm Simon & Schuster abruptly decided to drop Hawley’s new book, “The Tyranny of Big Tech.” The publisher said, “We take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom.”
Note that Simon & Schuster published anti-Trump bestsellers by Bob Woodward, Mary Trump and John Bolton — and a major flop by Paul Begala.
What was Hawley’s role in the rioting? After protesters surrounded his home, banging on the door and threatening his wife and newborn daughter, he said, “Violence is not how you achieve change. Violence is not how you achieve something better.”
And the terror may soon call former Trump staffers to the journalistic guillotine.
Randall Lane, Forbes’ chief content officer, announced that Forbes Media was “holding those who lied for Trump accountable.”
Lane mentioned five top Trump aides as examples of “the people paid by the People to inform the People.”
His hit list includes former White House press secretaries Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Stephanie Grisham, current press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and former senior counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway.
Lane beseeches us not to “let the chronic liars cash in on their dishonesty.”
Alluding to book deals by previous White House spokesmen, he wrote, “Trump’s liars don’t merit that same golden parachute. Let it be known to the business world: Hire any of Trump’s fellow fabulists above, and Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie.”
Hari Sevugan, a former senior spokesman for the Barack Obama presidential campaign, recently announced, “We just launched the Trump Accountability Project to make sure anyone who took a paycheck to help Trump undermine America is held responsible for what they did.”
And Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s former media consultant, tweeted, “At @ProjectLincoln we are constructing a database of Trump officials & staff that will detail their roles in the Trump administration & track where they are now. No personal info, only professional. But they will be held accountable & not allowed to pretend they were not involved.”
The Serbian war criminals hunted down by The Hague never received such scrutiny.
The Daily Mail reports that JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Marriott, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and the parent company of Commerce Bank have are all “suspending donations to the group dubbed ‘the treason caucus’ by critics,” as the U.K. Daily Mail reported. (The Treason Caucus apparently includes senators who voted not to certify the Electoral College votes.)
And, comically, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi called for Sens. Cruz and Hawley to be added to the no-fly list.
Digital payments company Stripe will also stop processing payments for Trump’s campaign website in the wake of the Capitol incursion.
For the president, the reign of terror may mean impeachment and seeing his tweets, posts and other messages banned from Twitter, Facebook and Google.
Where will it end?
When will it begin? It just did.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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