By Richard Eber
Referring conservatives to be Fascist-Nazi types are part of the litany of the Left classifying Republicans in California today. If these assumptions could be taken literally, it means were I alive in the 1930’s, this would make me a supporter of Adolf Hitler. As such, I would have approved of the extermination camps he operated that murdered some 8 million Jews.
In 2021, we have to ask where did this horrible analogy come from?
Such charges were leveled at Donald Trump during his term as president on television, print, and internet media. There was no clamoring by the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, Facebook, Twitter, or other popular sites to retract these horrendous allegations against him. In fact the mainstream press accused the former President of being anti-Semitic despite his strong support of Israel and opposition to the terrorist aggression of Iran.
I don’t recall Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, or the Google founders coming to the defense of Trump on the comparison to Hitler. Apparently they were making too much money promoting free speech to worry much about the truth. It was only after the election that they employed overt censorship by removing Trump’s 1st amendment rights from their web sites.
As for the fascist comps, we didn’t see Antifa or Black Lives Matter (BLM) scrutinized in the slightest way despite their extremist views.
With only Fox News and a handful of other media outlets defend the President; it was proven that if one throws the Hitler comparison on the wall often enough, people will believe such slander. Ironically, the definition of the Big Lie being “a gross distortion or misrepresentation of the facts, especially when used as a propaganda device by a politician or official body”. are right out of the pages of the Nazis leader’s autobiography Mein Kampf.
Also under attack is the first amendment of the Constitution guaranteed the right to free speech to everyone regardless of what their opinions might be. The first post Biden election victim was none other than Donald Trump. He asserted that fraud caused his loss in November. Disagreeing with this assessment, media giants Facebook, Twitter, and Google stopped publishing his allegations while taking the conservative Parler site down.
What transpired came as a complete shock to me. It never occurred to me to advocate censorship. Whether it is comparisons between Hitler and Trump or election fraud, the right to free speech and a free press trumps all other considerations. It has always been my view that people should be able to decide for themselves what is true or false
The same goes for Trump’s claims that the vote counting process caused him to lose the election. Despite some truth in these allegations, I felt Biden won the Presidency based upon popular vote thus was willing to drop the matter.
For me, defending the right of freedom of speech is more important than winning or losing any one contest. It along with the rest of the Bill of Rights has been the foundation of our democracy from when it was founded almost 250 years ago;
All of that seems to be irrelevant today. A few days ago I was discussing the impeachment trial of Donald Trump with a liberal friend who with I have amicably argued politics with since college days. When I said Congress could not impeach a President or anyone else that has left office, Bill said, “The Constitution does not cover the crimes of Donald Trump because what he did was so horrible that his misdeeds must be dealt with regardless of what the document says.”
I was blown away. Apparently, the Bill of Rights authored by Thomas Jefferson is no longer relevant. Cancel Culture has reached a point in our society that our democratic form of government is being challenged by an angry mob of progressives who don’t respect the values of what our country was founded upon.
We see this alarming trend everywhere. Liberal Democrats want to abolish the electoral College and elect the president on the basis of a popular vote. On the surface this does not seem like a bad idea unless one understands why this institution came to be.
At the Continental Congress there was concern that large states like New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia would determine the outcome elections leaving the rest of the country with little say. To even things out they created the Senate based on two members per State and the Electoral College.
This system has worked for over 200 years but now Progressives want to change to the popular vote to elect presidents. They prefer that large cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Miami, and Los Angeles determine who is to occupy the White House. When it is suggested that present system can be lawfully altered by a constitutional amendment, such a solution has been rejected because it takes too long.
The fact of the matter is that Cancel Culture demands immediate change. They want the founding fathers such George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison to be erased from the history books because their families were slave owners in Virginia.
The same goes for President Abraham Lincoln who ended slavery during the Civil War. According to Cancel Culture followers, he had a bad record dealing with Native Americans during his presidency. Perhaps Lincoln is out of favor today when it is has been learned he was a Republican!
This designation is now considered to be some sort of a hate crime. I have to believe this is true given the recent actions of The San Francisco School Board to rename three of the institutions I attended including Lincoln High because of their Cancel Culture beliefs.
What worries me now is whether conservatives will continue to assert ourselves in National politics in the future. If the First Second and 10th Amendments are thrown in the scrap heap by the left, will it be legal for Republicans to be placed on the ballot ever again?
Equally troubling is the prospect that candidate for office needing to be approved by media oligopolies to have their stories told? Despite such a gloomy assessment, I believe that our country will someday come to their senses to restore our Republic to the principles that have guided us since the USA was founded.
I also believe a time will come when Republican’s hold a majority in the California legislature. The words “dream on sweet prince” might hold true; but isn’t this what Democracy is all about?
Richard Eber studied journalism at the University of Oregon. He writes about politics, culture, education restaurants, and was former city and sports editor of UCSB Daily. Richard is president of Amerasa Rapid Transit, a specialized freight forwarder.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal.
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