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What Now?-Terrifying times lie ahead.
Frontpagemagazine ^ | Jan 11, 2021 | Bruce Bawer

Posted on 01/11/2021 6:57:26 AM PST by SJackson

I’ve been ranting for years about the perfidy of the left. At times I’ve been accused of exaggerating. On rare occasions I feared – or hoped? – that perhaps I was exaggerating. In fact I can now see that these people are worse than I ever imagined. Worse than most of us ever imagined.

Worse, even, than Donald Trump, with all his insight, imagined.

He went into office determined to clean up the swamp. He was tireless. But not tireless enough. No mere mortal could have been tireless enough. Trump had denounced the swamp in apocalyptic terms, but it proved to be even deeper and more extensive than he knew. It reached into the upper echelons of the intelligence community and the military, into cabinet departments and the judiciary.

Not only did the Democrats try to derail his campaign and then his presidency. Even people whom he appointed to White House jobs proved unreliable. Far from being too suspicious, he’d been too trusting. He’d appointed two-faced D.C. insiders. He’d trusted people who turned out to be snakes in the grass.

The news media, with very few exceptions, made it their task to thwart his progress and poison his name with a constant flow of disinformation. They said Trump had told people to drink bleach. They said he’d called neo-Nazis “good people.” They said many other outrageous things that they knew were outright lies. They relentlessly repeated the charge that he did nothing but lie, lie, lie, when in fact it was they, the media, who were constantly feeding us lies.

Trump thought he could rely on Fox News to report on his presidency with at least a degree of fairness. But no. They hired Donna Brazile, for heaven’s sake.

When enemies of Trump, and of freedom, created violence and mayhem in cities around the country, they were whitewashed, protected, and even praised by the media, by Democratic politicians, and by police officials. In a debate with Trump, Biden said Antifa was an idea, not an organization. Congressman Jerrold Nadler called it a myth.

Meanwhile Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey gave BLM $3 million. While the leftist gangsters went unpunished, citizens who tried to protect their homes and businesses from destruction by them were arrested by the police and demonized in the media. If you tried to spread the truth about all this on social media, you were shut down by Silicon Valley bosses who said you were lying.

And then the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Republican officials in the states affected by the steal sat on their hands. State legislatures, ditto. Even the justices he’d named to the Supreme Court refused to hear Texas v. Pennsylvania, absurdly maintaining that a state didn’t have standing to challenge the conduct of a presidential election in another state.

Trump’s supporters, ever civilized, waited patiently while every possible means of stopping the steal was dutifully exhausted. When it came down to the final vote certification in Congress, an army of MAGA folk gathered peacefully in Washington to show that they had Trump’s back.

Then a tiny percentage of them foolishly entered the Capitol building. And a tiny percentage of that tiny percentage – at least some of whom seem to have been Antifa goons – caused minor damage. Most of them appear to have milled harmlessly around the building, leaving paintings and statues untouched. The contrast with the conduct of Antifa and BLM insurgents during the previous year could hardly have been more striking.

In the 1970s, sit-ins in government buildings were a staple of protests by young leftists, many of them armed. Today’s left now celebrates many of the participants in those sit-ins as heroes. But nobody is cheering the people who walked into the Capitol.

One of those people, an Air Force veteran named Ashli Babbitt, was shot dead by a Capitol Hill policeman. She didn’t do anything to provoke the shooter. It was impossible not to think of George Floyd, the career criminal who, on May 25 of last year, died while resisting arrest after committing a crime. Floyd was black; the arresting officer was white. In the ensuing months, Floyd’s death was used to justify rioting, arson, and vandalism by Antifa and BLM agitators, none of whom ended up being killed by a cop.

But nobody’s making a martyr out of Ashli Babbitt.

I’m not saying anybody should. I’m just saying that after four years of reportage that routinely demonized Trump, sugarcoated his opponents, and cruelly mocked his supporters, and after an election that was blatantly stolen yet described in the media as eminently fair, those supporters could hardly be expected not to explode – especially since they’d seen, during the previous few months, one leftist explosion after another rewarded with praise.

On January 6, Biden, oozing faux solemnity, addressed the ongoing situation on Capitol Hill. After months of referring to Antifa and BLM thugs as “protesters,” he called the non-violent people who’d entered the Capitol a “mob” of “domestic terrorists” who, in an action bordering on “sedition,” had made an “unprecedented assault…on the citadel of liberty….This is not dissent, it’s disorder.”

He wasn’t alone. In one voice, people who’d spent months cheering leftist violence expressed horror at the breach of the Capitol building and blamed it on Trump. Once the Capitol was secured, the planned challenges to the vote steal were scuttled and the election of Biden and Harris duly certified.

Whereupon the left – and not just the left – moved with the swiftness of lightning.

Accusing Trump of having incited the Capitol breach, Pelosi and Schumer raised the possibility of using the 25th Amendment to deny him his last few days in office; this weekend Pelosi indicated that she would introduce a proposal today to impeach the president for a second time, and as of Saturday night articles of impeachment drafted by Rep. Ted Lieu, David Cicilline, and Jamie Raskin had 180 cosponsors.

Republicans who were never strong Trump supporters to begin with were quick to profess outrage at Trump’s purported provocation. Cabinet members Elaine Choi and Betsy DeVos quit. The Wall Street Journal called on Trump to resign. Senator Pat Toomey gave a thumbs-up to impeachment. Forbes warned companies not to hire anybody with a Trump connection.

Both Twitter and Facebook deplatformed Trump, and when he shifted from his personal Twitter account to the POTUS account, Twitter silenced that one, too. Other enemies of the left were also kicked off social media – among them Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, and Steve Bannon. Facebook ejected the WalkAway movement, in the process deleting countless heartfelt posts by ordinary citizens explaining why they’d quit the Democratic Party. YouTube took down a video by Rudy Giuliani. Amazon, Google, and Apple removed Parler, a “free-speech” alternative to Twitter and Facebook, from their app stores. The CEO of Mozilla, developer of the Firefox browser, wrote an essay entitled “We Need More than Deplatforming.”

(Yet the social-media accounts of the Chinese Communist Party and Ayatollah Khamenei remained untouched.)

Pelosi tried to get the military to stop taking orders from the President. Rob Reiner, Bette Midler, John Cusack, and other celebs posted calls for Trump’s arrest, as did MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. The director of ABC News spoke of “cleansing” the Trump movement after January 20, whatever that might mean. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, who’d taken the lead in challenging the vote steal, to be expelled from the Senate. Simon & Schuster canceled Hawley’s contract for a book about cancel culture. Biden likened Cruz to Goebbels.

For his part, Trump announced that he’d cooperate fully with the transition to a Biden presidency but that he wouldn’t be attending the inauguration – the first outgoing president since Andrew Johnson to skip the ceremony symbolizing the orderly transfer of executive authority. But how could he possibly do otherwise?

As all this happened, I tried to figure out what it reminded me of. It took two days to come up with the answer. It was the 1960 movie Spartacus. After his army has crushed the slave rebellion, Crassus (Laurence Olivier) promptly initiates the ruthless transformation of the Roman Republic into an empire, telling the republican senator Gracchus (Charles Laughton):

As the slaves died, so will your rabble if they falter one instant in loyalty to the new order of affairs. The enemies of the state are known. Arrests are in progress; the prisons begin to fill. In every city and province lists of the disloyal have been compiled. Tomorrow they will learn the cost of their terrible folly, their treason.

When Gracchus, the leader and hero of Rome’s deplorables, asks where his own name stands on Crassus’s list, Crassus shoves it in his face and shouts: “First!”

Yes, the author of the novel Spartacus, Howard Fast, was a Communist. So was Dalton Trumbo, who wrote the script. In Trumbo’s mind, Crassus’s list may well have been, at least in part, a reference to the Hollywood Blacklist, which had caused a brief hiccup in his own otherwise spectacular career. But for millions who saw the film, the idea of listing, arresting, and imprisoning “enemies of the state” would surely have brought to mind, above all else, the terrible reign of Stalin, who had died seven years earlier. Today it also recalls the brutal tyranny of Mao.

There’s no intrinsic magic about America that protects it from becoming Mao’s China or Stalin’s Russia. Only utopians believe in the perfectibility of man. People are people. And some of the people who are now, or are about to be, in power in the United States would, if accorded enough power, do far more to those of us who falter in loyalty than merely take away our social-media accounts.

Indeed, as scary as the situation may be right now, one thing’s for certain: worse is on its way. The Democrats now control both houses of Congress and are about to be handed the executive branch. The totalitarian-minded elements in that party are on the ascent, backed up by Silicon Valley, the legacy media, and much of corporate America. And they’re about to party like it’s 1793. In Paris.

The sky’s the limit. And therein lies our hope, long-term though it may well be. Without doubt, these people will overreach. Their lists will grow so long, their cancelations so widespread, that, as happened with the Reign of Terror, everyone who isn’t clinically insane will finally realize that things have gone too far and will, in one way or another, put an end to the madness.

But how far will things have to go before that happens? How long will it take? And how many lives will be destroyed before it’s over? These, alas, are the all too sobering questions that have yet to be answered. In the meantime, those of us who care about liberty will simply have to do our best to keep enduring the daily tsunami of evil ideology, fake news, and contempt for decent people, and to continue hoping that the true and good will yet prevail.


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: elonmusk; ivankatrump; redpill; twitter
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1 posted on 01/11/2021 6:57:26 AM PST by SJackson
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To: SJackson

Author’s concerns aren’t invalid, but they’re premature. Especially re the Executive Branch. So many people jumping on the “It’s over” bandwagon, and belittling those saying it ISN”T over until Jan. 20.


2 posted on 01/11/2021 7:00:04 AM PST by AFB-XYZ (Option 1 -- stand up. Option 2 -- bend over.)
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To: SJackson

You obey the Democrats or they’ll have their minions destroy your life


3 posted on 01/11/2021 7:00:32 AM PST by butlerweave
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To: SJackson

The Hunger Games is a good read/watch to familiarize yourself with some of the things Americans face in the near future. Such as hiding weapons and creating secret forms of communication away from leftist prying eyes.


4 posted on 01/11/2021 7:06:48 AM PST by KobraKai
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To: SJackson

What has happened to America? If colonialists back then had the same attitude Americans do today we never would have rebelled against the British. And as I see it, the tyranny and oppression today is far far worse than what America faced 250 years ago.


5 posted on 01/11/2021 7:07:27 AM PST by Responsibility2nd (Trump is a deposed Pres. in exile. America is truly a banana republic. Our govt. has been overthrown)
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To: SJackson
"But how far will things have to go before that happens? How long will it take? And how many lives will be destroyed before it’s over? These, alas, are the all too sobering questions that have yet to be answered. In the meantime, those of us who care about liberty will simply have to do our best to keep enduring the daily tsunami of evil ideology, fake news, and contempt for decent people, and to continue hoping that the true and good will yet prevail."

Or decamp for more freedom loving countries, if they will have us, along with the President before he is arrested and imprisoned and then eliminated. If he stays within reach of the US authorities, he is a dead man walking. I hope he realizes what is coming within days and doesn't think he can overcome all by staying here.

6 posted on 01/11/2021 7:08:52 AM PST by Truth29
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To: SJackson

It’s the perfidy of the right, those we thought were on our side, that is the most deadly.

Most of the elected GOP have been working with the Democrats for 30 years to steal the country from the citizens by flooding it with foreigners.


7 posted on 01/11/2021 7:09:03 AM PST by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents|Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: SJackson

Gleichschaltung is progressing at a steady pace. It’s that feeling you have that says, you’re not in Kansas anymore, but 1936 Berlin.


8 posted on 01/11/2021 7:10:52 AM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: AFB-XYZ

I’m not so sure they are premature.

The left is moving far faster than I expected.

I never thought of it as them being afraid as many people have said, but after thinking about it, they are and they are trying to solidify their grip on power while they still have the time. That tells me, they are afraid of losing it.

Could be this is ushering in the end times which Scripture tells us about. If so, it’s going to get much worse, much more horrifically worse. And with electronic surveillance, there will be nowhere to hide. The old last days movies missed that part. Their scenarios work without the wide spread surveillance but these days?

Good luck with remaining off the radar.


9 posted on 01/11/2021 7:13:19 AM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.....)
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To: SJackson

Bruce Bawer is writing the hard unvarnished truth... this piece will help historians in the future... they’ll know some people saw the horror coming.


10 posted on 01/11/2021 7:13:23 AM PST by GOPJ (Seventy-three million citizens thought the election was rigged - enough to start a new party.)
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To: KobraKai

Sadly, yup. They are already pitting folks against each other.


11 posted on 01/11/2021 7:15:55 AM PST by rktman (Destroy America from the inside? Check! WTH? Screwed, blued and tatooed.)
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To: AFB-XYZ

“It aint over till we say it’s over.

“Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

...

“Let’s..... DOOOOO IIIITTTT!”

_______

Sorry...had to throw that in there. /bubblebursting


12 posted on 01/11/2021 7:16:57 AM PST by one guy in new jersey
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To: Lurkinanloomin

The Left have stolen the election through massive fraud to the overwhelming support of their minions in the Press and in the street.

As the State turns totalitarian to the point that even the Left realize their mistake; how will they be able to affect change without honest elections?


13 posted on 01/11/2021 7:18:12 AM PST by CoastWatcher
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To: KobraKai
Such as hiding weapons and creating secret forms of communication away from leftist prying eyes.

Fascist owned web site, hidden Facist spy lurking behind your logon!!

You silent watcher/partner at left wing controlled web site companies!


14 posted on 01/11/2021 7:21:01 AM PST by Grampa Dave (Law & order took the last train out of DC and America on election/coup/night, Tues., Nov. 03, 2020!)
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To: AFB-XYZ

Trump has till Jan 20 at noon to impose martial law. If the rats are let in the USA will be dead to me.


15 posted on 01/11/2021 7:21:22 AM PST by Greg123456
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To: metmom

Agreed. As for remaining off the radar, people are dreaming if they think they’re not already on it, no matter how unimportant or harmless they are. The mere fact of disagreement can be sniffed out by the tyrant and is not permitted even in the lowliest deplorable.

The shutdowns of the last 10 months gave them the chance to perfect and develop their repression techniques (one of the faves being the low-tech classic, getting neighbors to squeal on you).

It’s not going to be fun, and I haven’t quite given up hope that somehow it can be stopped, but I think we’re soon going to face a level of repression that will make 1984 look mild.

Just the events of this weekend alone, with its savage tech-purge and silencing of all opposition, are so stunning that I’m still having trouble really accepting it.


16 posted on 01/11/2021 7:29:00 AM PST by livius ( )
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To: Greg123456

The Republic was dead on January 20, 2009 when ALL of our elected and appointed swore in the ineligible Kenyan from Indonesia in direct violation of the Constitution.


17 posted on 01/11/2021 7:30:50 AM PST by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents|Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: livius

I sure hope Jesus comes back soon.


18 posted on 01/11/2021 7:33:23 AM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.....)
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To: Lurkinanloomin

Exactly.

The dems showed then that the Constitution did not matter to them. It was a bigger red flag than many realized at the time.


19 posted on 01/11/2021 7:34:29 AM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.....)
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To: AFB-XYZ

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3920426/posts


20 posted on 01/11/2021 7:35:32 AM PST by dsc (Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men.)
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