The Washington Examiner, an ostensibly “conservative” publication, published an article this week demanding we treat right-wing “extremists” like al-Qaeda.
In the article, former Homeland Security official Kevin Carroll argued we must do five things to protect our nation from this menace. The first is to “bring the heaviest felony charges possible on as many participants in the [Capitol] insurrection.” “We ruthlessly hunted down foreign terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and must do the same to their domestic equivalents,” Carroll writes. This assumes that a few hundred demonstrators illegally entering the Capitol and taking selfies is equivalent to the 9/11 attacks.
The second act is to make all law enforcement and firemen sign loyalty oaths that commit them to “not to engage in acts to overthrow the government.” Failure to uphold this oath will result in federal prosecution and departments that fail to implement such measures could be stripped of federal funds.
The third act is to “ban extremist chatter through government censorship or private de-platforming, use radical chat rooms as honeypots, as FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces have done with violent, radicalized Islamists since 2001.”
The fourth measure calls for the abolition of militias.
The final proposal would “add domestic terrorism as a predicate to the material support for terrorism statute, including its civil liability provisions.”
“We defeated al-Qaeda and can do the same to the fascist thugs who attacked our democracy last month. But only if we take similar hard measures against the enemy within,” Carroll concludes his article.
The type of system Carroll proposes would strip potentially millions of Americans of their rights and enlarge our already bloated security apparatus. And for what purpose? To ensure that Trump supporters never protest again?
Carroll never clearly defines who he wants this massive security state to target. He offers hints, such as his mention of militia members, but there’s not much else to go on. Leaders clearly defined the enemy in the War on Terror as radical Islam; in Carroll’s estimation, the enemy today is just unspecified domestic terrorists.
The implication, of course, is that Trump supporters and ordinary conservatives who may have a problem with the government are the problem. America is supposed to be a free country where you’re allowed to not like your government. According to Carroll and authoritarian liberals, you’re not allowed to think that anymore. In this dystopian regime, you would be banned from the internet and possibly face jail time for these beliefs, which happen to be protected by the First Amendment.
Sadly, Carroll isn’t alone in his zeal to wage war on his fellow Americans. The Capitol riots spurred numerous calls for new laws and efforts to counter domestic terrorism. Influential people, not random trolls on Twitter, have described average Trump supporters as terrorists and the former president as the new Osama bin Laden. Elizabeth Neumann, who served Trump as the assistant secretary of homeland security, says her old boss “was that spiritual leader [for Capitol protesters] that bin Laden was for al-Qaeda. He was that face, and that spokesperson, that rallied the troops.”
And it’s not just empty rhetoric either; it results in the serious disregard of our civil liberties. Multiple Capitol protesters have been denied bail primarily due to their political beliefs, not their actions.
Dana Kurtbek, a 54-year-old woman who attended Trump’s peaceful rally on January 6, was flagged by facial recognition technology as a Capitol rioter. This error has resulted in multiple stops at the airport and a visit to her home from FBI agents. The FBI agents reportedly said they received anonymous tips saying Kurtbek was a woman in a CNN video of the riot. Luckily, Trump supporter was able to prove that it was not her in the picture.
“I had been flagged by my government as a potential domestic terrorist simply because I attended a rally in support of the president,” Kurtbek told The Post Millennial. “Our rights as American citizens have been removed and the government is using this incident to intimidate those with differing views into compliance.”
She added: “We have been referred to as traitors, un-American, racists, homophobic, ignorant, brainwashed, and now domestic terrorists by the same people who proudly display ‘Hate Has No Home Here’ placards in their front yards.”
This is life now for Trump supporters. They can’t speak on social media, they can’t assemble to support their man, and they can’t even fly without extra screening. They’re the deep state’s number one enemy, and few in power want to question that standing.
Trump’s impeachment is not just a threat to the former president—it’s an indictment of all 75 million of his voters. The deep dtate and liberal elites want to convict Trump and possibly jail him, but that’s not enough for them. They want to make examples of Trump and his supporters to browbeat millions into getting in line. Trump supporters must accept the 2020 election as the freest and fairest in human history. They must apologize for their white privilege and only support nice Republicans like Mitt Romney, who does what he’s told. The Trump masses must conform to the dictates of technocrat-guided “democracy.” Any deviation may mark them as domestic terrorists.
Liberal elites claim these radical steps are all needed to “safeguard democracy.” In reality, these measures mock the very idea that we live in a democracy. Healthy democracies don’t label the opposition terrorists and eliminate basic civil liberties.