Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
From branding parents speaking out against critical race theory and sexual ideology in schools as terrorists to the Mar-a-Lago raid, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s radicalized Justice Department transforms pre-election political opposition into national security threats.
The infamous DOJ letter on schools was sent out a month before the gubernatorial election in Virginia, where the National School Board Association, not to mention much of the D.C. establishment, is based. Much as Garland’s DOJ operatives feared, the school protests helped elect Gov. Glenn Younkin and nearly toppled New Jersey’s Democrat governor in the bargain.
The Mar-a-Lago raid was carefully timed around the DOJ’s day policy of avoiding politically sensitive moves 90 days before an election. The real election it has its eye on is in 2024.
And, if it has its way, 2024 will be the new 1984.
The Steele dossier, the Mueller investigation, the Mar-a-Lago raid, and everything before and after are part of the larger Spygate continuum which is marked by the use of national security tools to suppress the political opposition especially before and during elections. The claims of national security, whether they involve the Russians or classified documents, are just a tactic that allow Democrat officials to wield virtually unlimited investigative powers cloaked in secrecy.
Beyond the details of these investigations, which turn as hollow as Steele or Mueller on closer examination, is the larger construct of a crisis that is described as a “threat to democracy”.
The “threat to democracy” is shorthand for a threat to Democrats. The source of that threat are conservatives and Republicans. The vectors of that threat can be described as coming from Russia, school board parents, electoral activism or “disinformation” on the internet. The common denominator is that political activities which are inherently “democratic”, speech, protest and electioneering, are defined as a national security “threat to democracy”.
The net of this crisis extends from individuals posting on social media to political candidates and institutions. Meeting the “threat to democracy” requires the government to monitor social media and for social media companies to censor unapproved speech, for candidates who believe the wrong things to be barred from office, for the IRS to investigate conservative non-profits, for companies to be pressured into pulling donations to conservative candidates and for the military to be prepared to intervene once again in the event of another grave “threat to democracy”.
The threat to democracy or rather the republic here is coming from the Democrats.
The Spygate targeting of Trump is only one strand of a number of threads drawing together to criminalize opposition to leftist agendas. Cancel culture had already contrived to economically punish speech. The next step was criminal investigations of people who non-violently stood up to Black Lives Matter race rioters or drove over BLM’s racial supremacist slogan on streets.
The underlying rationale was that racism was a public health crisis and another threat to democracy. Individuals were components of the crisis. Those who would not take a knee and admit their privilege were perpetuating the crisis and posed a threat to the nation at large.
The same collectivist machinery is being ramped up to enforce global warming dogma by using financial institutions, insurance companies, SEC regulations, real estate codes and countless other financial minutiae to extra-legislatively impose the Green New Deal, punishing companies and individuals until they conform. Dot com monopolies are already censoring those who don’t.
Once again the argument is that all human life on the planet is endangered. Anyone who doesn’t toe the line is a threat to the race. And must either conform or be silenced.
Race and the environment are not the real issues here, no more than Russia or classified documents are with Spygate. Manufactured crises are used to justify totalitarian fascist abuses of power. The details of any individual crisis or allegation matter much less than the tactics used to suppress dissent in the face of this latest imminent emergency. Every crisis is met with a centralized response weaving together federal authority, corporate complicity, national media outlets, cultural elites and all the commanding heights of power in the United States of America.
As FBI raids blend into congressional investigations, National Security Council aides, political campaigns, opposition research labs and media outlets appear to speak with one voice because they operate as arms of the same machine. Likewise, school board leaders, DOJ officials, media outlets and publishing giants start functioning as components of a single political entity.
Because they are just different ways of describing members of the Left.
In true Orwellian fashion, the “threat to democracy”, like most leftist slogans, should be interpreted to mean the opposite of what it appears to. It’s democracy that is a threat to a political system that is undemocratic and built around undemocratic institutions.
The threat to democracy manifests itself when conservative candidates win elections and is most pronounced in the least democratic institutions, government bureaucracies, national media outlets, elite universities and the upper ranks of corporations. This increasingly integrated ruling class springs into action when it’s unable to rig an election and warns of a “threat to democracy”. The worse it loses, the more urgent the crisis and the more ruthless the method of dealing with it. Having lost one election and fearing losses in 2022 and 2024, it’s getting more ruthless.
The solutions to all the crises come down to the components of the machine, the administrative state, corporate leaders, technocratic monopolies, educational bosses, activist front groups and many others urgently grabbing more power to cope with the threat of losing elections.
The Mar-a-Lago raid is a warning that the machine is rapidly preparing to fight off the “threat of democracy” to the 2022 and 2024 elections by once again weaponizing national security, censoring “misinformation”, and stamping out the political opposition. It will do whatever it takes to win, not because it needs to win elections to pursue its agenda, but because winning elections is a convenient cover to explain the amount of power it wields.
Democracy is not just in its name, but its facade. When it loses the facade, people start to notice that elections don’t seem to change very much. And that things still run the same way.
America is in a bad and dangerous place. But it will be in an even worse one by 2024.
This is not just about winning elections, but about making them irrelevant. The goal is to eliminate the opposition, not just in the voting booth, but across society. The Left will use all the powers at its disposal to ban any kind of ideological non-conformity employing government, corporations, and the culture to prosecute, fire and cancel anyone who dissents.
All of this is being done in the name of a rotating series of crises, threats to democracy, social harmony or the environment, not because these threats are real, but because they enable the system to invoke different components to leverage against its political enemies.
Call it fascism, because that’s what it is.
So the Tea Party had it right.
Fascism is a right0-wing ideology. Period. Full-stop.
There is no such thing as a “progressive fascist”.
Stop projecting. Trump and his cult are the fascists here. The parallels between the US in the 2020s and Europe in the 1920s and 30s are beyond alarming, and it’s all from the right.
Orwell observed that the British Army does not goosestep because British people would laugh at them.
You’re goosestepping.
Your point is??
The terms Left wing – right wing are perspectives of one’s point-of-view. Trivial to this discussion.
A more relevant discussion would be based on what you feel is the practical difference between Hitlerian Fascism and Stalinististic Coommunism.
I’m waiting…
The trouble with socialists is they soon run out of other people’s money. Socialism is the government being run by elites and being the only source of largesse. Communism is a collective, with all product belonging to a central government who doles it out. It’s nice in theory but doesn’t work at all in reality. As is usual the top elites get the cream and the workers get skim milk.
Fascism historically is an Italian thing, resurrected by socialist and union leader Mussolini.
National socialism (i.e. Hitlerian nazism) was socialism for the people, and depended heavily on the love of the people for the leader.
Stalinistic communism, or bolshevism was state communism, imposed from above by an intellectually elite clique, which imposed structures on the people that most Russians didn’t understand – the communists didn’t really care what das Volk thought of them.
Have you notice the abuses by the DOJ? Is the right controlling them?
Fascism, as is the case with National Socialism, are left-wing phenomena and arose out of the same Left as did Marxian socialism/communism. All are forms of totalitarian egalitarian leftism and statism.
Drink your Kool-Aid with a chaser, Boo.
The American left wing considers fascism a right-wing ideology because it’s a convenient narrative. In reality, both Italian fascism and German national socialism grew out of the left-wing socialist movement. Mussolini remained a committed socialist, for instance, his entire life. Hitler, meanwhile, saw his brand of fascism as neither exclusively right nor left but instead as a center “third way” alternative, incorporating elements of both right- and left-wing extremism.
Go look up the fascist political platforms of the 1930s. You may be shocked to find how closely they mirror the platforms of today’s American far-left Democratic Party and its agenda, especially the emphasis on broad social welfare programs combined with hostility towards the market economy, banking, investments and Wall Street. Can you name a single thing Trump stood for or did that would be consistent with those ideologies?
I agree, except I argue that Donald Trump cooperated far too readily with the fascistic Anthony Fauci and Albert Bourla.
See my comment above, and read “Leftism: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse” by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn.
Right. All those street burnings and riots in 2020 were Trump supporters. And Trump controls the press. And academe. And publishing. And tv media. Why, he’s locked down the whole society. All institutions bow down to him! Fascism everywhere!
Lol. Unfortunately the left can’t understand sarcasm.
or logic, reason, truth.!
WRONGO! There is no rational way to ascribe fascism to the right other than deflection. The Nazis were the National SOCIALIST German Workers’ Party, it’s right there in their name. Look at how Hitler implemented his policy perspective and you’ll find a lot of socialism. He was very much a supporter of collectivism. Communism, socialism and fascism differ only slightly, mostly in methods. Communists/Socialists/Fascists fought in the early 20th century not because they were different but bc each wanted to be THE leading philosophy of the progressive movement. They all embraced eugenics – the idea that “undesirable people” should be bred out of existence, to put it in the most basic terms. Democrats in this country did, Nazis in Germany did. Progressives only distanced themselves from fascism and eugenics when World War II happened, and it would have hurt them electorally to be associated with fascists. But if you look, you can find many prominent progressive politicians saying nice things about fascists, like FDR praising Benito Mussolini. There’s a very simple way to think about this: think of political philosophy as a line with a right and left direction. One side wants a govt that does more, that grows in size and scope, and the other wants one with a shrinking, smaller government doing less. All of those “isms” fall on LEFT side of the spectrum. They all feature massive govt taxing the hell out of everyone, mandating behavior and regulating lives.
Fascism is the pernicious use by government of its judicial, police and military powers to unjustly oppress, serpress, vilify, imprison, torment and /or murder those who try to expose the nefarious, power hungry plots of those desperate to hold onto power. It can come from the left or right. The Democrats are clearly the evil fascists who ignore the crimes of their supporters and impose draconian unjust sentences on their peaceful opponents while labeling them violent insurrectionists. It is the Democrats who tried to criminalize parents speaking up at school board meetings. It is the Democrats who have held Jan 6 protesters in prison without trial for more than 18 months under cruel conditions on minor charges. It is the Democrats who want no ID to vote so that they can cheat. I could write a book about the ongoing criminality of the current administration.
Fascism is the pernicious use by government of its judicial, police and military powers to unjustly oppress, serpress, vilify, imprison, torment and /or murder those who try to expose the nefarious, power hungry plots of those desperate to hold onto power. It can come from the left or right. The Democrats are clearly the evil fascists who ignore the crimes of their supporters and impose draconian unjust sentences on their peaceful opponents while labeling them violent insurrectionists. It is the Democrats who tried to criminalize parents speaking up at school board meetings. It is the Democrats who have held Jan 6 protesters in prison without trial for more than 18 months under cruel conditions on minor charges. It is the Democrats who want no ID to vote so that they can cheat. I could write a book about the ongoing criminality of the current administration.
I see you took your stupid pill this morning.
Fascism is a set of political beliefs that includes strong control of society and the economy by the state, a powerful role for the armed forces, and the stopping of political opposition. With the exception of a strong military I would hardly believe that these traits are even remotely acceptable by the right wing.
If you go back to the genesis of the “fascist” movements in the 1920s and 1930s you’ll find they were all good socialists. That was the age of the great collectivists: Stalin, Mussolini, FDR. Hitler was not only a socialist in his own day but would be considered a good progressive today. In fact, he was more of a leftist than a nationalist or a racist.
There was nothing unusual about his mixture of leftism and militarism back in the day. It was only after the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed that the roots of Nazism were carefully scrubbed by leftist historians and academics with this notion that fascism is always and everywhere a right wing ideology.
By now you should be able to come up with a better excuse than ‘the orange man did it”
If a meteor did hit this planet you and your cronies would blame Trump.
They can’t come up with a better excuse, it’s all about HATE AND DESTROY TRUMP> Logic, reason and truth have no place in the left’s agenda.
Central to ideology of the right is limited government. Progressives are the complete opposite.
I think you wrote this a couple of weeks ago. It was moronic then ad it is moronic now
Besides, what is rightO-wing ideology?
“Fascism is a right0-wing [sic] ideology. Period. Full-stop.”
Your propaganda is a communist Big Lie, promulgated since the 1930s to defame their conservative opponents. Period. Full-stop.
Corporatism (Benito Mussolini’s preferred term for fascism) is a variation of all-powerful centralized government: a totalitarian regime. All centralized-government totalitarian regimes – whether communist or corporatist – are inherently left-wing. Right-wing ideology seeks to de-centralize power and reduce governmental interference in the private sector! End-point right-wing ideology is anarchy!
Fascism is not populism; fascism is not nationalism; fascism is not racism! Those conflations with fascism are all used by communists as disingenuous political weapons against conservatives. Fascism is enforced collusion between the centralized government and corporate entities. Fascism is a competitor – not an opponent – of communism.
The World Economic Forum [WEF] is not nationalist; it is globalist and anti-nationalist. The WEF is also unadulterated fascism.
Austria-born Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn – who saw fascism first hand – has explicated this in his treatise, “Leftism: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse”.
Jonah Goldberg, who is no Trumper, who wrote “Liberal Fascism” would beg to differ, I’d imagine.
The left will continue to be the party of LIE AND DENY AND NO TRUTH.
So Trump wants government in the style of Mussolini, for that is what Fascism is, socialist statism. It is the furthest thing from Trump who worked against centralized power, the objective of the Dem Pty, and for federalism. If you want to call someone “fascist” at least learn what the word means. You might begin by reading Dennis Mack Smith’s works on Fascist Italy.
Has there ever been a fascist who wasn’t a socialist first? I can’t think of one, from Mussolini through Obama. Of course, “progressive” was the moniker the Fabian Socialists used when they fled Hitler’s Germany for America. They wanted to infiltrate American education and knew they couldn’t name what they really were – Communists.
I was raised by a Communist organizer in California. He worked with both the labor unions and the educational unions, then got into local politics and vote harvesting schemes. Believe it or not, he used to vote harvest with some of Jim Jone’s Peoples Temple followers back when they were helping to rig the vote for Jerry Brown. So I’ve seen a lot. “Progressive” is just a smoke screen. But my question is, if the purpose of Socialism is to bring about Communism, is Socialism even a real thing? I don’t think so. I see both Progressive and Socialist as a veil over what they really are – Communists. And Communists like nothing more than power, death and Destruction.
Make no mistake – what is happening right now in our country is a color revolution, organized by the CIA. They use the Communists and Islamists against the people, and are attempting to foment a civil war. Don’t fall for it. BLM is a Chinese Communist organization, mainly run out of the Chinese-American Society of San Francisco. The pro-Hamas Drmonstrations are mainly funded by the Soros Nazi’s Tides Foundation, and financed with at least $40 million in U.S. tax dollars. Antifa hides its administration in Oakland and Berkeley based ByAny Means Necessary. This is run by Yvette Falarka and the Minneapolis-based civil rights lawyer Shanta Driver. Other managers hide out as professors at UC Berkeley and many, many of them are school teachers. Know your enemy.
Wrong. Mussolini himself said that fascism is the merging of corporate and governmental power to control the people. “Right” ideology is for less government; “left” is for more. You can choose to offer opinions opposite of those proclaimed by the father of fascism and by the facts of left/right — but that doesn’t make them true.
The offering up of MAGA as the new Jews (after the real Jews are “under control”) along w/ PDT as the face of the “Two-minute hate,” there is no denying that it is this administration showing their fascist colors.
There are the definitions and facts. Now what is your proof that PDT is a “fascist” or that those supporting him are a “cult”– what are the incidents that merge corporate and gov power (from the right) to control the masses?
Facts count. Name-calling is a leftist trick, and it’s really getting old.
New Jersey cheated. The Repub won as gov., but as usual there were not enough Repub vote counters and IT managers.
Why is it, that the dangerous far-right are always invoking George Orwell’s 1984, as if that book was supporting very extremist ideologies?
Obviously, the author of this garbage has never read the book.
In George Orwell’s 1984, the violent far-right try to control the proletariat, not the other way around.
I beg to differ, having read George Orwell’s 1984 back in my HS days, as required reading, I don’t recall a mention of the word combo ‘far-right’. In my understanding it was the control factor of the elites. Those who desire to be of the elite classification can be from either political perspective, far right or far left as you prefer…
Control of a populous is their main objective for all the power and so-called wealth that comes with power….Just review all history of rulers or those in power…
As the old proverb goes, Power corrupts.
The book never mentioned modern phrases like that, references to left or right.
However, if it did, it would refer to big Brother as a fascist right-wing regime.
In his essays Orwell [ Eric Blair ] pondered whether authoritarianism was more sinister, left of right. Understand that he fought and was shot thru the neck in Spain.
While his death from cardiac failure in 1949 was attributed to his war wound, I’d always wondered if it were not an early use of the prussic acid pistol the GPU used in the fifties to snuff dissidents who’d escaped.
West German authorities, especially in West Berlin, began checking for glass fragments about the face of elderly decedents. The hit man would give a burst to the face of prussic acid at the top of a stair climb, and they’d be dry and ready for the coroner’s opinion of heart attack after a few minutes.
No one checked Orwell’s face in 49.
And the trigger would have been more likely Animal Farm than 1984, which was stone denunciation of the naked corruption of the Soviet social system.
Not that one could prove it. There was a short period after Gorbachev collapsed the USSR where KGB files were accessible. But no one looked, I think. And that window closed decades ago.
left OR right.
Damned Android™ OS text editor.
Wordstar worked better.
Your comments are. gross distortion of Orwell, his work, his world view, and the European political situation in the 1930s and 40s. In reality, “left wing” and “right wing” are not “modern” concepts at all but were very much in use in mid-century Europe at the time of Orwell’s writings, although they meant something entirely different in Europe at that time than they do in the United States today.
You’re right that his works of fiction did not use those terms, but for a very specific reason: He made it abundantly clear that both Animal Farm and 1984 were meant as an attack on totalitarianism, period. They were just as much an attack on Communism as they were on Fascism. In fact, many left-wing publishers refused to publish Animal Farm because of what they recognized as its obvious anti-Communist bias. During the publishing of 1984, he participated in the British Labour Party’s campaign against Communism by compiling and sharing a list of Marxist writers he felt should be exposed.
Yes of course, a fascist right-wing regime…..just like the Soviets, Nazi Germany, Mussolini. You are a genius, not.
Obviously … you have not read the book.
G-d love ya’
Just….wow. This is about as superficial a misrepresentation of Orwell’s work as I think I’ve ever seen. Another testament to the failure of our public school system on display. Sheesh.
1984 and Animal Farm represented the Soviet Union. Orwell was fighting for socialism in the Spanish Civil War. His experience there showed Soviet participation, control, and murderous purges. The gold of Spain ended up in Russia, Orwell’s experience later showed bias in publishing. This resulted in the works he is most famous for. Your term “dangerous far-right” is used quite promiscuously. Beware memory holes.
How blind you are! You probably did not read !984, just the short review.
Ha ha ha. The dangerous far right. That’s a good one. If you insist on using the French model of political hierarchy, at least be accurate. The far right are those who call for the return of kings. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never met one of those folks.
The people you refer to as “far right” are centrists and you are a Communist. You are also an insurrectionist and a fool. I was raised by an organizer and know what you morons are all about. You want to put everyone back in chains and steal all their stuff. Because you’re lazy, narcissistic grifters. We’re dangerous only because we hold up a mirror to you and show you what you are.
“National Security Council aides, political campaigns, opposition research labs and media outlets appear to speak with one voice because they operate as arms of the same machine.”
Almost all the media is behind one political party and no humans have the ability to accomplish that, so we see the effects of a supernatural force. That political party’s actions show it to have been evil in the past and present, so that force is malevolent and for thousands of years has been called the devil. So the correct name for that group is devilcrats and an article describing the only way to defeat them without violence is below.
There is an interesting quote at the National Communist Convention in 1944 at Madison Square Garden.
Alexander Trachtenberg (Socialist, Yale Grad, Millionaire) was the guest speaker.
“When we get ready to take the United States, we will not take it under the label of Communism. We will not take it under the label of Socialism. These labels are unpleasant to the American people and have been speared too much. We will take it under Liberalism, under Progressivism, under Democracy, but take it, we will.”
You could not be more correct! Much like their dependents in (the ironically named) Antifa, the Nazis were big on larping. They used to dress up in communist armbands and carry pro-Communist signs, then pick fights with the local police, trade unionists, etc. the papers would report that the Communists were having violent uprisings.
One thing about those Nazis – they didn’t miss a trick and they appropriated every weapon in their enemy’s quiver, when they reincarnated as Antifa I. The U.S., which began in Berkeley, not Rose City, they began to hold protests dressed up as their opponents. During the scamdemic they dressed as nurses and doctors. During the capitol riot they dressed as Trump supporters and police. Of course, they also had real police Antifa members and supporters – like Yogalonda Pittman, former Capitol COP who afterwards was hired by her Antifa friends at UC Berkeley.
Fascism is the pernicious use by government of its judicial, police and military powers to unjustly oppress, serpress, vilify, imprison, torment and /or murder those who try to expose the nefarious, power hungry plots of those desperate to hold onto power. It can come from the left or right. The Democrats are clearly the evil fascists who ignore the crimes of their supporters and impose draconian unjust sentences on their peaceful opponents while labeling them violent insurrectionists. It is the Democrats who tried to criminalize parents speaking up at school board meetings. It is the Democrats who have held Jan 6 protesters in prison without trial for more than 18 months under cruel conditions on minor charges. It is the Democrats who want no ID to vote so that they can cheat. I could write a book about the ongoing criminality of the current administration.
The British Army didn’t goosestep because goosestepping was a Prussian thing. It took an awful lot of practice and a certain Prussian mentality, which dies hard.. And was mocked relentlessly by the Brits and much of Europe.
Accusing this particular author of goosestepping is possibly the most ridiculous thing I’ve read this month when there has been plenty of ridiculous stuff to read. Wise up. Greenfield has been very good at getting to the heart of matters and telling about it clearly – a difficult thing to do. You should be printing off his essays to show your grandchildren what good prose looks like.
Truth…
Great article Mr. Greenfield… Spot on!
Biden declares himself as Emperor Palpatine II
I just call him Jihad Joe, Odummy’s butt plug.
The Marxist run election offices across the US should be the field on which there is battle by Republicans who should be butting into them and running them, not watching.
That is now but a dream. “Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes…” Richard II
Write sorrow on the bosom of the once Republic.
How could the Communists take over the country without the Republican Party, CIA, FBI and military to help them? They couldn’t. All are re-arranging the deck chairs now, waiting to see how much power they’ll be allowed in 2030 when China will be allowed to run a world Communist government through the UN. Should be interesting. Something to think about: it’s hard to bring down a raging elephant. But let him rest for a while and a million tiny rocks can bleed him dry. I intend to be one of those ticks. Join me.