One week after January 6th 2021, I predicted that the Capitol Riot would be exploited to crush dissenters from leftist orthodoxy as part of an effort for Democrats and our ruling class to achieve total power by disenfranchising the opposition.
I said that day would serve as an accelerant to a coming assault on dissenters, leading to their punishment and silencing – that it would encompass all of society, including big tech, woke capital, corporate media.
In short, I said we were about to enter a liberty-and-justice-crushing War on Wrongthink.
Things played out exactly as I predicted with the weaponization and hyper-politicization of the administrative state, the depredations of the Censorship-Industrial Complex, and the Lawfare Inquisition that I have chronicled weekly here at Straight Arrow News.
Now, with the actions taken during the first week of Donald Trump’s second presidency, I would submit that we may have just witnessed the beginning of the end of the War on Wrongthink.
President Trump issued an executive order “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government.”
Under that order, Trump declared it the policy of the U.S. to
“identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to the weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the Intelligence Community.”
To that end, he called on the attorney general to, in conjunction with
department and agency heads, probe weaponized acts over the last four years perpetrated by civil or criminal enforcement authorities and present a report to the president “with recommendations for appropriate remedial actions,” and for the National Intelligence Director to do the same with respect to weaponized acts of the intelligence community.
The president also issued an executive order on “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.”
The directive prohibits federal employees from engaging in, facilitating, or using taxpayer dollars for “any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”
It also calls on the attorney general and relevant agency heads to probe censorship activities during the last four years and again present recommendations for remedial actions.
The actions to end the War on Wrongthink even extend across the globe, to the president’s revocation of President Biden’s despicable Executive Order 14115,
under which Biden sanctioned citizens of Israel, our ally, in Judea and Samaria, for daring to disagree with his policies like rewarding the Palestinians for October 7th with a state – policies that would threaten the Israelis’ life, liberty, and property.
The Trump DOJ immediately set about righting wrongs as well by dismissing outrageous lawsuits, like the one against a whistleblowing doctor who had exposed illegal sex change procedures being undertaken against children, and those brought against pro-lifers for alleged FACE Act violations.
The administration pardoned the overwhelmingly peaceful pro-life protestors persecuted by the Biden Justice Department under that law.
But perhaps most notable were the dismissals of January 6 defendants currently being prosecuted – with prejudice – and the blanket pardon and limited number of commutations Trump afforded the well over 1,500 January 6ers targeted pursuant to the event that would launch the War on Wrongthink.
That decision took courage. It would have been easier and politically correct to do some sort of bifurcated set of pardons based on the alleged offenses.
But the president essentially surmised that this was all the fruit of a poisonous tree – that the injustice of the lawfare, the persecuting of political foes, outweighed all else.
Title: Trump ends war on wrongthink
The administration weighed the acts against the leniency granted to BLM and Antifa protestors during the summer of 2020 who assaulted cops, murdered people, and burned down cities;
it weighed them against the collective guilt heaped on and hostility with which judges treated the defendants in D.C.;
against the fact defendants lacked full evidence and other due process protections to defend themselves; that they couldn’t get a fair trial before a jury of their peers as MAGA supporters in Washington;
that judges wouldn’t let defendants change venues;
it considered the twisting and torturing of the “obstruction of an official proceeding charge” hung around the neck of protestors; the fact many were held in pretrial detention for months on end — some without criminal records — and subjected to alleged abuse;
and the challenges of judging people’s offenses that day given the presence of informants who may have entrapped some, and the reported provocations if not brutality of certain cops.
When weighing those factors, plus the time already served — on top of the disentangling of the cases which as a prudential matter would serve as a huge drag on the justice system — the president made the politically incorrect call to say enough is enough.
Joe Biden’s cavalier pardons and commutations only made the decision easier.
There will likely long be a debate over its merits, but I suspect many on the left are just angry that Republicans treated Republicans the way Democrats have long treated Democrats, and that the public soured on the preferred narrative of insurrection, which no one was ever charged with.
In any event, this reversal may well have been the beginning of the end of the War on Wrongthink.
Only with restitution, transparency, and accountability will there be a deterrent to the weaponization, politicization, and railroading of political dissenters going forward.
If Trump can end this war, and deter such acts, it would go a long way towards restoring liberty and justice for all in this country.
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