At the Threshold or Turning Point

A picture of Douglass Mackey, also known online as influencer "Ricky Vaughn," dated February 2023. Courtesy of Douglass Mackey

Commentary

Reflecting on the breathtaking and unprecedented enormity of Alvin Bragg’s indictment of former President Donald Trump, a friend wrote me to say it reminded her of Martin Niemöller’s famous poem “First they came.”

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

“Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

How apposite those lines seem to our situation, all the more now that the Eastern District of New York has convicted Douglass Mackey of a felony for posting a satirical meme making fun of Hillary Clinton.

That episode, as I have said elsewhere, is yet more evidence that the United States has become a banana republic, a corrupt and despotic polity wherein the ruling party criminalizes dissent, and cows and intimidates anyone insufficiently obeisant to the dominant ideology.

Take note of that word “felony.”

Mackey now faces up to 10 years in prison for posting an image on social media suggesting that Hillary Clinton supporters avoid the long lines at the polls and vote by texting “Hillary” to a certain number.

It was a funny idea and one that no one, not even Democratic voters, could have taken seriously.

But the heavy hand of the Democratic machine came down hard on Mackey, accusing him of fomenting a “plot to disenfranchise black and women voters.”

The fact that Mackey was charged with, let alone convicted of, a felony is an outrage.

Tucker Carlson called it “the most shocking attack on freedom of speech in this country in our lifetime.”

Just as shocking is the “disparate impact” in the Democratic application of this coercive power of the state.

Mackey, a Trump supporter, is hauled up on a felony charge.

A performance artist called Kristina Wong posted a similar tweet, only hers supported Hillary: “Hey Trump supporters,” she tweeted, “skip poll lines and text in your vote.”

What happened to her?

Nothing.

At times like this, a good memory is imperative.

It’s seldom, the philosopher David Hume wrote, that freedom is lost all at once.

Usually, it’s a gradual process, a little bit chipped away here, some taken-for-granted liberties forgotten about there.

Eventually, the world we used to inhabit becomes unrecognizable.

Looking back, we can identify some signposts.

The sharp erosions of our freedoms during the COVID-19 pandemic will go down in the history books, or at least in the official manual of totalitarian crowd control.

How easily the entire population was cowed into submission.

People abandoned their businesses, cowered in their homes, wore pointless masks, and pretended to believe that liquor stores were more “essential” venues than houses of worship.

Amazing.

But it’s also important to remember the martyrs to the ideology of the deep state, the people who were chewed up and spit out as the regime went about the business of consolidating its power and its control over the climate of opinion.

An incomplete but representative list includes the following:

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, who was set up and destroyed by the FBI in order to make room for the Russian collusion hoax.

John Eastman, a lawyer for Trump, who, even as I write, is in the process of being smeared and possibly disbarred because he dared to offer the former president legal advice.

Peter Navarro, a former Trump adviser, who, though he lived practically next door to the FBI building in Washington, was apprehended while boarding a plane. The G-Men slapped the 72-year-old man in handcuffs (and leg irons!) and threw him into a cell once occupied, they were careful to tell him, by John Hinckley, the lunatic who shot Ronald Reagan in 1981.

Then there are parents who object to schools’ force-feeding their children with the radical Marxist teachings of critical race theory, not to mention the latest forms of sexual exoticism.

For challenging those orthodoxies, Merrick Garland, attorney general of the United States, instructed the FBI to mobilize against parents who oppose critical race theory in public schools, after suggestions their protests might be “a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

To combat this fantasy crime, Garland called (pdf) for a “partnership among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement to address threats against school administrators, board members, teachers and staff.”

It was all-in to crush the upstarts.

The list continues. Last June, Mark Houck, a minister and pro-life activist, was subject to one of those dawn raids the FBI now favors. Some two dozen FBI agents showed up, weapons drawn, and proceeded to pound on the front door of the house where Houck lives with his wife and seven children. His crime? Shouting at and allegedly shoving a pro-abortion escort who was hurling abuse at Houck’s child.

In his analysis of governmental paternalism, Alexis de Tocqueville noted, “Almost all the rulers who have tried to destroy freedom have at first attempted to preserve its forms.”

At first.

Once they have consolidated power, they or their successors dispense with the fiction and proceed with more patently despotic forms of coercion and control.

In the United States, I believe, we’re at the threshold of that transition.

Can we derail the progress of the totalitarian juggernaut?

Yes, but only if we’re willing to acknowledge and publicly object to the unfair treatment meted out to the regime’s opponents.

They came for a national security adviser, but that wasn’t me, so I did nothing.

They came for a presidential lawyer, but that wasn’t me, so I did nothing.

They came for a social media “influencer,” but it wasn’t me, so I did nothing.

They called concerned parents who confronted left-wing school boards “domestic terrorists,” but that wasn’t me, so I did nothing.

They came for a former president, but it wasn’t me, so I did nothing.

There are basically only two ways this can end.

Neither will be easy or pleasant.

Only one will preserve our liberty and prerogatives as free citizens.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.