The Democrats are making no effort to hide their totalitarian impulses. Certainly, Hillary Clinton isn’t. In an interview this week with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, she suggested that Trump supporters were part of a cult and needed formal deprogramming. 

Whatever the reason, you know, make America great again was a bid for nostalgia to return to a place where people could be in charge of their lives, feel empowered, say what they want, insult whoever came in their way. And that was really attractive to a significant portion of the Republican base. So, it is like a cult.

And somebody has to break that momentum. 

Amanpour was visibly taken aback at this candor, but didn’t press her as to how and for whom this deprogramming was to occur. In the past, whenever a Republican candidate for any office made an outrageous comment -- and this was supremely outrageous -- every candidate of his party would be asked if he agreed with it. I’d suggest the RNC encourage its candidates to take the same tack.

Babylon Bee, my favorite satire site, made hay of this interview, “Viewers are perplexed by a CNN interview featuring a deranged old lady who recently escaped from an elder care facility, angrily ranting about wanting to ‘deprogram’ half of the nation’s population.”

But there’s nothing new and nothing funny about the totalitarian impulse on the Left. Last January a Rasmussen survey indicated that one-third of Democrats thought children should be removed from the homes of unvaccinated parents (despite the very low rate of COVID infections and mortality in children) and a whopping 50% of them wanted to imprison the unvaccinated.

Nor do we lack evidence that the Democrats have captured the intelligence and federal law enforcement agencies and used them to harass, muzzle, imprison and “unperson” those who dare to disagree with them.

Indeed, the same week Hillary advocated deprogramming, Newsweek (which just a few years ago claimed we are all socialists now) reported that the FBI seeks to track and counter Trump supporters.

The FBI and DHS report concludes: "Sociopolitical developments -- such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence -- will almost certainly spur some domestic terrorists to try to engage in violence."

The threats listed in that paragraph are all clearly associated with America's right and in particular with Trump's MAGA supporters. Right after January 6, the FBI co-authored a restricted report ("Domestic Violent Extremists Emboldened in Aftermath of Capitol Breach, Elevated Domestic Terrorism Threat of Violence Likely Amid Political Transitions and Beyond") in which it shifted the definition of AGAAVE ("anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism") from "furtherance of ideological agendas" to "furtherance of political and/or social agendas." For the first time, such groups could be so labeled because of their politics.

It was a subtle change, little noticed, but a gigantic departure for the Bureau. Trump and his army of supporters were acknowledged as a distinct category of domestic violent extremists, even as the FBI was saying publicly that political views were never part of its criteria to investigate or prevent domestic terrorism…

"We cannot and do not investigate ideology," a senior FBI official reassured the press after January 6. "We focus on individuals who commit or intend to commit violence or criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security."

But the FBI went further in October 2022 when it created a new subcategory -- "AGAAVE-Other" -- of those who were a threat but do not fit into its anarchist, militia or Sovereign Citizen groups. Introduced without any announcement, and reported here for the first time, the new classification is officially defined as "domestic violent extremists who cite anti-government or anti-authority motivations for violence or criminal activity not otherwise defined, such as individuals motivated by a desire to commit violence against those with a real or perceived association with a specific political party or faction of a specific political party."

You’ll excuse me if I question the ability of the FBI to deal with the issue in a nonpartisan matter. We know how they violated the law when lying to the FISA court to snoop on the Trump campaign. This week we learned that it had the flash drive that authenticated Hunter Biden’s laptop weeks before the election and never disclosed that when 50 former intelligence officials publicly asserted that the laptop story had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.

That the Bureau has already been fully weaponized against MAGA supporters is beyond debate. 

The Bureau weaponized Jan. 6, 2021, against MAGA supporters. It is important to know that the majority of protesters on Jan. 6 were peaceful and that many of the individuals sentenced to years in jail did not do anything violent, and, in some cases, didn’t even enter the Capitol. Yet there were no consequences for violent pro-abortion activists who attacked and burned pro-life centers and churches, Antifa and BLM got off largely scot-free for burning and looting cities, and the government and media were strangely silent about violent “transurrections” at multiple state Capitols.

The FBI has been found untrustworthy and politically biased, and it isn’t likely to reform any time soon. In a statement to Newsweek, the agency asserted that it would “never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity.” But its sincerity on that score seems highly suspect, based both on the revelation that Trump supporters are targeted more than other political groups and that the FBI was part of the Censorship Industrial Complex, according to The Twitter Files, not to mention that the FBI was planting spies in Catholic churches and pretending parents concerned about their kids’ schooling were domestic terrorists.

Looking at the treatment of dissenters from the democrat agenda, like Trump and Elon Musk, Robby Stark makes a persuasive case that the totalitarian impulse of the Left is already in force:

@robbystarbuck

 Understand what time it is in America: • Trump is being prosecuted by Biden’s regime multiple state level Democrats • Every agency in government has been weaponized to investigate 

@elonmusk

because he’s trying to level the playing field online to empower citizens • Newsweek just broke the story that the FBI is both investigating Trump voters and treating them like terrorists by using the same types of tools they used against ISIS • DHS and CISA used proxies to censor influencers like me and 

@charliekirk11

for opposing Democrats too effectively • Grandma’s [sic] (including one with cancer) who thought they were allowed in the Capitol after police waved them in were thrown in prison over January 6th despite zero violence •[snip] The DOJ and Democrat DA’s are deploying lawfare to bankrupt prominent Trump officials and supporters — "the process is the punishment" • College kids won’t get into schools if they express any conservative views and many will be failed in classes if professors find out they’re conservative • Parents were treated like terrorists by Merrick Garland and the DOJ for protesting school boards over COVID and the sexualization of children • Professional programs to become doctors and nurses are adding steps to screen for ideology to eliminate conservatives: Many do it in sneaky ways (doctors do this with requirements to get the COVID vax in order to get a residency) • Some states passed laws to take custody from parents who don’t affirm the new gender identity of their kids and even legalized kids running away to their state to get an abortion or sex change • BLM and Antifa members received multi million dollar settlements after burning down cities with riots and looting for a year because they’re modern day brown shirts that the Democrats had to reward to ensure they do it again in the future Our future is closer to Russia under Stalin, Cuba under Castro, China under Mao or Venezuela under Maduro than we are to the ideals of our constitution. We’re living through the intentional destruction of the country we know and love.

Daily I get the impression we are living in the takeover of the country Sinclair Lewis described in It Can’t happen Here.