Significant changes will be taking place in the era of the Biden/Harris administration.  

Progressives will begin by identifying people who have opposed the results of this election. Sure, Joe Biden has claimed this won't happen.

But it hasn't drawn any apologies from progressives.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked, “Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future?”

Michael Simon, a former Obama administration staffer, responded “Yes, we are. Every administration staffer, campaign staffer, bundler, lawyer who represented them – everyone.”  

The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin tweeted, "Any R now promoting rejection of an election or calling to not to follow the will of voters or making baseless allegations of fraud should never serve in office, join a corporate board, find a faculty position or be accepted into "polite" society. We have a list."

Maxine Waters revealed this in 2014: “The president has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life.  That’s going to be very, very powerful.  That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it’s never been done before and whoever runs for president on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that. They’re going to go down with that database and the concerns of those people because they can’t get around it. And he’s [President Obama] been very smart. It’s very powerful what he’s leaving in place.”

Who will be on this list?  Naturally, as Arizona’s Secretary of State Katie Hobbs describes them, they are Trump's "neo-Nazi base."  

Michelle Obama believes it could include the "tens of millions of people (who) voted for the status quo, even when it meant supporting lies, hate, chaos, and division.”  

These are the Deplorables.  But it could also include less apparently offensive groups.  The Singing Nuns, a traditional Catholic sisters organization have been described as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  The Little Sisters of the Poor are also liable to be “investigated.”  

Every attorney involved in the investigation of voter fraud is on the list.  This includes even liberal Democrats.  Jonathan Turley, who testified at Trump's impeachment hearing, is not sure if he will be found “complicit.”  He writers, tongue-in-cheek, "I am frantically assembling my columns criticizing Trump to clutch pathetically to my chest through any public shaming. It is not clear if any of us can still redeem ourselves as cooperative subjects for reeducation but, I am prepared to give up names (starting with my editors). I will immediately embrace everything from Biden’s consideration of unprecedented court packing to Elizabeth Warren’s call for unconstitutional wealth taxes as really good ideas. Just give me a chance."  He may not find this as humorous in the near future.

What are the penalties?   The least severe penalty is suggested by Maxine Waters: "If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere."  

Robert Reich suggests that "When this nightmare is over, we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It would erase Trump’s lies, comfort those who have been harmed by his hatefulness, and name every official, politician, executive, and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this catastrophe."  This may be something like the French Revolution's Committee of Public Safety.  

New York Times contributor Wajahat Ali says this: “You can’t heal or reform the GOP who are now an extremist party.  They have to be broken, burned down and rebuilt.  When Biden is in power treat them like the active threats to democracy they are."

"American political strategist" Rick Wilson has a recommendation that reveals either his ignorance or malevolence.  Wilson claims, "Vichy Republicans who collaborate with Trump may someday face their own épuration sauvage."  This savage purge involved arrests, beatings, interrogation with torture, and summary executions. 

Of course, the grand prize would be the arrest and imprisonment of Donald Trump.  Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance is investigating the president on a number of charges.  New York state Attorney General Letitia James is also investigating the president.  Of course, regardless of what he says, Biden's Attorney General will initiate an investigation.  Will he be convicted?  If it is politically advantageous.  It is not difficult to convict an innocent man.  Sen. Ted Stevens, Gen. Michael Flynn, Rep. Steve Stockman, Rep. Tom DeLay are examples.  Cardinal Richelieu famously said, "If you give me six sentences written by the most innocent of men, I will find something in them with which to hang him."  Our justice system does not require six sentences.  Everything can be fabricated.

Do we have the Dzherzhinskys, Yagodas, Yezhovs, and Berias to carry out this épuration sauvage?  Americans would be surprised.  Anita Dunn, co-chair of the Biden-Harris Transition Team, claims her favorite political philosophers is champion mass murderer Mao Tse-tung.  Undoubtedly, with all the talk of burning down the GOP and not allowing Trump supporters to be seen in public, there are many others who share her views.

John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (Algora Publishing).  He has a Master of Arts Degree in International Relations from St. Mary’s University.  He is retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.  He is featured on the BBC's program "Things We Forgot to Remember:" Morgenthau Plan and Post-War Germany.

Image credit: Ayratayrat, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 4.0