Donald Trump, who often has accused his accusers of engaging in witch hunts, appears to be off on a witch hunt of his own, a witch being anyone who does not advocate “traditional views.” HIS “traditional views.”
We hope somebody asks him for a comprehensive definition of “traditional views” so that I know whether I am involved in “domestic terrorism,” another subject that it would be entertaining to hear him define.
During the weekend a memo written by loyalist Pam Bondi, whom Trump has designated to supervise the Justice (rather loosely defined these day) Department, was leaked. It tells the DOJ to put together a list of “domestic terrorism” groups.
What constitutes such a group?
It is what the Trump/Bondi DOJ chooses to consider “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.”
In other words, it’s those who disagree with President Trump who, in our observation, is never going to rival Noah Webster in defining words and terms.
Reporter Ken Klippenstein revealed the memo. And who is he?
An interesting character. Young, used to work for The Intercept, a nonprofit news organization considered to be well into the political west wing, a former correspondent for The Nation, a liberal magazine, and a part of the growing online news world. His father is a theoretical chemist at the Argonne National Laboratory. He says his mother’s family was undocumented immigrants from El Salvador. College grad with a degree in English literature. He has broken other stories using leaked material, too.
We wonder how quickly his name is in a Pamagram sent to the list.
Trump is not the first ruler to impose his “traditional views” on the people.
Tomás de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition from 1483 to 1498 under appointment of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, the patrons of Christopher Columbus who ventured forth during a period of extreme persecution of Jews and Muslims to spread those traditional (Christian) views to whatever heathens he found when he arrived someplace that he did not know he was going to.
Going back even earlier, we can talk about Pope Stephen VI, who in a remarkable fifteen months pulled all kinds of stunts including the calling of the infamous Cadaver Synod in which he put his dead predecessor on trial for perjury and the illegal assumption of the papacy. He dug up the corpse of Pope Formosus, put papal vestments on it, propped it up on a throne and had a mock trial.
The corpse did not mount much of a defense and after being found guilty was stripped of his vestments and ceremonially maimed (three of his fingers were cut off) before the remains of his remains were thrown into the Tiber River. There was widespread disapproval of Pope Steve’s definition of “traditional views” and he wound up in prison where he was strangled to death, apparently by non-traditionalists.
Long before Russia had Stalin and his “traditional views,” it had Ivan the Terrible—Ivan IV—who reigned for more than fifty years. He, too, started by promising reforms but quickly was consumed by paranoia and formed his own secret police that terrorized and murdered his subjects by the thousands, one of who was his own son.
Romania in 15th century had Vlad III who once ordered 20,000 enemy soldiers impaled, their bodies remaining on display as a warning against disloyalty. Vlad the Impaler, he is still called.
His cruelty wasn’t just reserved for outsiders; he targeted his own people as well. Vlad would punish dishonesty and laziness with extreme torture, sometimes impaling entire villages. Laziness and dishonesty also were abhorred by our Puritan ancestors, but they just stuck people in the stocks for a few hours—
—Unless they were witches. Hanging, pressing, and drowning seemed to have been the Puritan Christian cures for those tendencies.
As far as I know, nobody has accused President Trump of being a Puritan. So we’d appreciate it if he’d offer a clear explanation of his terms sometime when he’s awake and not playing the Game of Invective all night on his social media account.
We don’t want to spend any more time—although we could—listing other rulers who sought to protect “traditional values” as they defined them. And we certainly don’t want to suggest that President Trump fits the mold of those we have cited and others on various lists of vengeful rulers. But punishment for differing with any ruler who considers himself the only one to define “traditional values” has a past that must raise questions about a person of questionable personal ethics setting a national agenda for you and me.
The Trump memo also demands creation of “a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
The President’s definition of “domestic terrorism threat” as being any organization that uses “violence or the threat of violence” to oppose “law and immigration enforcement, extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders, adherence to radical gender theology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government” and the aforementioned “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality.”
Except for MAGA and January 6, 2021 celebrants.
You will excuse me, I hope, if I cannot consider Donald J. Trump in any way fit to determine nation’s views “on family, religion, and morality.”
The Constitution aside, this is a pretty broad mission for our national ruler. Just about everybody falls into one of these categories in one way or another, including me. And you.
Apparently, however, there is a way that we can become immune to prosecution under this policy. We just have to cough up a nine or ten-figure amount to pay for decoration of the monstrosity of a Trump Worship Center that will stand for decades as a tribute to his bad tase and his desire to have more monuments to himself than anybody since the ancient Egyptian pharaohs.
I’m going to put an orange jumpsuit on my Christmas gift list to make sure I’m properly dressed when the traditional values Pamgoons come for me.
