Comparing conservatives to Al-Qaeda? The establishment is becoming increasingly blatant in its effort to depict the political right as dangerous — and thus justify its forceful suppression.
Over at NBC News, a recent piece authored by a former CIA Senior Intelligence Service officer makes the case that what’s needed to stop violence in the United States is a “counterradicalization strategy” for Republicans. Not for Democrats, of course, only for Republicans.
The former officer, Marc Polymeropoulos, starts off by recounting his background combating the “highly effective propaganda arms” of groups such as Al-Qaeda.
“The U.S. and our allies considered those propagandists fundamental cogs in a terror group’s machinery, and just as culpable as any other terrorist. So we held them accountable when innocent civilians were killed,” Polymeropoulos writes.
Right off the bat, he raises a dangerous proposition, even if he doesn’t explicitly detail the logical conclusion of the comparison he’s drawing.
But if Polymeropoulos believes Middle-Eastern “propagandists” should be just as accountable as terrorists when acts of violence are committed, clearly he wants to see the same “accountability” for supposed right-wing “propagandists” in America.
It’s clear the ex-CIA official equates supposed right-wing violence in the United States with the terrorism he fought in the Islamic world. After warning that Muslim “lone wolves are often radicalized online in the same country that they will eventually target,” Polymeropoulos goes on to write,
Lone wolves are a thorn for domestic U.S. law enforcement as well, as we saw last week when a man not affiliated with any known group but immersed in right-wing propaganda attacked Paul Pelosi, the husband of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. While the authorities have taken appropriate action against him, there are few signs that the government is taking the big-picture approach needed to combat the violence-inducing propaganda behind his crime.
Again, Polymeropoulos doesn’t specifically name the names of the supposed “violence-inducing” propagandists allegedly responsible for the Paul Pelosi attack, but we can imagine he would name everything to the right of CNN; maybe Fox News, perhaps Newsmax or Infowars. It wouldn’t be surprising if he considered The New American to rightfully belong to the list!
Of course, none of the above-mentioned conservative outlets advocates violence in the slightest. They don’t publish bomb-making instructions online as he claims Inspire magazine did on behalf of Al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula.
But for someone like Polymeropoulos, it doesn’t matter. If conservative journalism is what a “right-wing fanatic” was reading, then that is what must be targeted. And what methods does he consider to have been successful in curbing propaganda abroad? Polymeropoulos notes that “the U.S. tried to shut down [Inspire’s] operations in a variety of ways, including reportedly altering the actual content of the magazine.”
Alas, Polymeropoulos reflects, perhaps with lamentation, that “the Constitution confers certain free-speech protections for extremist propaganda in the U.S. that prevent authorities from exactly replicating our foreign counterterrorism strategy here at home.”
He continues:
But there are important lessons we can and should apply. For one thing, we can exercise free speech to proclaim that the normalization of violence against politicians is dangerous and unacceptable. Some violent rhetoric might not be illegal, but it is all morally repugnant.
To start with, we need to clearly identify what crosses the line into the realm of dangerous rhetoric. That means calling out those in the right-wing ecosphere who for years have demonized, and at times even promoted and encouraged, attacks on Pelosi.
The long list includes Marjorie Taylor Greene, a sitting member of Congress from Georgia who once supported the idea of Pelosi’s execution for treason. And it includes the NRA, which put a picture of Pelosi next to an article with the headline “Target Practice.” Beyond Pelosi, there are odious examples like Donald Trump Jr. holding a semiautomatic rifle with an ammunition clip that has Hillary Clinton’s face drawn on it.
Polymeropoulos’ reasoning is not new. But it is dangerous, and the increased frequency with which the establishment conjures such rhetoric should be a rude wake-up call to conservatives and constitutionalists everywhere: If the Left gains full power, they will absolutely crack down on right-wing speech under the guise of combating violence.
Ultimately, it’s all a ruse. After all, if Polymeropoulos and his ilk were truly concerned about dangerous propaganda, why do they never point out all the left-wing voices that inspired Black Lives Matter’s destructive “Summer of Love”?
