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THE VIEW FROM HERE - Polarization brings a host of ills, one of which is purges. When a society becomes polarized between the Good vs the Evil, where each side believes the other is evil with whom there may be no compromise, purges emerge. In fact, our polarized society already has purges but we have labeled the phenomenon Cancel Culture. While there is no hard and fast rule, Cancel Culture generally refers to one side cleansing itself of unwanted elements as the Woke Dems have been doing to Jews, Asians, and Blacks who do not espouse the official DEI doctrine. While Jews and Asians are primarily cancelled for being successful, Blacks are subject to more rigorous sanctions. In fact, if Black males do not show adequate enthusiasm for a female Black Presidential candidate, they will be chided and taken to task as misogynists by the esteemed former Black President. The failure of many Blacks males to vote for Kamala Harris, however, left Obama no way to Culture Cancel them, while Dem guru, James Carville, advised the Woke Dems to drop the NPR jargon.
Cancel Culture is a form of purge in order to bring one’s own members back into orthodoxy or at least serve as an warning to others who may have their own ideas about how to live life. A purge, however, is far more serious and means an elimination of an entire group of people. The Spanish Inquisition was such an event and lasted from 1478 to 1834. Stalin’s Great Purge lasted from 1936 to 1938. Heretofore, the United States has not had any purges. The mere exclusion of certain people such as suspected communists during the Sen. Joe McCarthy Era came close but did not reach the level of a Soviet style purge. What stopped McCarthy? The Republic! The complicated checks and balances in our Republic’s Constitution finally put an end to Sen. McCarthy’s vicious career because it allowed attorney Joseph Welch to ask Sen. McCarthy one question on public television: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. ¶ Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” Journalist Edward R. Morrow also played a significant role in stopping Sen. McCarthy, but the crucial factor was the US Constitution’s creation of a Republic which did not allow McCarthy to conceal his nefarious machinations.
America is threatened with purges in Donald Trump’s desire to banish and imprison honest government employees and elected officials because he wishes them to be gone. That is the declared purpose of appointing Kash Patel to be director of the FBI and a major factor in Trump’s nomination of Pete Hegseth to head the Department of Defense. Trump has declared the need to criminally prosecute members of Congress for doing their duty.
To a limited extent, the November 5, 2024 election gave Trump a mandate to rid education, business and the government of Woke DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion). This conclusion is based upon the supposition that Centrists swung to Trump due to their hate and fear of Woke ideology Americans’ extent of hatred of Woke DEI is still emerging. Green Beret Matthew Livelisberger, who committed suicide in a Tesla outside Trump’s hotel in Vegas, identified Woke DEI as a cancer on the US Military. Former members of the FBI have made similar statements. While this writer has been warning of the evils of Woke DEI since the early 1970's when it was called Victimology, it has only been since December 2014, that I have renewed my critiques. Since Woke DEI is firmly based on Group Rights and finds individual inalienable rights including Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness an invention of racist White men to keep Blacks enslaved, Woke DEI is incompatible with the philosophical foundation of our nation. See Liberty vs Equality and Liberty Not Equality
While Donald Trump believes that the government should be run like a business where he can hire and fire whomever he wants whenever he wants, Trump is wrong. The Republic has a plethora of checks and balances designed to make certain that no one gets a mandate to run the entire government. Elon Musk thought he could just threaten to fire Congressmen who defied his wishes and Musk got Trump to make the same threat. In addition to the well known separation of powers, each part of government has it own special rules. For example, after Musk torpedoed the first Continuing Resolution, additional CR’s had to get a 2/3rd majority which required DEM cooperation. The Republic’s checks and balances defeated Musk’s and Trump’s desire to dictate policy to the House of Representatives.
Trump Has to Obtain the Senate’s Approval of His “Purge” Nominees, Hegseth and Patel
While the Woke DEI should be removed from education, business, and government, a purge is the wrong route. The problem with Hegseth and Patel rests with them personally. Both are eminently unqualified to head agencies as large as the Defense Department and the FBI. To be blunt, they are crass barbarians, when we need sophisticated surgeons to revamp both the DoD and the FBI. Due to his Histrionic and Narcissistic Personality Disorders, Trump may be good at spotting a problem, but he is too flamboyant, too impulsive, too myopic, and too filled with a grandiose sense of entitlement to reign in his excesses.. See Grandiose Narcissism
One should not think that Trump’s dual DSM Histrionic and Narcissistic Disorders disqualify him to be President. While both bring significant liabilities, they also come with great advantages. Those who want Trump to succeed with his ending both domestic Wokeism and its horrendous impact on foreign policy need to protect Trump like an egotistical star quarterback. If teammates always let the quarter back run with the ball as he wants to make all touchdowns, their team will end dead last in its conference.
The mature GOP leaders in the Senate have the duty to ward off the truly unacceptable nominations. In his January 3, 2025 address to the US Senate, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), Senate Majority Leader, was clear about his constitutional duty.
“[My] constitutional oath is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Thune continued, “ . . . our nation is a bulwark of freedom and human rights . . . The Founders established safeguards – checks and balance – . . . one of those safeguards was the United States Senate.”
Thune quoted Federalist paper 62, that the Senate “must be in all cases a salutary check on the government.” Speaking about the current populous fever, Thune warned, “Unfortunately, today there are a lot of people out there who would like to see the Senate turn into a copy of the House of Representatives. That, Mr. President, is not what our Founders intended – or what our country needs. And one of my priorities as leader will be to ensure that the Senate stays the Senate . . . That also means restoring the Senate as a place of discussion and deliberation.” Read the entire speech at Thune Jan 2, 2025
Translation of Sen. Thune’s advice to Trump’s into vernacular English: “Don’t screw with the US Senate.”
(Richard Lee Abrams has been an attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor. You may email him at [email protected].)
