Pelosism

The following is an excerpt from the Wikipedia page on McCarthyism with only the bold words changed for context:

Pelosism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason, especially when related to conservatives, without any proper regard for evidence. The term refers to U.S. representative Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Conservative Scare, lasting from the late 2010s through the 2020s. It was characterized by heightened political repression and a campaign spreading fear of conservative influence on American institutions and of espionage by Russian agents.

The very real possibility exists of this future Wikipedia entry for, to an objective observer, the parallels between the dark period in American history known as McCarthyism and what is happening today in the United States are strong. Lest the reader believe these parallels to be overstated, let us start with the easy stuff. To this end, Wikipedia also provides this summary of McCarthyism in popular culture:

Since the time of McCarthy, the word McCarthyism has entered American speech as a general term for a variety of practices: aggressively questioning a person’s patriotism, making poorly supported accusations, using accusations of disloyalty to pressure a person to adhere to conformist politics or to discredit an opponent, subverting civil and political rights in the name of national security, and the use of demagoguery are all often referred to as McCarthyism.

Aggressively questioning a person’s patriotism. There can be little doubt that individuals such as Trump, Michael Flynn, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and others have had their patriotism “aggressively questioned”.

Making poorly supported accusations. Again, see above. The entire Russian collusion hoax/scandal was significantly driven off of allegations in the Steele dossier, that were subsequently largely discredited and proven untrue by the Mueller report. The final finding of the Mueller report was that it “did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.” Thus, one can only conclude that such accusations were, in fact, poorly supported. The same is true regarding the first impeachment of Trump. The impeachment failed in the Senate and thus one can only objectively conclude that the accusations there were also poorly supported. With the second impeachment of Trump, there is no question that the allegations are poorly supported. There were no hearings, witnesses or testimony presented and the impeachment was so rushed that crucial facts, such as John Sullivan; a liberal activist, purposefully inciting violence, were not fully known.

Using accusations of disloyalty to pressure a person to adhere to conformist politics or to discredit an opponent. See above.

Subverting civil and political rights in the name of national security. Again, referring to the Russia collusion hoax/scandal, there are numerous instances where the FISA court was lied to in order to justify surveillance of an American citizen. This was done in the name of national security to subvert civil rights. The reader can get more information on just one of the instances at CNN.

The use of demagoguery. The last four years regardless of whose side you are on. Check.

Given all of the above, it is easy, eeeeeeeeeeasy, to demonstrate how recent events smack of McCarthyism. But, if we have said it once, we have said it a thousand times, this isn’t the obvious observer, this is The Objective Observer. Simply calling out obvious McCarthyistic practices is not enough. Not nearly enough. Oh no, we are here to demonstrate how McCarthyism is being reborn within the United States of America as something new and equally terrifying.

You see, the McCarthy era was defined by a number of elements including:

• Targeted a specific political point of view
• Weaponized the FBI
• Initial compliance of the media
• Blacklists
• The HUAC (House Committee on Un-American Activities)

Let’s do the list.

Targeted a specific political point of view. McCarthyism targeted the extreme left of political opinion in the United States at the time, communists, but ended up persecuting a wide swath of liberal, left-leaning individuals and organizations. Guilt by association. We see this today. Today’s Pelosism targets far right groups, such as Proud Boys and other white supremacists, yet clumps all conservatives together under this characterization. Don Lemon, and others, have made this specific characterization of lumping all conservatives as Nazi’s and Klansmen. Never mind that Democrats are on the same side of the political spectrum as violent factions such as Antifa and environmental terrorist organizations, not to mention individuals such as the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and mass murderers Charles Manson and Jim Jones.

Oh, side note, never mind that classifying true, bona fide German Nazi’s as left or right is problematic at best. True German Nazi’s supported American left ideals such as liberalized abortion, state controlled health care and the elimination of individual gun ownership. In addition, Nazism opposed big business, supported state control of education and was fanatically environmentalist. State this platform at any Democratic convention and you’d likely get wide support. The Nazi’s were the Nazi’s. As historian Richard J. Evans in The Coming of the Third Reich states:

The “National Socialists” wanted to unite the two political camps of left and right into which, they argued, the Jews had manipulated the German nation. The basis for this was to be the idea of race.

It is wrong and intellectually dishonest to lump anyone together based upon the extremes. And Mr. Lemon ought to have better sense and at least attempt to be smarter than an amoeba by doing a bit of research. What we here at The Objective Observer are most concerned about is being lumped in with anyone as moronic as Don Lemon on the amoeba/Homosapian intellectual spectrum.

OK, back on track, the McCarthy era weaponized the FBI through burglaries, opening mail, and illegal wiretaps as well through “dirty tricks” such as anonymous letters, leaking information to the press, calling for IRS audits, and the like. Again, this one is easy. The FBI under James Comey was obviously weaponized. Some of the FISA warrants obtained were invalid or possibly illegal (still waiting on that Durham report). And leaking information to the press? Oh boy, we don’t have the time except to point out that Comey did that himself, which is what led to the Mueller investigation!

Initial compliance of the media. The media doesn’t like to talk about its complicity in fanning the flames of communist panic and McCarthyism, but, without question, the media was a crucial component in hyping up the threat from communism in America, which led to McCarthyism. The media only wised up once they became targets of this communist hysteria. Just as then, we see this today with mainstream media outlets hyping up the threat from fringe right-wing elements. Perhaps they will wise up again once Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez makes good on her desire to “rein in our media environment so that you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation.” Psst! CNN, MSNBC, etc. Heads up, they’re coming for you too…

Blacklists. Perhaps nothing more defines McCarthyism than the use of informal “blacklists”. Most famous of these was the Hollywood blacklist that was used to deny employment to actors, screenwriters, directors, musicians, and other American entertainment professionals. Odd that today Hollywood tends to blame the government for this blacklist while it was actually the entertainment industry itself that created and used the blacklist, not the government. Tis truly strange how revisionist history works. In any case, these informal blacklists were used to vilify and destroy the lives of thousands of Americans on the mere suspicion that someone held communist sympathies. And here we go again with the blacklists. Big Tech now has their own blacklist of conservatives. Wall Street has their blacklist. Even the media has their blacklist of conservative news organizations and journalists. To an objective observer, blacklists, whether McCarthyistic or Pelosiistic are wrong.

The HUAC (House Committee on Un-American Activities). Setting aside the blatant travesty that is the formation of it’s acronym, and that is no small thing considering it is a complete and utter abomination of acronymic convention; but setting that aside, the HUAC was a congressional committees setup for uncovering Communist subversion. Basically, think of it as anyone and everyone could be called to appear before the HUAC in order to defend their “loyalty” to America. Failure to appear, or an unfavorable “ruling”, tended to land you on an industry blacklist. We aren’t quite there…yet. However, as the Wall Street Journal has reported, Nancy Pelosi has expressed a predilection to re-instituting something akin to the HUAC in the past. And there have been calls for congressional committees to investigate certain Republicans in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot which disturbingly smack of a “prove your loyalty” type of affair.

At the end of the day, an objective observer would conclude that we are dangerously close to a rebirth of McCarthyism, a new era where instead of communists, conservatives are widely targeted as un-American and falsely accused of being traitorous and subversive on the basis of little or no evidence. All of the elements are there as in the 1940’s and 1950’s. There is an identified “enemy” of America, conservatives. The FBI has been weaponized against them. The media is complicit of the narrative and helping to stoke the flames of hysteria. We have the blacklists. Nancy Pelosi simply needs to take the next step of congressional committees to investigate the “loyalty” of conservative voices to earn her future, eternal infamy with a Wikipedia page titled simply, Pelosism.