The Totalitarian Mindset is Strong on the Left
by David Foster
Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot:
“I woke up this morning thinking it was going to be another great day. I’ve been celebrating with friends, family and the community since I turned 90. I’ve told you about the gracious gift of $117 million that was collected and given in my honor to four charities that mean a lot to me. All that happiness blew up because I said in a newspaper interview that I have supported and will continue to support Donald Trump.
Boom!
Negative stories… vicious threats, without cause, to boycott the company that has enabled my foundation to give billions to support autism, medical research, education, heart and neurological issues like stroke, and to help our veterans. The company that I retired from in 2002 and have not had a business relationship with in almost 20 years. A company that has employed more than a half-million people. The people who work there are affiliated with both political parties or no party at all. They are of all religions and all colors and backgrounds. Why would people want to hurt them?
All because I give my voice and some of my money to our President. Am I in China? Argentina? Russia? That’s what it feels like to me.
It saddens me that our country has come to this, where I, as a private citizen, cannot express my feelings. It angers me and it saddens me, but it sure as hell is not going to stop me. If you thought it would, you’ve got the wrong guy.
In the next ten years, God willing, I will accomplish more to save this world than my critics will do even if they had forty lifetimes.”
Few people have Bernie Marcus-level resources, and also relatively few, I’m afraid, have the emotional strength necessary to stand up against a mob, even a mob whose attacks are (usually) strictly verbal. Most, I fear, will simply go along.
And no one should be under the illusion that the Gleichschaltung will “only” require you to personally refrain from expressing unapproved thoughts: it will also require you to denounce and shun your friends and colleagues who have dared to express such thoughts. See Lynchings and Witch-Trials, Technology-Enhanced:
A few weeks ago, shortly after I left my magazine gig, I had breakfast with a well-known Toronto man of letters. He told me his week had been rough, in part because it had been discovered that he was still connected on social media with a colleague who’d fallen into disfavour with Stupid Twitter-Land. “You know that we all can see that you are still friends with him,” read one of the emails my friend had received. “So. What are you going to do about that?”
“So I folded,” he told me with a sad, defeated air. “I know I’m supposed to stick to my principles. That’s what we tell ourselves. Free association and all that. It’s part of the romance of our profession. But I can’t afford to actually do that. These people control who gets jobs. I’m broke. So now I just go numb and say whatever they need me to say.”
Are there any among the current set of Democratic presidential candidates who see this kind of thing as a problem and who would provide even the most modest form of push-back against it?
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