Jennifer Rubin and the neo-Leninists

Leninist parties are always left wing, but substantive policy is of only secondary importance to them. As dictator of the Soviet Union, Lenin himself implemented some free market policies for a time. The primary concern of Leninists is always with raw, absolute power and with crushing those who stand in the way of their efforts to obtain and hold it.

America’s neo-Leninists don’t exactly seek to crush people who disagree with them. Not, at least, in sense of exterminating them or exiling them to Siberia.

Instead, their ambition is limited (for now) to “canceling” political opponents — hence the “cancel culture.” They want to prevent their opponents from having fair access to the public and from making a living.

The latest move of America’s neo-Leninists is to blacklist people for supporting Donald Trump, and/or for working in his administration, and/or for complaining about election fraud. After last week’s election, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, perhaps our leading neo-Leninist, asked:

Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future?

Her phrasing is barely literate, but her intentions are clear.

Michael Simon, a former staff member in Barack Obama’s administration, replied that, indeed, someone is doing the “archiving.” Linking to something he called the “Trump Accountability Project,” Sinon assured Ocasio-Cortez and others:

Yes, we are.

The Trump Accountability Project (@trumpaccproject)

Every Administration staffer, campaign staffer, bundler, lawyer who represented them — everyone. https://t.co/PHx8v8GxOp.

In the same vein, former Democratic National Committee Press Secretary Hari Sevugan stated that “employers considering [Trump White House staffers] should know there are consequences for hiring anyone who helped Trump attack American values.”

Emily Abrams, a Democrat operative, chimed in with this:

We’re launching the Trump Accountability Project to make sure anyone who took a paycheck to help Trump undermine America is held responsible for what they did.

Join us and help spread the word.https://t.co/wtVxGIlYOK

Then, there is Jennifer Rubin. Her ability to change positions on policies depending on practical exigencies and her nasty disposition make her the perfect neo-Leninist. She tweeted:

Any R now promoting rejection of an election or calling to not to follow the will of voters or making baseless allegations of fraud should never serve in office, join a corporate board, find a faculty position or be accepted into “polite” society. We have a list.

I know several people who “took a paycheck” to work for the Trump administration. In every case, the paycheck was for a considerably smaller amount than the one coming from the private sector.

Why did they make the financial sacrifice, coupled in some instances with the sacrifice of being smeared by Democrats while being in limbo for a year or more waiting for the GOP Senate to confirm them?

They made the sacrifice to promote one or more of the following policies: a less burdensome, less oppressive regulatory environment; free speech on college campuses; fair procedures in campus judiciary proceedings; admissions and employment policies that don’t discriminate on the basis of race; free religious expression.

It’s fine for leftists to object to these agenda items, though I suspect Rubin embraced one or more of them when she was (or was posing as) a conservative. But it’s Leninist to punish conservatives for trying to promote them.

As for the election, Rubin is demanding (as Jake Tapper did slightly less brazenly) that people who suspect widespread fraud stay silent, lest they be denied the opportunity to feed their family. It was fine for Democrats and media outlets like the one where Rubin works to claim that Donald Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election — allegations that Robert Mueller and his large team could not substantiate despite a multi-year investigation. No one who peddled this bogus claim lost his or her job. Not even journalists, whose job is (or used to be) reporting facts, not spouting baseless conspiracy theories to advance the political party they favor.

But Rubin has a list with which to blacklist those who complain about fraud in the 2020 election.

Her attempt to disguise the nature of her project by purporting to limit the purged to those making baseless allegations of fraud is itself fraudulent — less than a fig leaf. Who decides whether the allegations were “baseless”? The Washington Post’s lefty fact checkers?

Maybe it will be Robert Reich and his “Truth And Reconciliation Commission.” That’s the vehicle through which Reich proposes that we “erase Trump’s lies” and expose those who “enabled” him. This seems less like neo-Leninism and more like the pure, original thing.

The important question is the extent to which the neo-Leninists hold sway in the Democratic Party. Even in a best case scenario, they hold some sway. Ocasio-Cortez and her squad are influential members of the House Democratic caucus. Sevugan is the former DNC press secretary. Reich was a member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet.

Joe Biden has declared that President Trump’s supporters “are not our enemies, they are Americans.” Biden might even believe this.

But Biden has no say in the treatment by private entities of Trump administration alumni and other vocal Trump backers. He’ll be lucky if he has meaningful say over much that goes on within his administration. Many private entities are more likely to take direction from the neo-Leninists’ prescriptions than from Biden’s platitudes.

Among rank and file Democrats, it’s the younger cohort — minted, like AOC, in the past decade or two from our colleges and universities — among whom the neo-Leninists find the bulk of their supporters. Unless these kids mature dramatically, one of our two major political parties will become overtly neo-Leninist.

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