(This post may contain disputed claims. We make no assertions as to the validity of the information presented by our Opinion Columnist. We are an opinion blog, not a traditional news outlet, and this post should be treated as such. Enjoy.)Robert Reich, a former Department of Labor Secretary to the Clinton administration who also served on President Barack Obama’s economic transition advisory board, has proposed a post-election “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to basically censor and blacklist Trump supporters. More concerning than his suggestion, however, is the reaction to it. Don’t miss this.
Robert Reich, a University of California-Berkeley professor and the former Secretary of Labor from 1993-1997 under President Bill Clinton, proposed the radical idea of a post-election “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to censor free speech, in my opinion. In addition to the censorship, Reich seemingly suggested naming and shaming every public figure, including executives and media moguls, who supported President Donald Trump’s rise to power, according to The Blaze.
Over the weekend, Reich took to Twitter to write that “when this nightmare” — referring to Donald Trump’s presidency — “is over, we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” He went on to explain that the post-election commission’s purpose would be to “erase Trump’s lies, comfort those who have been harmed by his hatefulness, and name every official, politician, executive, and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this catastrophe.”
When this nightmare is over, we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It would erase Trump’s lies, comfort those who have been harmed by his hatefulness, and name every official, politician, executive, and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this catastrophe.
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) October 17, 2020
“Read plainly, it appears Reich is envisioning a committee that would oversee a massive censorship campaign of things purported to be ‘lies’ by the president and a massive blacklist campaign of Trump supporters,” The Blaze opined, adding, “Both of which sound like characteristics of dictatorial transitions of power that occur in third-world countries.”
And, we couldn’t agree more.
Others apparently felt the same with one Twitter user commenting, “Definitely sounds like the ‘Reich’ thing to do,” referring to Nazi Germany’s Third Reich. Driving his point home, he accompanied the post with a picture comparing Adolf Hitler to Hillary Clinton.
Definitely sounds like the "Reich" thing to do. pic.twitter.com/tCVsxIsXch
— No legacy is so rich as honesty-Shakespeare 🍁 (@Cdn_Eliana) October 18, 2020
Sadly, however, there were plenty of leftists who not only agreed with Reich but also seemed to be salivating over his idea. Even more concerning, several of his Twitter followers even raised the stakes of his proposal in response to his tweet. “I am thinking more of using the postwar Nuremberg Trials as a template,” one such Twitter user wrote, speculating that criminal trials should also be in order. “Felonies were committed as were treasonous behaviors. The guilty should be arrested, tried, convicted and forced to do time.”
Frighteningly, many others chimed in as well, expressing support of Reich’s radical idea. “Prosecute them all,” another Twitter user said. “The [Justice Department] will hire new attorneys, the media will be fed by the trials, and Biden and his administration can focus on policy and government reform. We are broken and need to be restructured so this can never happen again. Or it’s a lot harder to repeat.”
Others even suggested Supreme Court-packing and the abolition of the Electoral College to the commission’s list of possible “responsibilities” in order to “ensure that this can never happen again.” In addition, Reich’s followers argued that “at the very least, there need to be a lot of people banned from government service for life, including all federal LEO’s who committed crimes or abused authorities because they thought the admin would cover for them,” suggesting his post-election commission be named the “Truth and Consequences Commission.”
As if censoring and blacklisting Trump supporters weren’t disconcerting enough, someone even suggested the commission should “review all of the federal judges that have been appointed [by President Trump], and kick those out that aren’t qualified,” which underminds a president’s constitutional authority to appoint judges.
There were those, of course, who rejected Reich’s proposal, but he was seemingly undeterred. Responding to those who didn’t agree, Reich posted an article that laid out arguments for a truth and reconciliation commission. “I love the people responding to this tweet as if it’s a radical, undemocratic idea,” he wrote alongside the article titled “Do truth and reconciliation commissions heal divided nations?”
I love the people responding to this tweet as if it's a radical, undemocratic idea. https://t.co/39Bef6JMIy
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) October 18, 2020
“As long as unresolved historic injustices continue to fester in the world, there will be a demand for truth commissions,” the article reads. “The goal of a truth commission — in some forms also called a truth and reconciliation commission, as it is in Canada — is to hold public hearings to establish the scale and impact of a past injustice, typically involving wide-scale human rights abuses, and make it part of the permanent, unassailable public record.”
In the article, the author not only points to Canada’s recent commission to address “historic injustices perpetrated against Canada’s Indigenous peoples” but to South Africa’s commission to address apartheid as models as well as they call for a “central body or facility that researchers, political leaders or other advocates can turn to for guidance, information and evidence” in the US. In other words, it would be another group of people, who think they know more or better than us, telling us what we are allowed to think.
“Wherever there is an ugly, unresolved injustice pulling at the fabric of a society, there is an opportunity to haul it out in public and deal with it through a truth commission,” the author further declared.
Let that sink in. If you disagree or have a different opinion than the governing body’s narrative, you could be hauled out in public and dealt with. Does that sound very American? Now, imagine if Trump suggested the same. The left, in my opinion, would be rightfully losing their minds.
Instead, many are showing support for it, under the caveat it would be used to silence Trump supporters. That’s terrifying. The fact that the idea is coming from a former high ranking government official, who both served on President Bill Clinton’s administration and on President Barack Obama’s economic transition advisory board, is not only disgusting but chilling — and it clearly shows what’s at stake in the upcoming election. It could be the end of our republic. We must vote #Trump2020. America’s future is at stake.
