The word 'treason' is now being thrown around to describe how President Trump seemed to take Russia’s side during his summit meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. But as with every major controversy that Mr. Trump has faced, it’s unclear if anything will happen as a result.
Under fire for contradicting United States intelligence reports of Russian interference in the presidential election, Trump asserted on Tuesday that he had misspoken at his news conference with Mr. Putin, and that he had meant to say, “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,” rather than “would.” He added, “Could be other people, also.” Never in the modern era has the word “treason” become part of the national conversation in such a prominent way. Some who voted for Mr. Trump struggled to endorse his approach, but many are reaffirming their support.
On the subject of the prominence of the term "treason," here's a link to an article from the NYT's yesterday that says:
"John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director called Trump's performance “nothing short of treasonous.” The late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel also invoked treason on their shows. The front-page banner headline for The New York Daily News declared “OPEN TREASON.”
Max Boot, the former Republican who has become one of Mr. Trump’s sharpest critics, noted in a column on Monday in The Washington Post that accusing him of treason was once unthinkable. No longer.... Mr. Trump returned to the White House on Monday night as protesters outside the gate shouted, “Welcome home, traitor.”
Even Dictionary.com trolled the president, tweeting out a definition: “Traitor: A person who commits treason by betraying his or her country."It later said that searches for “treason” had increased by 2,943 percent. By Tuesday afternoon, the word “traitor” had been used on Twitter 800,000 times and the word “treason” about 1.2 million times.
The word "treason" used in political discourse like that, brings us back to the book written in 1964 by John A. Stormer called "None Dare Call It Treason."
"The Communists have sworn to bury us. We are digging our own graves.... From where has the money come to build and finance the vast collectivist underground which reaches its tentacles into education, the churches, labor and the press? Amazingly, the fortunes of America’s most successful tycoons, dedicated by them to the good of mankind, have been redirected to finance the socialization of the United States."That was the deployment of the word "treason" that went big in the 60s. People who were not right-wing, of course, viewed it as anti-communist hysteria, a throwback to the McCarthy era, and that's the way I've seen the word "treason" all this time. But John Brennan threw it back into the American discourse and the hate blinded Trump antagonists have run with it.
But don't call them unhinged, that would be over the top or something....
Compliments of Ann Althouse.
No comments:
Post a Comment