People move into a house a block down the road, you know who’s going in. You can see and you report them to the local police. Most likely you’ll be wrong, but that’s OK. That’s the best way. Everybody’s their own cop in a way. ~ Donald Trump, Nov. 27, 2015Trump has long held that people should spy on their neighbors and report everything they see to the police. On July 13, 2016, Trump upped the ante stating the people who fail to successfully spy and report on their friends and neighbors should be arrested and punished.
At its most benign, that would be a return to McCarthyism as specifically proposed by Trump sycophant Newt Gingrich. Gingrich has proposed recreating the House Un-American Activities Committee that succeeded in tormenting thousands of innocent Americans while failing to uncover any Nazi or Communist agents.
Trump's stated goal is to compel Americans to inform on their neighbors, even if those neighbors have done nothing wrong, or face arrest themselves. This would create a hyper-suspicious society where the only way to be considered a Good American is to turn in your neighbor to the police before your neighbor can turn you in.
There are historical examples of this type of society in the Stalinist countries of eastern Europe. The Soviet Union, East Germany, Romania, and Albania all required their citizens to diligently spy on their neighbors, friends, and family members. Failure to report anti-communist thoughts or behavior was punished as severely as the actual behavior. The East German secret police had dossiers on 40% of the country's population.
In Trump's America people will learn to fear their neighbors and even their closest friends will report them to the police for any slight or imagined thought or deed. Americans will be afraid if they don't report friends and neighbors to the police for something, anything, they themselves will be suspected and arrested for un-American activities.
In Trump's America every citizen will be considered a potential enemy of the state. Family get-togethers and dinner parties will be frightful affairs where any unguarded moment could lead to arrest for a thought crime, arrest under suspicion of having anti-American feelings.
Living In Trump's America - Part Two
Living In Trump's America - Part Three
Living In Trump's America - Part Four
Living In Trump's American - Part Five
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