It’s almost a week after the news broke that the FBI served a search warrant at the home of former President Donald Trump, and the left has been doing what they do best: Try to get people who disagree with them to shut up. It’s a tale as old as time, isn’t it? Currently, they are not engaging in their usual tactics: Social media censorship, cancel culture, doxing, etc. But they are using another method to try to shame people into silence.
Democrats and their comrades in the activist media have been taking serious umbrage at those who dare to question or criticize the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department. After spending the last two years railing against law enforcement, they have gone full “back the blue” when it comes to the FBI and are not interested in hearing anyone say an unkind word about the agency.
High-profile Democrats and left-leaning media activists are using their platform to suggest that speaking out against the FBI will somehow incite violence against its agents and possibly others. In fact, earlier last week, it almost seemed as if progressives were hoping the FBI raid would lead to violence so they could exploit it. They were essentially pre-emptively blaming conservatives for any violent act that might come from nutjobs on the right.
The Washington Post’s editorial board published an op-ed recently arguing that using strong language to characterize the FBI would motivate people to engage in violence. The authors wrote:
The most responsible answer to the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida remains what it was: to wait for further information about exactly what was sought and why. The least responsible is to persist in the reckless rhetoric about “tyranny,” or “Third World” political persecution, or “regimes” that has flooded right-wing media and even the chambers of Congress — and so far has been followed by at least one attempted act of violence.
The “attempted act of violence” refers to Ricky Shiffer, a Navy veteran from Ohio who attacked an FBI field office in Cincinnati with a nail gun. He was shot dead by local police during a standoff before he could hurt anyone. He had already been on the Bureau’s radar after they found out he was at the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
The article went on to insist that “[t]he proper response to this uncertainty is patience” and noted that “some Republicans are exhibiting signs of restraint.” But the authors lamented that others “have taken cues from Mr. Trump’s conspiratorial ranting on his website Truth Social, throwing around terms such as ‘dictatorship’ and ‘banana republic’” in reference to the Bureau’s raid.
The piece brought up Jan. 6 as an example of how rhetoric can lead to political violence. Nowhere in the piece do the authors mention the Bernie supporter who tried to assassinate GOP lawmakers. The word “Antifa” never appears in the article.
We all know why.
But Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who is currently packing up her office in D.C. in anticipation of the ignominious defeat she is about to experience, also chimed in, parroting a similar line on Twitter:
I have been ashamed to hear members of my party attacking the integrity of the FBI agents involved with the recent Mar-a-Lago search. These are sickening comments that put the lives of patriotic public servants at risk.
I have been ashamed to hear members of my party attacking the integrity of the FBI agents involved with the recent Mar-a-Lago search. These are sickening comments that put the lives of patriotic public servants at risk.
— Rep. Liz Cheney (@RepLizCheney) August 11, 2022
Larry Cosme, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, also took issue with the rhetoric coming from the right, claiming it could lead to more attacks like what happened in Cincinnati.
“The rank-and-file officers on the street and agents, they are career employees that … cherish the Constitution like the average American,” he told The Post. “So for them to be attacked by these individuals that believe something else — or they’re believing, you know, someone’s rhetoric that’s uncalled for — to me, it’s shameful and disgusting.”
This hand-wringing coming from The Washington Post and others in the anti-Trump camp is quite rich considering they have no problem using the same type of rhetoric themselves. Remember how they spent the last six years calling Trump Hitler and referring to his supporters are racist/homophobic/sexist Nazis? Hell, even The Post has published its share of reports and op-eds making those same statements, as I chronicled on Twitter:
🧵The Washington Post has published at least two articles complaining about hyperbolic criticism of the FBI coming from the right.
They don't like people using terms like "banana republic" or "dictatorship."
Here's a little thread showing why they are full of bovine excrement.
— Jeff Charles (@JeffOnTheRight) August 14, 2022
But we already know what this is, don’t we? This is not a sincere effort to prevent violence. If this were the case, these people would have been condemning those using similar language against Republicans and conservatives. This is nothing more than a tactic designed to cow people into silence and to pre-emptively blame them for any potential violence that occurs as a result of the raid. Unfortunately for them, it’s not going to work.
