Who's "The Man" now?

How disappointing it must be to all right-thinking liberals and progressives to discover they themselves have become “The Man.” And that they and the people they support politically now embody just about everything they’ve fought against with such righteous indignation for years.   

That’s what’s happened in the U.S.

The same people who railed against invasive Big Brother overreach into peoples’ private lives and opposed censorship of any kind for decades have become what they detested.   

They’ve become The Establishment. “The Man,” in other words. 

You know, the shadowy entity we once believed controlled everything behind the scenes.  We felt its heavy hand everywhere – controlling what we were told by the media of the day, and even what we were allowed to think or say ourselves. “The Man” was always ready to crack down on anyone who challenged its authority. It didn’t hesitate to use outright lies, misinformation, propaganda, censorship, and, if necessary, threats of violence, to keep us under its thumb. 

You simply couldn’t trust “The Man.” And in the 1960s many of us didn’t. 

Back then, (when a lot of us were Democrats) we suspected “The Man” (mainly right wing Republicans) worked diligently to sow distrust and division among Americans solely on the basis of age, race, gender, education, class and income. Why? To keep us from uniting as one in opposition.  We had no doubt “The Man” covertly spied on and invaded the privacy of ordinary citizens as well as political opponents, used strong-arm tactics to crush opposition, used Federal agencies to harass and silence critics, and kangaroo courts to persecute political enemies.

“The Man” was authoritarian and tyrannical and wielded its power like a club to bludgeon its enemies and shut down dissent.  Only the truly brave had the guts to stand up to “The Man.”  They usually paid a high price – personally and professionally – for doing it. 

Sound familiar? 

Yeah, that’s who liberal Democrats, progressives, and the left have become.  It’s a mystery why they can’t see it because it’s just so damn obvious to many of us. 

Or perhaps they know what they’ve become. And they like it.  No, they love it.

They love having the power to get people fired for not agreeing with them. They love the power to decide what is and what isn’t acceptable to say or print; which words are forbidden and which are permitted.  They love the power to stop anyone from publicly challenging them.  They love having the power to force politicians and police chiefs to their knees, figuratively and literally.  They love using the courts and hand-picked judges to get what they want without the trouble and inconvenience of debating and passing laws.

They are fine with having their friends in government spy on people they don’t like, secretly fund their political allies, and punish their political enemies, even if that rides roughshod over the Constitution. They are fine with destroying the reputations and livelihoods of their critics, and even of celebrities who won’t grovel before them begging their forgiveness for some real or imagined slight. Most of all, they enjoy using their new-found power to silence free speech and opposing opinions.

They are the mob. And to a lot of Americans, they are terrifying.    

Is it any wonder that according to a recent survey almost 65% of all Americans are afraid of saying something politically incorrect or perhaps racially insensitive? The consequences are too awful to consider for most people, apparently.    

Think about that for a minute. 

People are just too afraid to speak out.  It could cost them their job. It could cost them their friends.  It could cost them everything near and dear to them.  Almost 65% of Americans have been intimidated into foregoing their own rights to free speech. That’s not an overstatement. 

No one is allowed to criticize or question the motives of those defacing public buildings and monuments with obscenities, burning the flag and Bibles. Or to ask why they are attacking police, private citizens and private property, and rioting and looting under the guise of “peaceful protests.”  Anyone who dares speak out against the obvious violence and destruction is called a fascist at best, but more often a racist, or perhaps a white supremacist. 

These ignorant barbarians have intimidated colleges and universities to ostracize and punish faculty who don't promote the "correct" narrative, and to cancel speakers with whom they don't agree. They’ve  intimidated comedians to the point that many will no longer perform on college campuses.  They’ve also managed to intimidate most of the media who refuse to report anything that exposes their intolerance of opposing views, much less their tendency toward violence. 

They've essentially created the same type of fascist state Antifa claims to be fighting to prevent. This is the same authoritarian regime that the Democrats, the left, and now the progressives claim Donald Trump is leading us toward.

Surprise. We’re already mostly there, thanks to all of the above. 

It’s not because of Donald Trump. If anything, it’s in spite what he’s tried to accomplish for the country, for the economy, and for our citizens of all races.        

So I have to ask Antifa, Democrats, the left, and the progressives a simple question. 

How does it feel to realize that you’ve become what you claim to hate? The bully. The censor.  The tyrant demanding control over every aspect of everyone’s private life, what they can say, what they can see or read, who they can associate with and more.  

Even what they can laugh at.  

How does it feel to be “The Man,” in other words?