The Patriot Post® · The Government Goes Godwin

There’s an Internet adage called Godwin’s Law, which states that the longer a discussion goes, the greater the probability that a comparison will be made to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis.

Given the recent uncovering of documents by the Media Research Center suggesting the Biden administration is “weaponizing a government-funded anti-terrorism grant program” that initially began as a response to al-Qaida under the Obama administration, it appears that our government has gone full Godwin, seeing Nazi sympathizers behind every bush in conservative red states. Currently known as the “Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program,” the Department of Homeland Security project has granted nearly $40 million to various groups around the country to counter what the thought police consider domestic terrorism (read: political opposition).

Never mind that they don’t understand the true roots of Nazism, which springs from the political Left. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect about this program is the result of a seminar at the University of Dayton, the home of an entity called PREVENTS-OH — a mouthful that stands for “Preventing Radicalization to Extremist Violence through Education, Network-Building and Training in Southwest Ohio.” It “hosted a series of events that maliciously equated mainstream organizations with neo-Nazis and other extremist hate groups.” The MRC goes on to state that one of these seminars included DHS agent Joseph Masztalics, in his official capacity, and self-proclaimed antifa member Michael Loadenthal, a researcher at the University of Cincinnati. The latter boasted: “A lot of things we’re doing are illegal. … A lot of it involves breaking the law.”

And if that weren’t enough, part of that presentation was the unveiling of a “Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization,” which implied that Fox News, Breitbart, The Heritage Foundation, and even your local Republican Party are all gateways to joining a local neo-Nazi group.

We’ll see how long the linked video, which is on the official University of Dayton YouTube channel, remains up. While it was posted seven months ago, it’s only received major attention — and all 30 of its comments — in the last few days in the wake of the MRC report. For its part, the university claims that while it has received a grant to create PREVENTS-OH, the grant was received several months after the Loadenthal seminar occurred.

Regardless, the intent is clear. As MRC’s L. Brent Bozell opined at the gateway known as Fox News, “Using the terminology associated with warfare and espionage, the Ohio grantee’s training program instructs participants to use ‘trade craft’ to ‘infiltrate and surveil’ conservative groups,” with the eventual aim of infiltrating, disrupting, and undermining their efforts.

On the other hand, as Jack Elbaum ponders at the Washington Examiner: “I wonder what the reaction would be if they promoted a similar graphic depicting ‘the pyramid of far-left radicalization,’ which suggested that by being involved with the Democratic National Committee, one is in a pipeline toward becoming a communist or anarchist revolutionary who is eager to loot and riot. Most people would rightly understand that is absurd. Yet, in many elite institutions today, the suggestion that watching Fox News may lead someone to become a neo-Nazi is not seen as so far-fetched.”

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that the same secretary of homeland security who gleefully doles out these grants with the implied goal of disrupting his employer’s domestic political opposition is the same one who’s been recommended for impeachment due to his failure to secure our southern border.

While the $40 million (and counting) handed out by these DHS “terrorism prevention” grants wouldn’t have built many more miles of a border wall, it would’ve increased the number of Border Patrol agents or enhanced the technology at their disposal. Instead, the DHS is targeting and attempting to silence average Americans — like those of us who recognize the damage that Joe Biden is doing to our Republic.

But what’s one more impeachable offense, right?