1 October 2025

ALAN HAYES

 

IN the hours and days after Charlie Kirk’s murder, the Mad King, and the institutions that support him, were emboldened to slice through their perception of political dissent and silence it. There was a discussion on social media about whether this would be America’s Reichstag fire — a reference to the fire that was a rationale for Hitler’s crackdown on political freedom in Germany – but without doubt it was a seemingly return to the 1950s, when McCarthyism saw a nationwide witch hunt for communists and “subversive” ideology; maybe even more so to Hitler's quest for absolute control.

 

Seven months before the outbreak of World War II, Hitler’s propaganda minister ended the careers of five comedians, calling them “brazen, impertinent, arrogant and tactless” and their fans “parasitic scum.”  Their firing made the front page of The New York Times on February 4, 1939, which explained why they got themselves into trouble - they deftly, but unmistakably, caricatured the gestures, poses and physical characteristics of National Socialist leaders.

 

Wind back forward to the 1950s and Senator Joe McCarthy employed the same methods to control whom he believed were subversives. McCarthy's Red Scare’s basic structure was to define a political enemy that could not be compromised with. The point was to use that charge — that this enemy was everywhere, that it posed an existential threat to America, that its tentacles had to be chopped off everywhere they could be found and to go after a very wide swath of your political opponents. To do so using state power. To do so using cultural power. To do so by intimidating employers.

 

In 2025, Donald Trump is employing the same tactics as all autocrats do - authoritarians tend to have thin skins, and insist on being seen as great. Humor, laughter, mockery and media criticism is the ultimate weapon against them; it's why authoritarian leaders crack down on media and free speech.

 

Next, comes suggestions that individual people and publications are somehow an enemy of the people. After that, authoritarians move to takeover media companies. The goal is always the same - to create an echo chamber, something that Trump has become extremely adept at doing.

 

But it's not just about individual free speech; Trump has already set a precedent by intimidating some owners of media companies into submission. He has now shown that it’s easy to get corporate owners to obey and to silence creators, and as long as corporate leaders feel that it’s in their financial interest to bow to the Trump's demands, there is still a significant threat.

 

So, what we are seeing now, with Trump's push to severely suppress free speech and dissent, is the birth of the Blue Scare.

 

Unlike McCarthy, however, Trump, and his band of fascist lunatics, are not even being remotely subtle about what they intend to do — or how wide a net they want the Blue Scare to cast.

 

Vice President J D Vance said: “We’re trying to figure out how to prevent this festering violence that you see on the far left from becoming even more and more mainstream.”

 

Let’s not forget that the violence and mayhem that America is currently experiencing is a product of the Mad King himself, carried out by his far right fascist favourites. But, unlike the Red Scare, which took decades to build, the Blue Scare isn’t being built with the same care or attention or effort at creating political consensus. The Trump administration, as it often does, is speed-running the project. It took them mere days to get to Jimmy Kimmel.

 

The impact on Australia

 

What is even more frightening is that the Blue Scare is catching! The Blue Scare-esque hysteria over political speech is evident in Australia, too - with campaigns against critics of Israel, climate activists and progressive voices supported by government crackdowns – gathering momentum to silence what is perceived to be subversive ideology.

 

The Blue Scare is dividing communities, workplace and friendship, and just like McCarthyism has engendered an atmosphere of suspicion and recrimination and an internal sense of betrayal that some people are now feeling. They feel like: Wait a minute. When you’re speaking to me, are you speaking to me as a good friend — or are you taking dictation from somebody else?

 

So, where is atmosphere of suspicion and recrimination leading us to? Mutual distrust among people who would otherwise extend a hand of friendship and trust. It’s poison. It becomes a real problem and makes you very vulnerable – welcome to the new world of McCarthyism.

 

Even more concerning is our own government's level of influence on this kind of atmosphere in Australia. We witnessed this when Anthony Albanese stood next to the anti-Semitism envoy, Julian Siegel, and basically and fairly strongly endorsed a program to greatly expand the government's power to regulate speech, whether it's in the media or in a university or other institutions – based on nothing more than a broad definition of racial and religious intolerance.

 

The Prime Minister has yet to confirm what it intends to do with the Segal Report and its recommendations, but it is an extremely dangerous document that, if adopted, would give the government a very powerful set of far ranging tools to control free speech – particularly in stifling the media - publishing opinions - and teaching in educational institutions. It could even be weaponised as a tool to smear the reputation of individuals who dare speak out against proposed government policies.

 

The stylus keeps carving the groove

 

There is no physical violence or physical threat that you could make to someone that is more harmful than the language that was used. There is no government policy that you could enact that is more threatening than that language and it’s that McCarthyism atmosphere of controlling language that is seeping into Australian society. The stylus is stuck in the groove, carving away at the old vinyl record, as it plays a familiar tune – crisis, chaos and threat.

 

The Coalition have, with exuberance, embraced the chaos anthem, crying that Australia must pay homage to the Mad King, their saviour for a free world and that of the ‘Land Down Under’. Never mind the fact that the ‘Lunatic in the White House’ and his erratic behaviour has divided America. A division that seems to have escaped Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, who, for reasons only known to himself, seems to be a fan of the MAGA movement. When Charlie Kirk was shot dead, Hastie spoke about him in faintly messianic terms, or at least in biblical terms, referring to him as one of the apostles.

 

So, why Trump and his minions stoke a drive for vengeance, to make good on his 2024 election campaign promise of payback, speech is being stifled ‘down under’, and Australians are being unfairly labelled, smeared and targeted, while the squeaky wheels continue to influence government for a self-serving agenda. Where do we go from here?

 

The opposition, of course, would love to be in power and be able to do what Trump is currently doing, but they’re in such dire straits and such an unbelievable joke there chances of being elected would be a hard sell to the electorate, even in three years.

 

In the current political climate in America, and the influence being exerted upon Australia, particularly with current events in Israel and the push by Zionists to adopt Jillian Segal’s anti-Semitic report, it only takes one fringe figure to slither from the shadows and nationwide hysteria could quickly follow.

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