Trump Derangement Syndrome
(WND) - Noted civil libertarian Alan Dershowitz warns that the American Civil Liberties Union is putting a “final nail in its coffin.”
The stunning conclusion, in his Jerusalem Post column republished at Breaking Israel News, blames the ACLU’s decision to jump with both feet into political battles.
“It has morphed into a hyper-partisan, hard-left political advocacy group,” wrote Dershowitz. “The final nail in its coffin was the announcement that for the first time in its history the ACLU would become involved in partisan electoral politics, supporting candidates, referenda and other agenda-driven political goals.”
Dershowitz, once a member of the ACLU board, said the board used to be comprised of leaders who were “deeply committed to core civil liberties, especially freedom of speech, opposition to prosecutorial overreach and political equality.”
There were Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, right-wingers and left-wingers.
He cited the “shoe on the other foot test,” which is whether or not a liberty issue would be viewed the same way by a person of an opposing party.
“Today, the ACLU wears only one shoe and it is on its left foot. Its color is blue,” he warned.
He quoted a recent New Yorker headline about the ACLU’s engagement in electoral politics that said the group was beginning “to move in step with the times.”
“Since its establishment nearly 100 years ago, the ACLU has been, in the words of The New Yorker, ‘Fastidiously nonpartisan, so prudish about any alliance with any political power that its leadership, in the 1980s and 90s, declined even to give awards to like-minded legislators for fear that it might give the wrong impression,'” Dershowitz wrote.
Now, there is “no longer any room in the ACLU for true conservatives who are deeply committed to neutral civil liberties.”
“The litmus test is support for hard-left policies.”
He explained the driving force is money.
“ACLU contributors, including some of its most generous contributors, are strong anti-Trump zealots who believe that the end (getting rid of Trump) justifies any means (including denying Trump and his associates core civil liberties and due process),” he wrote.
He said President Trump has so triggered the left that they are giving more money to the ACLU and demanding the organization move further left and become more aggressive.
“The move of the ACLU to the hard-left reflects an even more dangerous and more general trend in the United States: the right is moving further right; the left is moving father left; and the center is shrinking. The center left is losing its influence in organizations like the ACLU, and the center right is losing its influence in conservative organizations,” he wrote.
He warned that America “has always suffered when extremes gain power.”
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