NBC gave a platform to a former CIA Agent turned pundit and Atlantic Council Security Fellow in which he compares Republicans to Islamic terrorists.

He also compared conservative news and opinion outlets to Al Qaeda recruiters. Nice. I guess that would include me?

Marc Polymeropoulos is not a low-level Intelligence geek given a platform to spout off. Not like the famous “Anonymous” high-level Trump aide secretly in #theresistance who turned out to be a total nobody whose name nobody heard of then, and who nobody can name today. In that case the New York Times turned over its editorial page to a complete nobody, and his his identity even once he was caught lying about his role.

Polymeropoulos is a certified member of The Establishment™, with a book and website hawking his wisdom. And he wants you deprogrammed:

Polymeropoulos worked for twenty-six years at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) before retiring in July 2019 at the Senior Intelligence Service level. He was one of the CIA’s most highly decorated operations officers, serving in multiple field and headquarters assignments for the US government. Polymeropoulos received the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the Intelligence Commendation Medal, and the Intelligence Medal of Merit. He specialized in counterterrorism, the Middle East, and South Asia, spending extensive time in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just prior to his retirement, Polymeropoulos served at CIA headquarters and was in charge of the CIA’s clandestine operations in Europe and Eurasia.

Polymeropoulos frequently comments on international events in the US media, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, Fox News, GQ, Yahoo News, CNN, and MSNBC. He also writes a weekly column on intelligence as a Washington Examiner contributor. Polymeropoulos’s book, “Clarity in Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the CIA,” was published by Harper Collins in June 2021.

The NBC News Think piece is indeed a piece of work. He begins with several paragraphs describing the inner workings of Al Qaeda recruitment–painting a genuinely and rightly scary picture of the brainwashing that recruits go through to become the terrorists who scare the bejeezus out of us. I don’t know about you, but people who strap bombs on their chest or fly airplanes into buildings are pretty scary and clearly brainwashed. So I am quite with him there.

It isn’t until 5 paragraphs into his think piece that we learn that it is not Al Qaeda that Americans should worry about, but Republican politicians and pundits who are radicalizing nudist drug addict sex workers who live in group homes with rainbow flags. Apparently our messages are tailored to this large demographic, and unlike Democrats we use hyper violent rhetoric to inspire the literally insane hammer wielding psychopaths to attack octogenarians. Seriously.

You are a violent extremist and don’t know it yet. And the deprogrammers should be coming for you. If the Establishment could get their way, by next year you will be repeating The Narrative™ like good NPCs.

Lone wolves are a thorn for domestic U.S. law enforcement as well, as we saw last week when a man not affiliated with any known group but immersed in right-wing propaganda attacked Paul Pelosi, the husband of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. While the authorities have taken appropriate action against him, there are few signs that the government is taking the big-picture approach needed to combat the violence-inducing propaganda behind his crime.

To which I respond:

MAGATS ARE CULT FOLLOWERS THEY DO NOT THINK FOR THEMSELVES EVEN IF THEY GET SHOT BY A SHOOTER!!!💩😡💩EXAMPLE: STEVE SCALISE TREASONOUS REPUBLICAN MAGAT!!! pic.twitter.com/PlvREmQpud

— David Belancourt (@db5277) November 12, 2022

A Bernie Sanders supporter can literally hunt Republicans and that is A-OK; an assassin can come for a conservative Supreme Court justice and we are told by a CIA stooge that it is Republicans alone who are violent extremists. Insane. Crisis pregnancy centers are getting vandalized left and right and Elizabeth Warren is egging it on.

A sitting US Senator gets attacked and loses a lung, and that makes it onto the Daily Show for a jokey monologue complete with audience laughter. Hilarious!

The story was even called the “funniest story” by an MSNC hack:

MSNBC's Kasie Hunt says the vicious attack on Republican Senator Rand Paul was ‘one of her favorite stories’pic.twitter.com/2bP3ugIFbW

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 14, 2019

And Nancy Pelosi’s daughter can tweet out this:

But our CIA expert in terrorist recruitment argues Republicans recruit supporters to be terrorisst because, I guess, our protests are not “fiery, but mostly peaceful.” We just talk in a manner that bothers him.

It’s also important to note that there is nothing equivalent being done on the other side of the aisle. Democratic politicians and leaders may not like Trump, but they don’t call for violence against him, let alone his execution.

Actually, I’ll bet you could find quite a few Democrat leaders, if not politicians, who have done precisely that. They certainly have called him a traitor and a foreign agent a lot, and the penalty for treason is death.

Here is a nice video of Democrats calling for actual violence against Republicans and Trump in particular, none of which apparently counts because it doesn’t fit The Narrative. Every single comment comes from before January 6th.

The most important video of 2020
pic.twitter.com/3nMNlxl5Q8

— ELIJAH SCHAFFER (@ElijahSchaffer) August 31, 2020

People use violent metaphors all the time, so I am not for a moment suggesting that these commentators and politicians are all calling for literal violence–although all that uprising talk when riots are happening probably counts–but clearly this isn’t even a double standard. Republicans use violent metaphors and calls for uprisings much less frequently than Democrats, who whip out such talk all the time. All. The. Time.

Did you care about all the names Trump was called? Or how about Kathy Griffin holding a model of his severed head? How about Nancy Pelosi wanting to punch Trump? @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/mXFXAQDbD1

— Joanie (@Joaniek67) November 11, 2022

“Senator Karen” is perhaps incitement to violence, but Kathy Griffin was having a laugh.

All this matters because NBC News Think goes out to mainstream voters, who hear this literally all the time. It shapes perceptions, just as using pre-teen photos of violent criminals to “humanize” them does the same. It is Narrative™ shaping, and we can’t let it go by without serious pushback–and well beyond Twitter.

This is one of the many reasons we can’t wallow in depression at last Tuesday’s results. We came very close, and perhaps with better candidates we would have won. In 2024 we can certainly win, because the next 2 years will be brutal on the American people.

So buck up, get back on the horse, <insert happy metaphor here>, and let’s get to work for the next battle.