I remember a long time ago in middle school, I read a book called Red Scarf Girl. It is a memoir by a girl during the Cultural Revolution in China. As a middle schooler, I didn’t think too much about the book other than what strange rules such a bizarre society had for how you could interact and what you could say. But the book increasingly keeps coming to my mind lately. During the Cultural Revolution, there were accusations that people were “landlords” or related to landlords. Even rumors of having something to do with the bourgeoisie was enough to elicit swift punishment from the other members of society. If you weren’t vocal about being on the “right side of history”, then you must be adamantly against it and were addressed as such, either by peers or the government. A lot of accusations turned into witch hunts against people, even if the charges were flimsy.

Anyway, I’ve often observed this same sort of behavior in extremist progressive circles, but it sure appears to be spilling into the mainstream a lot more everyday.