OPINION:
An Olympic sprinter from the authoritarian state of Belarus named Kristina Timanovskaya, i.e. Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, just fled the Games in Tokyo to Warsaw, Poland, out of fear of being arrested in her home country for the “crime” of speaking out on social media against one of her team leadership’s decisions.
Democrat ears in America must be tingling. It’s almost as if they’re being talked about — and wait: the similarities run deeper.
Timanovskaya, 24, said her own team officials threatened her, intimidated her, pulled her from the 200-meters’ event she was scheduled to run, packed her into a car and tried to force her on to an airplane at the Tokyo port to ship her back to Belarus. Why? She criticized on social media her coaching staff’s sudden decision to stick her in a relay race for which she had never before trained and in which she had never before competed.
Timanovskaya, fearing she would be arrested once she arrived in Belarus, refused to board the plane and instead sought, and received, a humanitarian visa to stay in Warsaw. Her fears of arrest weren’t unfounded; her grandmother had warned her the television in Belarus had been reporting Timanovskaya was suffering from “psychological problems” — a sort of public relations offensive, it would seem.
“[My grandmother] said maybe I’d end up in hospital or jail,” Timanovskaya told CNN.
Frightening stuff, yes?
But not so different from how Democrats in America behave. Trump Derangement Syndrome, anyone?
Just as Belarus masks its authoritarianism and communist leanings behind a constitution that supposedly guarantees free elections and freedoms for its people, so, too Democrats in America, who have moved in recent years left, lefter and all the more leftist in pursuit of total top-down control.
Just look at how the Democrats have done, and continue to do: They boot speech deemed offensive from social media. They call for defunding of police; dismantling of border control. They appeal to their thuggish classes to take to the streets, take to the workplaces, take to the restaurants, take to the neighborhoods to find those with differing political views and catcall, scream and harass them into silence. They drag into court those who would defend their homes against intrusions of these thuggish classes. They work endlessly and tirelessly to make sure word of their disgusting police state deeds don’t get mentioned in mainstream media. And they slam those who still dare to dissent or disagree as psychologically damaged to the point of dangerous.
The Democrats’ communist leanings have become particularly glaring on the coronavirus. In just over a year’s time, America’s Democrats have managed to push free citizens to either take an experimental vaccine or stay out of restaurants, stay off college campus, stay out of entertainment venues. Democrats and their teacher union buddies have managed to run roughshod over parental rights and slap masks on the faces of practically every child in the country. Democrats and their Big Tech allies have managed to make a mockery out of the First Amendment — or, at least, the spirit of the First Amendment. Democrats and their social justice warring comrades-in-arms have managed to weaponize the free market against free citizens to the point Big Business now does much of the left’s regulatory controlling bidding.
Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered church-goers to stop singing.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer banned stores from selling seeds and other gardening supplies.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered thousands of elderly into the nursing homes — to their deaths.
The attacks never stop. The onslaught never ends. As for those who still won’t bow to the Democrat Party will?
“Hearing crazy talk on cable TV right now about folks having the constitutional right not to get vaccinated,” media personality Geraldo Rivera tweeted in late July. “Yes (they may be dopey) but they do have that right. We too have rights: to deny the unvaccinated access to our home, school or business.”
Disobedience is a sign of psychological disturbance.
How very Belarus-like of them. Democrats would whisk dissenters away on a plane in a heartbeat if they could. And just like Belarus, Democrats would do it all the while feigning freedom.
Tsimanouska’s two coaches were stripped by Olympic authorities of their accreditations and sent packing. Now if only the same could be done to Democrats. America would truly be free.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.
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