When Joe Biden gave his dark and cryptic speech attacking “MAGA Republicans”, he used the word extremism as one of his attacks.  When he is trying to associate people with unlawfulness and violence, then calling them extremist obviously has a very negative connotation.

Even here, it is important to be clear that not all extremism is necessarily bad.  If the law is highly immoral, then being unlawful and extremist about it may not be a bad thing.

Think about Nazi Germany.  You could argue about whether rounding up Jews was technically lawful, but it was lawful in the eyes of the Nazi rulers.  The Enabling Act supposedly allowed a lot of things to be lawful that were otherwise immoral.  So a Nazi soldier who defied orders may have been doing something unlawful.  A Jew who refused to be taken away may have been doing something unlawful.  And they could both be considered extremists.  They were extremists in their view that it was wrong to kidnap people.

What about violence?  If it is purely defensive violence, then it is not necessarily bad.  If someone sticks a gun at your head and you react with counter violence, most people do not consider that to be immoral or wrong.  If a Jew was about to be shot in a concentration camp and managed to take the gun away and shoot the person who was about to shoot him, there doesn’t seem to be anything morally wrong with this unless you are a pure pacifist.  And again, the Jew could be considered an extremist for defending his own life.

We are all extremists when it comes to certain things.  I am an extremist when it comes to defending my family from harm.  I am an extremist for wanting world peace.

When the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, was asked how the White House defines an extremist, she responded that it is someone who acts outside of the majority.

This makes everyone an extremist on many things.  If you like to play chess or if you like to study Shakespeare, then you are an extremist according to this definition.

It’s too bad that there weren’t better and honest reporters at these White House press briefings, but I suppose they wouldn’t be allowed in if that were the case.

There was an obvious follow-up question to Jean-Pierre’s definition of an extremist.

“So, Miss Jean-Pierre, if you lived in the 1840s when a minority of people held the position that all slavery should be abolished, would you have considered yourself an extremist?”

Either she is an extremist for wanting slavery abolished, or else she favors slavery.  Or maybe the only standard to go by is what the majority thinks based on this exact time in 2022.

In 2021, it was apparently extremist to believe that the so-called COVID vaccines didn’t stop the infection or transmission of COVID.  In 2022, that is no longer considered extremist.

So just as the science evolves, so does the term extremist.  If a poll shifts from 51% to 49%, I guess it all of a sudden becomes extremist according to the Biden White House.

This is illustrative of the intellect coming out of the White House.  It is also illustrative of the hostility coming at anyone who defies the authoritarian dictates of team Biden.

This is how they are defining domestic extremism.  If you don’t want your little kid to be taught critical race theory at school, then you are a domestic extremist.  If you don’t want to get a jab in your arm, then you are a domestic extremist. If you don’t want your money going to Ukraine, you are a domestic extremist.

This is the playbook for the 2022 elections and probably the 2024 elections.  It is only serving to radicalize the hate that each side has for each other.  But this is what happens when large groups of people attempt to use government force to impose their will on others.