2nd August 2023
A future historian, tasked with working out from contemporaneous sources what ‘witch-hunt’ meant in 2023, would conclude it meant a slow methodical and evidence-based process, with full due-process rights, used to prosecute someone with significant political and media power.
Why wait until historians conclude this – most of us are there already, ie we subscribe to this definition.
It’s not a “proper” witch-hunt unless fire is the final step in the process.
More seriously the grifting classes get all wound up when they find that the rules of society apply to them as well.
Perfection.
Love it.
I’m not so sure about the ‘evidenced based process’ though.
Witch-hunts by their very nature tend to be less evidenced based ( hence the name).
I could envision future witch-hunts being a politically based process.
DAG is being ironic.
Oh, witch hunts are evidence-based, alright. They rely on witness testimony and scientific tests, such as the buoyancy of the purported witch. The defendants in the Satanic child sex abuse cases of the 1980’s received their due process. The legal process is a slender thread on which to hang civilization.
Witch-hunt is inapt .. wizard-hunt is gender apt but too cuddly given Harry Potter: what about a Trump-hunt?
“Trump-hunt”
Oh yes, the trouble is it inevitably leads ( way to easily) to what could best be described as a ‘Naughtie-ism’ per our friendly R4 broadcaster.
Maybe it could be genericised? 😉
Or just the well known rhyming slang – a Jeremy Hunt.
😂😂😂
Excellent
I get the point you’re making but historians would have to be pretty useless in whatever century to not understand the use of the term witch hunt figuratively in the early 21st Century. Future historians will have access to a plethora of document compared to those of earlier years and yet we still get a detailed analysis of events. What would surprise historians (I hope) is the naivety of the electorate and the inability of the majority to carry out any kind of critical analysis under the barrage of populist expressions in the mainstream media.
Very Good. Witches don’t actually exist but I do hope the processes you describe find some actual criminals.
See also: Kangaroo Court. So called because it gets the media jumping up and down with excitement.
Persecute (verb)
To repeatedly hold a serial offender to account.
I think DAG is being a little ironic – the prosecution of Trump for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election result and his attempt to keep confidential documents, has been so ploddingly evidence based and limited by due process, that the Trump storyline that the process and results amount to a “ witch hunt” is hyperbole at best, and a distraction at worst.
The term suggests that prosecution or other detriments are being applied because of who the victim is, not what they have done.
This may be so even when the victim of the hunt is, in fact, guilty.
I understand that Trump’s supporters argue that his crimes were either inconsequential (the documents) or that his behaviour did not go far enough to justify a prosecution (the “insurrection” and the attempt to “find” extra votes). It is difficult to argue that there are no cases to answer.
I think there is an argument on public policy grounds that when someone is involved in a serious election which they have every chance of winning that the bar for prosecution, before that election should be higher. That argument brings a lot of problems with it.
In short, I do not believe that Trump’s contention should be dismissed out of hand even if we are compelled to reject it.
I quite agree a higher bar is needed when prosecuting someone (like Trump) who is a current strong electoral candidate. However Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice (via Special Prosecutor Jack Smith) HAS proceeded with great, possibly excessively painstaking, care and established that higher bar. If it was a human high-jumper, it would be the olympic champion going over the bar several metres clear, as Jack Smith’s detailed indictments portray in graphic detail. My criticism of the DoJ was not getting its act together more quickly – with the danger that any trial might well end up running past the Presidential election (with Trump being a master of the delaying tactic). Then presumably the rule of law in the US will be effectively abolished by President Trump appointing patsys to run the DoJ (and every other department). God help the Republic in that case – the rule of law (and the judgement of the US electorate in 2024) are the only things standing between the US and a fascist state. And I don’t use the word ‘fascist’ lightly.
Someone else in Trump’s position might also argue that once the accusation had been levelled, the failure to speedily prosecute was unfair both to himself and to his reputation.
I think Smith, once appointed, has moved quite swiftly.
I would assume the major delay in prosecution has been the need to establish, through witnesses and documents, Trump’s state of mind.
Oh dear. Maybe that means that sufferers of a real witch-hunt, such as the many people, post-Savile, who have been prosecuted due to false allegations of historical sexual abuse, will have to find a different phrase.
Great! Thank you.
Often pursued by people on the same political side as you.
My point exactly Alison – substitute political for evidence & the jobs a good ‘un.
The times we live in.
It is strange that a phrase, which almost by definition involved investigation of a variety of people initially in order to find who if any was the “witch”, now, as you imply, means a measured examination of the behaviour of a single person. And we know who the “witch” is usually from the outset, the problem lies in combating their wicked powers for the sake of law and justice!
Very succinct, but spot on!
What crossed my mind thinking of a certain gentleman tied to a stake was what we would call the traditional bundles of sticks stacked around his feet. Surely not the usual traditional name. Historians take note.
Anyway, I doubt anything very much will happen to him – far too inconvenient.
Bravo!
There’s a nice comment beneath the latest, (special extra), episode of “Pod Save America”: “One more indictment and he gets a free coffee.”
One of my favourite posts from DAG – wickedly ironic summation of the desperate attempts by Trump (and the lesser echo Johnson) to avoid being held to account.
The OED already gives a Trump citation for “witch hunt (noun) 2. (depreciative.) A campaign of persecution by a group or person in a position of power against a person or group considered to be undesirable by virtue of their views or activities; a campaign to identify and persecute particular members of a group, organization, or society. … ”
“2017 Commenting on the investigation into possible links between his campaign and Moscow, the President insisted he was the victim of a ‘witch hunt’.”
But I suppose it is one thing for a rich, powerful and charismatic man to lead his ecstatic supporters in a chorus of “lock her up” and quite another to become the subject of a criminal investigations and prosecutions that are trying to hold him to account.
Alas, the seriousness of the situation in the United States (and potentially elsewhere) isn’t being faced up to. In reality, Trump’s supporters will have an entirely conventional notion of the meaning of witch-hunt. Rather, the problem is that they have been persuaded that the appearance of due process is just that, appearance and not substance. This is because media outlets such as Murdoch’s Fox News have so poisoned their minds that they believe the ridiculous lies that Trump is a victim of political persecution. And the poisoning of their minds continues unabated in spite of the evidence and the indictments. If Trump prevails and is elected President again in 2024, the consequences for the survival of constitutional government and liberal-democracy anywhere in the English-speaking world are likely to be dire. As the corruption of the meaning of conservatism in the UK demonstrates, American cultural influences should not be underestimated. And, for that matter, Murdoch’s media empire operates beyond the United States. This challenge calls for a far more serious response than witticisms.
The survival of constitutional government and liberal-democracy isn’t looking too healthy anywhere. The Hindi-, Turkish-, Hungarian-, Spanish- and Hebrew-speaking worlds spring immediately to mind.
Today the term witch hunt represents the self-professed paranoia and affrontery claimed by a person who is the object of soundly established criminal justice proceedings. It is an expression of victimhood and not associated with evil spiritual misdeeds. The ploy plays well to those who lack basic thinking skills.
The same future historian would also find from contemporaneous sources that the term “weaponisation of justice” refers to the same – a methodical thorough impartial investigation into malfeasance.