In 1964, an American author named John A. Stormer wrote a controversial book that was intended to support Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign that year. The book, entitled None Dare Call It Treason, argued, according to Wikipedia,
that America was losing the cold war because it was being betrayed by its elites, who were pro-communist. The title of the book is derived from an epigram of Sir John Harington: ‘Treason doth never prosper. What's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.’
Wikipedia states that the book sold over one million copies to regular purchasers within six months and, counting copies distributed by the Goldwater campaign, had more than six million copies in distribution by the end of the year. But Goldwater got hammered by Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 election, leading Stormer to publish a new book in 1968: The Death of a Nation, in which Stormer, now a pastor, expressly linked communism to the Antichrist.
And yet America is not dead, and it won the Cold War, both of which were clear by 1992, with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics having collapsed in December 1991. Was Stormer completely wrong in 1964 and 1968; did America change direction after 1964 and 1968; or was this result some combination of each?
When You Prepare an Update, Make Sure to Re-Examine the Facts
One answer that people sometimes give is to look at the world of 1989. That year, Stormer had written None Dare Call It Treason . . . 25 Years Later, in which he contended that little had changed and that, far from being concessions, the U.S.S.R. policies of perestroika and glasnost were merely Soviet propaganda tools.
That same year, the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party came to a very different conclusion about perestroika and glasnost and implemented mass repression and purges following the Tiananmen Square uprising to successfully avoid adopting such measures, as Deng Xiaoping’s government had been urging — and within weeks, Deng was merely a figurehead for the leadership of the new, more repressive government. A year later, Germany experienced Die Wende: the collapse of East Germany; and Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union. And a year after that, the Soviet Union itself collapsed into the Commonwealth of Independent States, after hard-line Soviets attempted to overthrow Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the architect of perestroika and glasnost, in a military coup, and Gorbachev declared the end of the U.S.S.R.
So Stormer was very, very wrong in his update. And some commentators have extended that gross error to his original work. But does that error mean he was also wrong in 1964 and 1968? Of course not: there may be no connection between Stormer’s poor evaluation and judgment in 1989 and his evaluation and judgment in the prior periods. It also doesn’t mean he was right in the earlier period, but the error Stormer most likely made is a common error, when people fail to see the changes in a situation and instead look for the similarities to their previous evaluations and conclusions instead of evaluating any material changes to that situation.
For example, one thing Stormer might have failed to see was how much the geopolitical situation in the world had altered after the end of the Vietnam War period. Worldwide, the strong Communist movements of the 1960s and 1970s ran into stronger anti-Communist opposition, including within governments.
As a result, many geopolitical changes had come about by 1989: American imperialism largely collapsed during the Vietnam War, both within the Americans and worldwide (especially after the U.S.-supported Chilean revolution in 1973), and had not revived; Ronald Reagan, who had been a principal supporter of Goldwater’s and a strong anti-Communist, had just finished eight years as President of the United States and had been succeeded by his Vice President, George H.W. Bush; the United Kingdom cast aside its longtime Labor governments, which, as of 1979, had run the U.K. for 11 of the past 15 years (going back to 1964), and elected a Conservative government, which would remain in power until 1997; West Germany, which had been led by a socialist/libertarian coalition from 1969 to 1982 (despite almost collapsing in 1974 when it turned out that one of the principal aides (Günter Guillaume) to socialist West German Chancellor Willy Brandt was a longtime Communist agent and spy), changed to a conservative/libertarian coalition starting in 1982 that didn’t lose power until 1998.
Stormer may have overlooked all of these changes. Or he may have seen all of these changes but not believed that they made a significant difference. But the world of 1989 was materially different from the world of 1964, and he clearly missed that.
Should We Have Dared?
But a more interesting question is whether the behavior that Stormer alleged in 1964 actually constituted treason against the United States, whether or not anyone dared call it by that name. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “treason” has a clear definition:
“the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family”.
Under this definition, merely being anti-American, rooting against American interests, or even giving a meandering speech that might be read as supporting treasonous behavior wouldn’t be enough to qualify as treason. The person contemplating treason would have to commit overt acts to overthrow the legitimate government of the state.
Thus, even calling your supporters to rally in D.C. on the day of the Electoral College certification is unlikely to constitute treason. But what if you overtly refused to commit federal forces for the restoration of order after a riot had broken out? Is it different if you just hid out and were unreachable?
In terms of the post-WWII U.S. in 1964, anything like that was unlikely to constitute treason, because the “Cold War” wasn’t an actual shooting war. The election of a government favoring policies that you don’t support is not the same thing as attempting to overthrow a government, as we all saw during The Former Guy’s misfired coup attempt on January 6, 2021. But why care about that today? Or are we seeing a similar phenomenon?
The Spirit of Vidkun Quisling
In 1933, a former army officer then serving as a minister in the Norwegian government named Vidkun Quisling quit his post and founded the Nasjonal Samling, a party modeled on the German National Socialist (Nazi) Party. Although Quisling was undeniably popular at the time of his actions, his increasingly outrageous statements (including his embrace of anti-Semitism) caused his support to wane, and he ended up out of government and head of only a minor Norwegian party. That ended when Germany decided to invade Norway in April 1940, but the Norwegians unexpectedly sank the German ship carrying almost all of the puppet government that Hitler had planned to install.
The king and the Norwegian government had relocated to Elverum, figuring that the German invasion would have enough strength to seize Oslo. And it did. But Quisling sided with the invaders over the government, going on Oslo radio to announce that he was taking over, which had the effect of solidifying opposition to him — and the actual new government came from Germany, bypassing Quisling, until four months later, Hitler (in appreciation for Quisling’s efforts at the time of the invasion) appointed him as acting prime minister in the German-organized government, and about 18 months later, the German government was wound down, turning full control over to Quisling, who tried to fully implement Hitler’s policies — but this lasted for less than a year, as Norwegians began to actively oppose him. However, he remained in charge until Norway fell to the Allies in May 1945, and, after a treason and murder trial beginning in August, he was executed in October 1945.
Most of the interest in the trial revolved around Quisling’s actions before and during the German invasion in April 1940, which were the heart of the treason charge against him. Although most of the opposition to Quisling was tied to brutal policies implemented by Nazi troops, the heart of the case was his active support (and, for a time, leadership) for the Nazi invasion, which he preposterously denied. Under the Merriam-Webster definition, that was undoubtedly treason.
But what about Quisling’s pre-invasion support for Germany, which also became a major issue, at least in terms of public perception? The name “Quisling” became a synonym for a collaborator as well as for a traitor. Which brings us to the administration of The Former Guy.
“Donaldstein, or the Modern Quisling” (with apologies to Mary Shelley)
In 2016, the foolish and erratic behavior of Donald Trump on the campaign trail became an election issue when it was alleged by the Hillary Clinton campaign that Trump was acting on behalf of Russia, possibly even as a Russian agent under Russian instructions. Before the election, this theory received little support among the mainstream media, but after Trump won the election, this theory swept the media more or less overnight, as a way to explain an outcome that the media found so shocking. Even once-prestigious papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post treated propaganda based on innuendo and rumor, such as the Christopher Steele “dossier”, as sworn fact — and announced, seemingly at least once a week, that there was a “breakthrough” that would conclusively prove this story . . . each of which proved to be as fake as the Steele dossier, despite a political feeding frenzy to find such proof under the leadership of the once-respected former FBI director and Department of Justice special counsel Robert Mueller.
Trump’s supporters (such as Fox News hosts) soon learned that, in this continuing stream of nonsense, among the few reliable sources were the Russian-leaning media, even including the fully state-owned propaganda publications such as RT Today . . . and even though the sole purpose of these sites was to rehabilitate the reputation of Russia after its hostile invasions (followed by land grabs ostensibly in the names of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s puppet organizations) into Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014.
As a result, some of these Trumpists began supporting Putin and Russia, despite the fact that the #1 country trying to upset Pax Americana was Russia. I wrote about some of this previously, but unfortunately the rot continues to set in among the Trumpist right. Tucker Carlson’s pro-Russia and anti-America rants have been become a part of Russian propaganda and are used to gaslight the Russian people the same way that Tucker gaslights his American viewers. Even Russians critical of their government have noticed; former world chess champion Garry Kasparov had the best reference to the perverseness of Carlson’s rants:
Unlike Tucker Carlson, the Russian official TV recognizes they're losing the war. And all these complaints is trying to find a scapegoat. Of course nobody can ask Putin, so they look for military, they look for local commanders that made the mistakes. But at the end of the day there is only one conclusion. The war is going in the wrong direction for Putin's Russia and in the right direction for Ukraine.
And so the question is simply this: at what point does ardent and passionate support for the enemies of the United States change from legitimate strategic dissent and turn you into an enemy collaborator — a Quisling — which opens the door to approbations and potentially even mortal penalties that result from following the way of the Quisling? It’s certainly not consistent with maintaining your own private jet, as Tucker Carlson does.
Should we dare call this treason? I admit that I’ve never thought much about it, because I grew up in Ronald Reagan’s America, where all Americans loved their country, even if they disagreed about its strategic and tactical decisions. In The Dispatch, Nick Catoggio (aka “Allahpundit”) made the following point:
[W]hen the history of this era is written, I wonder if aid to Ukraine won’t be seen as one of the most freakishly cost-effective military expenditures in the history of the United States. We spent $2 trillion on a war in Afghanistan that began and ended with the Taliban in charge. We’re in the hole for $400 billion and counting on the F-35 fighter jet. If I told you a year ago that for $100 billion or so we could decimate Putin’s military, cause Russia to lose its status as a great power, and do so without losing a single American life, would you have taken that deal? If we could swing the same deal with Taiwan and get the same outcome with respect to China, wouldn’t we?
In Ronald Reagan’s America, even the opposition would answer both questions in the affirmative. But, unfortunately, it appears not to be the case in Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump’s America. Is that the way of the Quisling, the collaborator, the man without a country? Dare we call it treason?
It sure seems so to me. Your mileage may vary.
Be seeing you.
POSTSCRIPT: One of my friends sent me an off-line comment and question that I’d rather answer here. Here it is: “Good read. What does the legal (federal) statute say in regard to Treason? I assume the wording differs from that of Webster.”
You’re correct that the legal definition varies from the dictionary definition. Treason is actually defined in Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution (punctuation corrected):
Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The statutory definition of treason, adopted in 1948 (18 United States Code § 2381) is quite similar:
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
One part of these definitions is easy, and one part is unclear. There is no doubt what levying war against the U.S. means: you actually have to take up arms against it, and mere criticism, even if “misinformation”, isn’t enough. As Chief Justice John Marshall wrote back in 1807:
However flagitious may be the crime of conspiring to subvert by force the government of our country, such conspiracy is not treason. To conspire to levy war, and actually to levy war, are distinct offences.
But what does “adhering to” the enemies of the United States mean? This really didn’t get analyzed until after WWII. In a 1945 case decided 5-4, SCOTUS ruled that the “overt act” required by the Constitution had to be “openly manifest treason” — even if, when supported by the proper evidence, the overt act showed the required treasonable intention. But a 1947 case came to a broader conclusion, when the Court held 9-0 that the overt acts performed by a father for his son (who was a German spy and saboteur) — harboring and sheltering his son in his home, assisting his son in purchasing an automobile, and helping his son obtain employment in a defense plant— may have all been acts which a father would naturally perform for a son, but that did not relieve them of the treasonable purpose of giving aid and comfort to the enemy when the father knew his son was an enemy agent . . . and the two witnesses can testify to the implications and intentions of the overt acts. You can see why the actual statute was passed in 1948, because these cases seem to take a very different view of the "two witnesses" requirement in the Constitution. That requirement is missing in the statute, which appears to side with the 1947 case.
Can these cases be harmonized? Sure — but it’s no slam dunk to know how particular facts will come out. For that reason, it’s much easier to get a conviction for espionage under the Espionage Act than a conviction for treason, because all that has to be proven for the espionage conviction is that the accused is giving aid to and on behalf of the interests of a foreign country, not adhering to an enemy. But you generally still need more than an ideological difference even for that, which is why there is so much searching for explicit payoffs or quid pro quos.
But perhaps Tucker Carlson (and his buddy Vladolf) will give us a chance to revisit those precedents in a more modern setting. And he isn’t the only one flirting with that danger, as Hunter Biden and his foreign representations on behalf of “the big guy” make obvious.
What a noxious time we live in.