History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. Just as solid liberals like Excitable Andy Sullivan and Bari Weiss are sent to the showers by an ascendant left today, liberals have always been on the left's hitlist when they think they have the upper hand, even the Democrat saint Harry S. Truman.
From The Daily Beast of all places. I guess there are still a few liberals left out there—at least enough to bury their own. Cancel culture, 1946. Plus ça change:
The break between the liberals and Communists finally came in a major speech delivered to HICAASP by Olivia de Havilland, at a Seattle rally in 1946.
It had been written for her by the Party’s most prolific and highest-paid screenwriter, the legendary Dalton Trumbo. He gave de Havilland the draft of his speech, that Americans had to condemn “the drive of certain interests toward a war against the Soviet Union,” and that the Truman administration’s policy was one supporting union-busting, anti-Semitism and bigotry against racial minorities.
Without telling anyone in advance, de Havilland, horrified by the words Trumbo wanted her to mouth—went to the podium, and substituted a speech of her own. “We believe in democracy,” she told the crowd, “and not in Communism.”
De Havilland was brave in breaking ranks so publicly. Communists controlled the Screenwriter’s Guild and were influential in the Screen Actors Guild as well, and were known to avoid giving roles to actors or scripts to writers whom they considered “fascist.”
Moreover, in breaking so publicly, she risked losing associates and friends who thought the Hollywood Reds were just “liberals in a hurry” and sincere anti-fascists—many of whom would ostracize someone they considered to be a “Red-baiter.”
Trumbo exploded in a fit of rage when he heard what de Havilland had done...
Requiescat in pace, Dame Olivia. You were Hollywood royalty, a good liberal and a great citizen of the American republic. A patriot, if may I say so, Ms. de Havilland, no offense.
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