Abridged from source. 

[Opinion. Just in case you missed oncologist Dr. Shpiner’s point, he asks, when was the last time any group of people was called a cancer on society? Think hard, you’ll get it.”

Three speeches on a single day signaled a dying American democracy

Robert B Shpiner

The Guardian: 22 July 2026

SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/22/stephen-miller-marco-rubio-trump-speeches

What the White House deputy chief of staff said deserves to be quoted rather than summarized, because summary is a mercy it has not earned. He called “leftwing political terrorism” a “fatal cancer of civilization”. He said that its politics, left to run its course, “always becomes a gulag”. He said antifa demonstrators are “all deformed in some way, in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism”, that “their outer appearance becomes a manifestation of their inner hatred”, and he asked why there is “not one normal-looking person among them”. He said that when the leftist protests that his rights are being violated, those appeals “must fall on deaf ears”. He urged the assembled governments to be “completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization”. And he described the work already under way in six verbs: “disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest and prosecute”.

I have been practicing medicine for four decades. Cancer is my vocabulary, not his. And I know what happened the last time a government borrowed it. The Nazi state’s central perversion was the medicalization of killing: the enemy as tumor, as bacillus, the nation as patient, extermination as cure. Robert Jay Lifton called it the biomedical vision. It recruited my profession first, and my profession answered willingly. When a government describes citizens as a cancer, it has written the first line of a treatment plan. On Thursday, the plan was read aloud, from a state department podium, in six verbs.

One disclosure belongs in the chart. My family left Russia in 1917. My relatives left Germany in 1933. In both generations, leaving was called excessive; staying was the reasonable position. But an alarm that was right both times it sounded is not overcaution.

Democracy requires informed voters. In America, slogans and corporate-controlled media drive voting.

Capitalism requires informed consumers. In America, corporate-controlled influencers and advertisers drive purchasing,

America is neither democratic nor capitalistic.

1 hour ago, novanova said:

Democracy requires informed voters. In America, slogans and corporate-controlled media drive voting.

Capitalism requires informed consumers. In America, corporate-controlled influencers and advertisers drive purchasing,

America is neither democratic nor capitalistic.

then nor are any of the so called democracies

1 hour ago, novanova said:

Democracy requires informed voters. In America, slogans and corporate-controlled media drive voting.

Capitalism requires informed consumers. In America, corporate-controlled influencers and advertisers drive purchasing,

America is neither democratic nor capitalistic.

Of course not. They have now a king. Donald 1st. Half of the population love their king passionately.

34 minutes ago, Yagoda said:

then nor are any of the so called democracies

We are ruled by money and the ones that have most of it.

4 hours ago, Yagoda said:

then nor are any of the so called democracies

Precisely why we need democratic socialism, as in Scandinavia. Seems to work really well in terms of quality-of-life. Is there anything more important?

1 hour ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Precisely why we need democratic socialism, as in Scandinavia. Seems to work really well in terms of quality-of-life. Is there anything more important?

yes, knowing that what is in scandinavia isnt 'democratic socialism'

There's no such thing as 'democratic socialism', it's just another made up leftist term. It's simply socialism, and nothing democratic about it.

Nobody wants to give up their hard earned money to lay abouts that think they deserve what you worked for.

There's no trully socialist countries, except maybe Cuba & N. Korea, and how's that working out for them ???

Without capitalism, you don't have a tax base, to fund any social programs.

Everyone who opposes Trump now is classed as a Communist by Donald J Mccarthy,

Regards Worgeordie

9 hours ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Precisely why we need democratic socialism, as in Scandinavia. Seems to work really well in terms of quality-of-life. Is there anything more important?

That's not correct. In the nordic and other countries in Europe they have social democracies.

Democratic socialism seeks to replace it entirely with a system based on collective ownership.

Stop already, load of nonsense.

The end of the Trump regime will be at the midterms come November.

Then, the grift hearings begin, two years of lame duck, he's an idiot, look at Iran, played like the damn fool he is by the Israelis as well as the Iranians. The Don is not a good businessman, he is a con artist and grifter. All the MAGA fools have been fooled.

Newsome AOC? Ossoff Klobuchar? A lot more interesting & modern candidates coming from the left. Trump will have burned the country so bad, the right will look bad. You sucked up to Trump? Where are we now? Bye.

45 minutes ago, Schoggibueb said:

That's not correct. In the nordic and other countries in Europe they have social democracies.

Democratic socialism seeks to replace it entirely with a system based on collective ownership.

Semantics. Mine, and Mamdani's, vision of democratic socialism is certainly not more "collective ownership". CO requires govt control. No thanks.