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Julia Ioffe to Lefties: Calm Down for a Minute About Trump

As liberals freak out over the inauguration of President Donald Trump, writer Julia Ioffe has a message for them: Do not get paranoid like Republicans eight years ago.

It’s become a trope since the campaign that the new president might signal a rise in anti-democratic or even fascist tendencies within the American body politic. Ioffe think that’s akin to conservatives fretting that former president Barack Obama would impose socialism at the start of his agenda.

Obama never threatened to sue the press, encouraged violence at his rallies and singled out whole ethnic groups for special criticism.

Ioffe herself was on the receiving end of intense online anti-Semitism after she wrote a profile of Melania Trump.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter, @DanielJSolomon

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