The videos drew instant attention.

Here at NewsBusters this was the headline: "NBC News Uses Kids to Criticize Trump in New Video

The story by Melissa Mullins began this way:

On Sunday, NBC News has resorted to using children in videos to deliver statements criticizing to President Trump just one month into his presidency. Opening with a young boy eager about an outsider coming to Washington to bring people together, the series, ‘Dear Mr. President: Letters from the American Children,’ then begins throwing cheap shots by using kids. One girl stated: ‘When you speak on things that make me feel uncomfortable, or I disagree with, you make me feel small because I know I can’t change it…’ Another boy sadly looked into the camera: ‘Most of my family is black. I’m afraid that you’re going to hurt some of us blacks…’”

Mullins was far from alone in picking up on this appalling abuse of children for leftist adult propaganda. Over at CNS News the headline was: "NBC Videos Enlist Condescending Kids to Trash Trump for Bigotry, Border Wall, Ban."

Began this piece by Craig Bannister:

NBC News handpicked anti-Trump tykes for two propaganda videos to make it appear that every child in American thinks Pres. Trump is an ignorant racist and threat to the country. Not one child in either “Dear Mr. President: kids Talk Trump” or “Dear Mr. President: Letters from the American Children” says he actually supports Trump’s efforts to keep America safe from terrorism or stop the influx of illegal aliens. Both videos open with smarmy, false compliments to give the illusion that these kids haven’t been indoctrinated by leftist teachers and liberal media…but, then, both launch into unrelenting snide rebukes couched in innocent-kid-speak. The kids accuse Trump of racism and violence against blacks:….

There were more stories like this. And what they were reporting was, for lack of a better word, creepy. A major American television network was manipulating children to spread anti-Trump propaganda. Alas, it was also a reminder of an example from the past.

The leftist UK Guardian has posted (without a sense of irony, apparently) a video titled the “Chinese Cultural Revolution: the boy who denounced his mother.” The video features an adult male who was used by the Chinese Communist Party to rebel against his parents in the name of Chairman Mao. The now remorseful man is featured crying at his mother’s grave and recalling a song taught in the day by Mao’s Cultural Revolution. The title: “Father and Mother are Dear, but Chairman Mao is Dearer.” His mother sharply disagreed and removed and burned the family portrait of Mao. For which her husband and son reported her to the police.

Is this what NBC is trying to inculcate in these manipulated kids in this anti-Trump video? Surely not consciously. But after an election season that revealed the depths of the Left’s authoritarian nature, the question is obvious.

Story after story emerged during the election season of the harsh reality that is liberal “tolerance” for dissent. They all run along the lines of this story in the New York Post. The headline: "My best man unfriended me because I support Trump

The story says this in part:

A Long Island man said he lost a score of Facebook friends — including the best man at his own wedding — when he posted a picture of himself and his wife at the victory party for President-elect Donald Trump. Gary Pollakusky from Rocky Point said he noticed about 100 friends missing from his friends list after he changed his profile picture to a snap of him and his wife Jeanine in front of a Trump/Pence backdrop at the Midtown Hilton where Trump held his victory party. ‘It wasn’t until probably a day or two day later that I started to look at my news feed again to see the pictures of puppies and babies that I was hoping people were posting again and one of those folks that I was looking for in my feed was my best man and I didn’t see anything,’ Pollakusky told The Post. ‘I clicked his profile and realized he had deleted me and we weren’t friends anymore.’

Stories of this kind have become common, with repeated reports of Trump-supporters losing jobs because of their vote or families, in the style of that Chinese boy who reported his mother to the authorities for having the audacity to burn Chairman Mao’s picture, disowning members who voted for Trump.

In that light, the NBC use of children to spew anti-Trump propaganda is both disturbing - and chilling.