Reza Aslan is supposedly an intellectual. He’s an Iranian-born religious studies scholar who has written several books, mostly centered on religion. A Muslim himself, he has written extensively about his faith. He’s also written about how to end religious extremism within his faith. Sounds good, for what it’s worth. However, Aslan isn’t a moderate individual. Not by a long shot.

Being one of the “blue checkmarks” on Twitter, he’s also a favorite intellectual among many on the Left. However, if he wants to talk about ending extremism, he might want to start looking in the mirror.

You are “the depraved evil” we need to eradicate. https://t.co/zPJhVS1hkn — Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan) August 4, 2019

After being called on it, he followed up with this:

After today there is no longer any room for nuance. The President is a white nationalist terror leader. His supporters – ALL OF THEM – are by definition white nationalist terror supporters. The MAGA hat is a KKK hood. And this evil, racist scourge must be eradicated from society. — Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan) August 4, 2019

I’m sorry, but while defending his call to “eradicate” Conway, he followed up by claiming that all Trump supporters must be “eradicated from society.”

I bet he also wonders why we won’t give up our guns, too.

Now, I’ve said before that I’m not a fan of Trump. The president has done some good things in his time in office, sure, but I don’t trust him to maintain the integrity of the Second Amendment, as seen by his call yesterday for universal background checks and his later calls for red flag laws. I also wish he’d stay off Twitter. While the ensuing meltdowns are hilarious to watch, too much important work is being missed in the aftermath.

That said, because I’m not always critical of Trump, I’ve been called a Trump supporter more than once. Yet Aslan would call for me to be “eradicated” simply because I’m not critical enough of the president.

Yeah. That’s a winning strategy to convince people who are only lukewarm on Trump to support a Democrat.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the unhinged Left. While Aslan has made something of a career trying to present himself as a moderate, he’s nothing but a violent extremist of a different sort. He just lacks the courage to do more than sling words on Twitter.

He tried to put the blame on Conway Monday night, blaming her for using the word first.

Again, if my using @KellyannePolls own word “eradicate” back at her means I’m threatening her life then her using the word means she was threatening the El Paso shooter. We are tired of this constant bad faith bullshit from the right and we’re not going to put up with it anymore. https://t.co/q6BdB2AA9o — Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan) August 6, 2019

However, let’s also be clear. Conway called for hate to be eradicated. That’s something we all should be able to rally behind, even if you don’t like Conway or her politics.

Aslan, however, clearly called for eradicating people. He laid out his belief that Trump supporters are universally racist and that “this racist scourge must be eradicated.” How is that not a threat? (Frankly, for a guy who has eaten human brains, you’d think he’d at least have some.)

For the record, Aslan has been remarkably silent on the Dayton killer, an avowed Leftist who once commented that all Nazis must die. There’s no mention of him at all on Aslan’s Twitter feed from what I could tell.

No, certain forms of rhetoric are only a problem if they’re coming from the Right. Aslan’s mental contortions to make Conway’s comment violent are nothing more than the depraved ramblings of a man who somehow thinks that his ends justify any means he may create.

The problem is that Aslan has almost 291,000 followers. While some are looking for the trainwreck, others listen. Aslan’s thinking may well persuade them to believe similarly that Trump supporters should be eradicated.

These are the same people who expect us to give up our guns. Doing so won’t make them stop calling for our “eradication” or anything of the sort, so just why should we? If people are clearly saying they want to “eradicate” people who share my political views and me, I’m holding onto my guns. I’m holding onto my AR-15s and higher capacity magazines and anything else I can get my hands on. I’m holding onto anything and everything I can so that if they decide to do more than talk, I’ll have the means to do more than talk as well.

I’d rather it never come to that, but if people like Aslan are going to make comments like that, I’m not taking the chance someone won’t follow through on his threats.