Commies

So there's this show called Tree Fu Tom, about a kid who magically shrinks himself to help out the inhabitants of a tree in his backyard. In this one episode, the Mushas (mushrooms/toadstools/fungi), trick the local grownup, Treetog, into leaving for a few days, then start making announcements and city-wide changes using her voice. Eventually Tom sees through their subterfuge, rallies his fellows around him with the truth, and gets them out of there so Treetog can come back. 

The Mushas are Amanitas, so you know they are bad. They also make things stinky and dirty like in Musha City - Tom uses the resemblance to make it clear that something is rotten in Denmark . 

There are a couple of different ways to interpret this, but one valid one is that the Communists (Mushas) have subverted the government (Treetog), taking it over from the inside, a bit at a time, subtle changes that individually go unnoticed. And then, almost too late, heroic McCarthy  - I mean Tom - deduces what they are up to, and rallies support to make it known what they are doing. 

Actually, that probably wasn’t what they were after. 

More likely, they are Big Oil (Mushas) infiltrating the media (Treetog) to spread disinformation and policy changes (climate change denial) that despoils the environment.

Either way, though, the precursors of the First Turning are already showing up.  As we work through the Crisis, the powers of institutions will become stronger - they have to, to fight the battles we want fought. And to decide what to fight, there will be more definite distinctions drawn between Us and Them, since battles require enemies. Then it’s only a matter of time, once the big fights are won, for smaller ones to take precedence. Witch hunts wouldn’t become a problem if they didn’t start off seeming like a good idea, didn’t take on people that everyone knows are bad.