Media Matters has documented two outrageous attacks on dissent in which a conservative talk show host and the New York Post editorial board demand that Democrats prove their allegiance to this country.

In the first, the group points out that CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck recently hit Keith Ellison, a newly-elected Muslim member of Congress, with the post-9/11 version of “when did you stop beating your wife,” asking Ellison to “prove” he is “not working with our enemies” before disavowing the statement:

BECK: [M]ay we have five minutes here where we’re just politically incorrect and I play the cards face up on the table?

ELLISON: Go there.

BECK: OK. No offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. I’ve been to mosques. I really don’t believe that Islam is a religion of evil. I — you know, I think it’s being hijacked, quite frankly.

With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, “Let’s cut and run.” And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, “Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.”

And I know you’re not. I’m not accusing you of being an enemy, but that’s the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.

Similarly, MM flags a New York Post editorial demanding Democrats confirm United Nations representative John Bolton to “demonstrate conclusively to America’s enemies that they don’t have enemies on Capitol Hill”:

The Democratic takeover of Congress appears to have taken its first scalp: It now appears likely that U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, faced with intransigent opposition from the new majority party, will have to step down.

That would be a tremendous loss for America’s diplomatic efforts. And it would send exactly the wrong signal to the nation’s enemies – who were rejoicing last week and feeling emboldened in the wake of the Dems’ victory Tuesday.

…Democrats have an obligation to demonstrate conclusively to America’s enemies that they don’t have allies on Capitol Hill. By moving so swiftly to torpedo John Bolton, they’ve sent precisely the opposite signal.

No American needs to prove their loyalty to these demagogues. Their McCarthyesque tactics have no place in public life.