Take heart.
The rage is for a reason.
They’re losing.
And they can sense it.
via nationalreview:
American politics is taking a dangerous turn. Or, I should say, American politics is taking a dangerous turn again. In the space of a few days last week, leftist protesters individually targeted trump aide Stephen Miller, taunted Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen in a restaurant and at her home, mocked (and allegedly spat at) Florida attorney general Pam Bondi at a movie theater, and denied service to Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a restaurant in Lexington, Va.
Then, on Sunday, Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters said this:
Maxine Waters calls for attacks on Trump administration: "If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere." pic.twitter.com/jMV7wk48wM
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) June 24, 2018
Make no mistake, this is provocative rhetoric. Angry, in-your-face confrontations dramatically increase the chances of violence. Put people in close proximity, yelling and spitting, and public officials will rightly start to fear that they’re in physical danger. While millions of Americans don’t remember that a Bernie Sanders supporter last year tried to assassinate a significant portion of the GOP Congress, you can be assured that not a single Republican in Washington has forgotten. They can never be sure that the screaming person in front of them doesn’t mean them physical harm.
Argue against these dangerous confrontations, and you’ll always get the same response: This administration is uniquely evil. It was taking children from their parents. The president just tweeted that he wants to strip due-process rights from illegal immigrants. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
What is the limiting principle here? The president caved on family separation after a few days of intense, bipartisan public pressure. Now the immigration policy the protesters are targeting is similar to one the Obama administration applied until late in his presidency.
How, for that matter, does the “desperate times call for desperate measures” analysis apply to events as disparate as threatening FCC chair Ajit Pai over net neutrality or attacking Charles Murray during a speech about America’s economic and class divides? How does it apply to the hellacious ordeal of Wisconsin conservatives who dared take on public-employee unions in Wisconsin? When the radicals actually hold the reins of government power, this can happen:
“It’s a matter of life or death.”
That was the first thought of “Anne” (not her real name). Someone was pounding at her front door. It was early in the morning — very early — and it was the kind of heavy pounding that meant someone was either fleeing from — or bringing — trouble.
“It was so hard. I’d never heard anything like it. I thought someone was dying outside.”
She ran to the door, opened it, and then chaos. “People came pouring in. For a second I thought it was a home invasion. It was terrifying. They were yelling and running, into every room in the house. One of the men was in my face, yelling at me over and over and over.”
THIS WILL END WELL: The Real World Is Starting To Resemble Twitter, And That’s A Problem. Don’t fool yourself. You’re not the new MLK. You’re just a insufferable jerk:
“If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station,” said Rep. Maxine Waters, erstwhile outlier of the irrational hateful Left and now-hero of the Resistance, “you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” Create a crowd, huh? Not welcome anywhere? That’s a tough spot.
Now, should it even be said that if any conservative had called for mobs to badger Democrats when they’re at the supermarket, the nation would be thrust into a national dialogue about the growing and perilous incivility on the Right. There would be a flood of anxious op-ed pieces and cable news roundtables featuring chin-stroking hypocrites contemplating the future of discourse in America. No one would be spared. Every Republican politician on Earth would be asked to condemn these comments.
Why am I speculating? This is exactly what happened during the peaceful Tea Party protests.
ROGER SIMON: Why The Left Is Having A Nervous Breakdown.
Trump is what the shrinks call the “presenting complaint.” The real problem, as is often the case in psychotherapy, is something entirely different. And it is this: The left is dead. It’s not only dead, it’s decomposed with no there there or anywhere.
Only dopes or con artists believe in socialism anymore (hello, Venezuela!) and identity politics has been exposed as the racist shell game it is with blacks and Latinos actually doing better than they have in decades under the current pro-capitalist administration.
So the left has nothing to say, only most of them don’t quite realize it yet. But this blockage, this reluctance and even inability to deal with what is actually happening shuts down the brain and emerges as anger, the hamster wheel of constant rage against Trump.
And that, of course, feeds on itself, as we have seen for the past year and a half, making matters worse, not just for the obvious reason — the aforementioned alienation of the public — but for what it does to their own minds.
Anger makes you stupid.
Well, they’re certainly stupid.
And also during the George W. Bush administration by the time of his reelection year, as the late Charles Krauthammer wrote in the summer of 2004.
GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Netflix Shares Dive Amid Exec’s Exit And Looming Diversity Questions.
MICHAEL WALSH: If you think of the Left as spoiled, nasty children, prone to temper tantrums when they don’t get their way… you’re absolutely right.
IT GETS WORSE: Red Hen owner reportedly kicked Sarah Sanders out then FOLLOWED her to new restaurant to protest.
Is America headed toward a civil war? Sanders, Nielsen incidents show it has already begun.
YOU MAY NOT BE INTERESTED IN SOCIAL WARFARE, BUT SOCIAL WARFARE IS INTERESTED IN YOU: If “Social Warfare” Is The New Norm, Conservatives Will Be Forced To Play The Game. “Nobody is going to get the message until Democrats and liberals find out that they don’t get a free pass to behave in this fashion and go unanswered.”
THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO SHOW UP: Democrats face trouble from population losses in high-tax blue states.
THE TORPEDOES KEEP CIRCLING BACK AROUND: CBS Poll: Guess What Two Weeks Of Immigration Debate Did To Dem’s Generic Ballot Advantage?
h/t GR