One of the great delusions among many who are currently sitting on the sidelines is that if they just give the mob an inch, it’ll be satisfied with an inch and go home. But I think, deep down, everyone knows that’s not true. If the Trump era has taught us anything, it’s that feeding the mob only emboldens the mob.

In that respect, that’s one reason why so many are reluctant to buy into the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s not that they are against protecting black lives. Rather, they see the inevitable overreach and note that the train never slows down once it gets rolling. Normal people said “Hey, let’s talk about sensible police reforms” after the George Floyd killing. BLM said let’s abolish the police and capitalism is evil. Left-wing activists never stop because their goal is never really what it is first articulated as.

Case in point? Many were against the widespread destruction of Confederate statues, not because they cared deeply about those specific statues, but because they knew that allowing such third-world behavior would lead to other things. Well, we are now at that point.

Antifa rioters on Sandy Blvd. in Portland draped a US flag over a George Washington statue & set it on fire. They then toppled the statue. “Genocidal colonist” & “f— cops” are sprayed on monument. Rioters have began to build another autonomous zone nearby. pic.twitter.com/TrZkhPK9zp

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) June 19, 2020

The police were nowhere to be found as the statue of George Washington wasn’t just toppled, but was desecrated with phrases like “**** the police” and “1619” among mentions of “BLM.” Of note is that Washington was 113 years from even being born in 1619. The country he would later lead was also over 150 years from being established.

But none of this has to make sense. This movement is not one of intellectual heft or nuance. It’s one of cheap slogans and indiscriminate hate. Giving in to the mob, even if the mob may have a point on some marginal issue inside their mess of an ideology, only leads to more violence and destruction. That’s why it’s best to not play the game at that point.

And down goes George Washington.

Every politician and pundit who’s spent the last week trying to rename military bases is complicit in this madness. Your pathetic coddling of these domestic terrorists led to this. pic.twitter.com/Qi9Vc0ihlY

— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) June 19, 2020

What’s funny is that Trump, hardly known as a highly strategic thinker, predicted this three years ago. CBS News ran the following clip as an attempted gotcha. I mean, how crazy was the President for asking whether George Washington was next if we start tearing down 100+-year-old statues to satiate extremists?

"George Washington was a slave owner," Pres. Trump says. "Are we going to take down statues of George Washington?" pic.twitter.com/n3SFULvTD3

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 15, 2017

Yet, here we are, watching George Washington fall to the ground and being draped with burning American flags.

Unfortunately, almost no one in power seems to have the will to stand in front of the boulder and stop it. Instead, we are allowing ever larger bites at the apple in the vain hope that the mob will finally stop. They aren’t going to stop because they never stop.

One of the points of conflict many Christians deal with is continuing to seek reconciliation in our personal relationships while also recognizing that there’s nothing in the Biblical narrative that says the world as a whole is going to “get better” as time goes on. In fact, we are fairly well assured that things will get worse. Many times, I look at the continued degradation of our society and that truth becomes even more apparent.

But past religious outlooks, the reason none of this is going to stop is because those perpetrating the chaos see America as uniquely evil. That’s how you get insane comments from Democrat senators saying that America “created slavery.” It’s how you get the ACLU making the farcical charge that the death penalty was an outgrowth of lynchings. History begins, not within the confines of reality, but within the confines of what allows the anarchists to extract their pound of flesh. There is no further thought put into it in the context of history. That means even figures like George Washington are ripe for being canceled.

With that worldview, why wouldn’t these mobs want to destroy the country? And that’s exactly what they are going to continue trying to do.