It didn’t matter to a mob in San Francisco last night that Union General Ulysses S. Grant had once freed the slave he’d been given by his wealthy father-in-law, nor that he had won the war that freed the slaves. They tore down a statue of Grant anyway.

Across the city, another group toppled the Junipero Serra statue. Serra founded the first nine Spanish missions in California.

In Washington, D.C., rioters spent hours trying to pull down a statue of confederate officer Albert Pike from its post in Judiciary Square, and ultimately succeeded.

Meanwhile, in the land of CHOP, one man was reported dead and another person was shot and wounded overnight.

What’s happening? What is the left’s objective here?

Last week, I posted about the increasing number of calls from the left to defund the police. I wrote:

This misguided and dangerous effort, understandably, has begun to take its toll on the morale of police officers across the U.S., who are resigning in large numbers. The “blue flu” has taken hold and it will continue to spread until some sanity returns to government leaders…

Can anyone blame them? Why would a police officer continue to report to a dangerous, and now thankless, job when half the country is insulting them on a daily basis.

A reader pointed out that, rather than “half the country,” the true figure was closer to 150,000.

He wrote:

“when half the country is insulting them on a daily basis”…it’s not half the country, not even close. It’s probably more like 100-150k total nationwide. Even the vast majority of dems don’t support ‘defund’. Moderate dems are finding out that they have more in common with Reps.

It’s impossible to know what the actual total is, but my reader was probably much closer to it than I was.

But it feels like half the country is insulting them on a daily basis. This is the perception the left has been working so hard to create. The left is waging an information war against the right and it’s been highly effective.

Townhall’s Kurt Schlichter wrote a fascinating column this week entitiled, “This Leftist Tantrum Is an Information Operation and Trump Is Winning It,” that describes this very phenomenon. He writes:

Let’s understand the strategic scenario. The long-term strategic objective of the leftists is to turn the United States into Venezuela, and they want to be Maduro. The major strategic objective that will put them in position to do so is victory in the November elections. Everything happening right now is part of their overall strategy to achieve that objective.

Schlichter describes the two main ways to achieve this goal. The first is a kinetic operation, which is actual warfare.

The second strategy, which is what the left is employing, is an information operation which seeks to create a desired perception and causes the target to act.

So, notes Schlichter, the difference between the strategies is that one seeks “to do something to the enemy” such as an attack or a siege and an information operation is intended “to get the target to do something to himself.”

The events that have taken place since the death of George Floyd have been breathtaking.

Seattle, WA officials have allowed activists to establish their own “autonomous zone” in the center of their city.

Six hundred police officers have been wounded, including one who has been paralyzed from the neck down and another killed. Buildings have been torched, including a police precinct, stores have been looted and statues have been toppled. On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the removal of portraits of four former house speakers who served in the Confederacy.

Additionally, Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben have been shown the exit. There’s been a demand for the “white boys,” Snap, Crackle and Pop, to be removed from the Rice Krispies box. On Friday, SJWs targeted Eskimo Pies and the city of St. Louis. And the black chef pictured on the Cream of Wheat box, known as “Rastus,” may be next.

We’re in the middle of a cultural revolution. The left’s extraordinary effort to purge public spaces of anything and everything associated with racism has been conducted with one goal in mind – to regain control of the U.S. government.

Schlichter writes that Democrats are “baiting” President Trump “to provoke an overreaction.” He continues:

They want to convince us we are powerless, that everyone else supports their commie agenda, that we cannot win. Their tactics are designed to create that impression and crush our morale.

But another tactic, familiar to any student of insurgencies, is to provoke an overreaction by those in power in order to undermine its moral authority. They want is to make us (including the president) think this is a kinetic operation, and get our side to make fundamental strategic errors by failing to recognize the true nature of the threat. They hope that such a mismatch between perception and reality will then lead to gravely damaging blunders. One of those would be Trump succumbing to his legit frustration and sending in a bunch of federal troops to crack skulls in Seattle.

…

Trump can and should let Seattle’s problem be Seattle’s problem. A small-scale riot in a peripheral city known for coffee, drizzle, and droning, garbage music is the very definition of a local problem. Why would Trump interject himself into it and relieve the mayor and governor of the consequences of their failure to keep order? Why would he stop them from showing the electorate exactly what the reeking cesspool they could expect after Gropey Joe defunds the police looks like?

Scumbagistan is a giant zit on the face of liberalism, and why should Trump pop it? He’s letting it fester for all of us to see – and winning the information war.

The chaos and the lawlessness play well with the radical elements of society. Not so much for the rest.

This theory also proves my reader was right. Relative to the size of the U.S. population, it is only a small portion of the population who are calling to defund the police. However, the Democrats have created the perception that a great number of people support it. It is just as Schlichter says. Perception vs. reality.

If Seattle is okay with maintaining the social experiment that is CHOP in their backyard, so be it. The governor and the city’s mayor will be held responsible for it. It’s worth noting that Democratic leaders in other cities aren’t allowing autonomous zones to be erected and have quickly ended attempts that have been made to build them.

The majority of Americans don’t want to see the wanton destruction of property in our cities, the looting of stores and other businesses, or the defunding of police. I heard a commentator on TV last night say that even his liberal friends are quieting purchasing guns.

So, let’s let them carry on. Why interfere when our enemy is making a colossal mistake?

The left has made a serious miscalculation and hopefully they’ll pay for it at the ballot box.

God help us if Biden wins and the far left gets their hands on power…