Memo to the Media: That Whole 'Unity' Thing? It Ain't Happenin', Y'all

There’s been a lot of yada yadaing in the mainstream media and on the left – and even from some on the right – over the course of the last week or so about how we must now all join together in the spirit of unity and healing in order to move our nation beyond the deep political divisions that exploded over the past four years.

I know I’m not the first conservative to say this and I know I won’t be the last, but I’m planting my flagpole in the ground right now on this one.

No. Not just no, but absolutely, positively, unequivocally hell no.

For starters, talk of “unity” is premature. Though the media and Democrats have declared the presidential election “over”, it’s my personal opinion that the election won’t be over until any recounts are done and the legal arguments are made and dealt with in the courts.

I know some of my detractors on the left will read this and exclaim I’m doing so out of some deep fealty to President Trump, which would be actually quite comical considering I was a Never Trumper in 2016 and didn’t vote for him.

I didn’t hop on the “Trump train” until probably mid-2017, and it was more due to begrudging respect for his “no holds barred” approach with his political opponents and the left-wing media than anything else, as inartful and offensive as those approaches were to some.

In any event, like so many conservatives, I have watched over the last four years as Trump has often been declared an illegitimate president by the media and the left, as Democrats attempted to oust him numerous times based on supposed “bombshells” that weren’t, as “respectable” Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams were allowed to routinely undermine the integrity of our elections process with no pushback whatsoever from a political press that treated them with the reverence one might see shown by loyal and obedient subjects to a monarchy.

And yet every time Trump turned their tactics around on them, he was “diagnosed” from afar – without evidence – as being mentally unfit for office, an enemy of the state, a “sore loser.”

But my lack of willingness to “unify” with the left and the media goes way, way beyond Trump. The media’s and left’s decades-old abhorrent treatment and dismissals of Republicans and their ideas started well before Trump and it will continue long after he’s gone from the spotlight. Trump was just the giant flashlight that exposed it all in ways that perhaps no other future Republican president ever will.

I’ve watched for the last four years as all Republicans were painted with the “racist” brush because of what happened in Charlottesville (this was in addition to Trump’s comments about Charlottesville being repeatedly taken out of context by the media and Democrats). I’ve watched how “Reopen” protesters were labeled “grandma killers” for simply wanting to be able to get back to work to provide for their families.

And yet when Antifa and BLM spent months at a time blocking streets, beating people up, injuring police officers, setting fire to entire city blocks, destroying buildings, and in some cases marching directly into neighborhoods and harassing residents, they were called “mostly peaceful protesters.” There were no lectures about them being “grandma killers” for failure to adhere to all CDC guidelines. In fact, the media and Democrats gaslit the hell out of the issue, and actually encouraged them to continue wreaking havoc.

It was the same dishonest garbage that we all saw play out during the Obama years, too. The Tea Party and other conservatives were branded “racists” for opposing President Obama’s agenda. Legitimate disagreements were treated with disdain, mockery, and ridicule. Republicans opposed to Obamacare “wanted people to die”, according to Democrats and the media, both of who ignored all the arguments about how the “Affordable Care Act” in the end would most definitely not be “affordable.”

Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street thugs who were literally terrorizing people in front of their homes and throwing rocks into banks were treated as “protesters” who had “legitimate grievances” with “the system” or whatever.

Democrats have also seen fit over the last four years to trash law enforcement officers, the vast majority of who perform admirably and heroically under the most stressful and dangerous of situations.

Democrats have also decided that actual women’s rights don’t matter anymore, and instead cast their lot with the crowd that believes a man can identify as a woman at any point in time and, accordingly, must be given “the right” to utilize the same showers, bathrooms, dressing rooms, and shelters that women do.

Democrats have become even more extreme on abortion, advocating for the termination of unborn babies at any point during pregnancy and for any reason whatsoever.

Democrats have also taken “cancel culture” to a whole new despicable level, and along with that have decided that “enemies lists” are the appropriate way to deal with people who disagree with them politically:

This is why we don’t believe the “heal and unite” message.

Because these leftists are unified only in calling for our blacklisting, labeling us liars and racists, and demanding we be broken and burned.

This belongs under Stalinist authoritarianism, not America. pic.twitter.com/oUggvoNzG3

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) November 10, 2020

No. I will not “unify” with such people in the interest of “healing” and “moving forward.” Does this mean I can’t get along with my neighbors and others in my community with who I have political disagreements? No, as David Harsanyi explains:

Unity is found in comity with your neighbors, in your churches and schools, in your everyday interactions with your community. Politics is not a place for unity. It is a place for airing grievances. And we’ve got plenty.

What Democrats and the media ultimately mean when they call for “unity” and “civility” is for Republicans to shut up while the left gets to ram their extreme agenda through – regardless of who is president. Forgive me if I’m not feeling particularly obliged to comply.