As the old song goes, the times, they are a-changing. We saw that with alarming clarity only last week, when Republicans and the conservative movement — let's not harbor any illusions about this — were handed a serious setback. We may be several cycles recovering, and Democrats and the rest of the far left will do everything they can to ensure we never do. Furthermore, some recent reporting, some recent statements by the Left, from politicians and activists, are making it pretty plain that they will do anything necessary to keep the control they have gained.
And, yes, some of them are just plain calling for revenge. Well, that generally doesn't end well; there's another old saying that goes, "When you set out for revenge, first, dig two graves."
But many on the left sure seem determined to have that revenge, as noted in a recent Issues & Insights editorial.
A September poll asked 683 Democratic voters how they would feel if they “woke up tomorrow morning and saw the following news headlines.” The Center for Strategic Politics found that nearly nine in 10 (86%) said they would have a positive feeling if the headlines told them “President Donald Trump has been impeached and convicted by both houses of Congress and has been removed from office.”
Not surprising, yet still somewhat chilling.
But things get worse.
Fifty-six percent said they’d be happy learning that Trump had died overnight in his sleep, while 84% would be pleased if the 25th Amendment had been used to declare Trump “unfit by a majority of his Cabinet and removed from office.” Almost 60% would be delighted if a military coup had ousted Trump.
That's inhuman. And, that's the Left today. A recent piece at American Greatness illustrates just who these people are with amusing clarity. It's the first of the three waves of leftist thought that is the most hateful in their actions and rhetoric.
One was the loosely knit but ideologically uniform cadre of protesters, pussy-hat-wearing performance artists, Pecksniffian professors, professional outrage emitters for hire, and sad females of both genders who regularly congregate outside the White House and other public venues with signs protesting this week’s trumped-up Trumpian tort. They formed a sort of background obligato, slightly hysterical, utterly unquestioning, unremittingly accusatory. They thought themselves repositories of every virtuous sentiment while Donald Trump and all his works were anathema. Doubtless there are pages in some textbooks on abnormal psychology devoted to such unprepossessing creatures.
These are the people we should look at with caution. They toil not, neither do they spin, but they seem all too willing to abandon the civil standards of Western civilization. Historically, that kind of thing, these kinds of civil revolts, tend to end up badly for the revolutionaries; they are useful foot soldiers, but that's all they are. These are the people who are willing to throw bottles filled with urine at cops, but the history of communist and socialist revolutions shows brilliantly that, while the useful idiots seem always to think they will be the ones walking around with clipboards, deciding which dissidents go to which re-education camp or gulag, they are more likely to end up purged as known troublemakers.
Still, there's an opportunity in all this for Republicans and conservatives; and yes, there's a Venn diagram there that overlaps a lot but not completely. We shouldn't ignore this kind of rhetoric from the Left. We shouldn't ignore the shouting useful idiots, the vicious little black-bloc-wearing goblins who are rioting in the streets, or the unhinged statements of leftist activists and leftist politicians. No, these statements, these acts, should be shouted from the rooftops. Most Americans don't want political violence. Most Americans aren't bent on revenge against political opponents, by anyone. Most Americans will recoil in horror against the notion of a violent backlash following what was supposed to be a peaceful transfer of power.
And no, that's not what happened on January 6, 2021. What that was, was at best hooliganism, but the government's reaction to those acts far outstripped the levels of any sane response.
Our republic almost certainly faces some serious problems ahead. But in the long run, I think that conservative thought and conservative policies will win through. It may be after some considerable conflict; it may be after some downright violence. But in the end, I think we'll win through. Why? Why would I think that?
Well, here's why and I'm going to tell you: It's because we're the people who make things work. We're the people who make things, who fix things, who carry on commerce. We're the ones who innovate, who create, who build wealth by creating things, not by looting or mooching. We're the ones who, in the end, make our economy and our civilization work. We're the ones who stand up and fight, when necessary, to protect that civilization, and our history also shows that we're pretty good at that.
We, not they, are indispensable, if we want to keep our modern, technological lifestyle humming along. And that's the key point that the Left misses:
They need us. We don't need them.
The Left would do well to seriously contemplate the meaning of that. Because if it's violence they want, it's violence they'll get, and they are not going to come out on top.
