Who is responsible for the riots, lootings, beatings, and arson that plague our cities? The epidemic of violence has spread from the first-tier population centers like New York, Portland, and Seattle. Cities such as Reno, Nevada, Atlanta, Des Moines, and now Kenosha, Wisconsin have experienced political violence. In the era of get-Trump, there can be only one answer: Trump is responsible.
Trump, obviously, isn’t directly encouraging the riots or sending supporters to smash windows and burn police stations. His mere existence, the sound of his voice and his pompous optimism is a kind of “violence” that justifies the riots.
Antifa calls it “preemptive self-defense.” Historians might recognize that anticipatory “self-defense” argument from the 1930s. Governors expressly blame the president, not the rioters for the violence. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the COVID-19 dominatrix who banned fishing (and still managed to have the ninth-highest COVID-19 death rate in the country) said, “The president’s dangerous comments should be gravely concerning to all Americans, because they send a clear signal that this administration is determined to sow the seeds of hatred and division, which I fear will only lead to more violence and destruction.”
Not to be outdone, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said, “[Trump’s] tweets, his reaction, his failure to address the racism in America is stoking the flames in subtle and not so subtle ways.”
David Graham at The Atlantic recently wrote:
An outside agitator is stirring up violent protest in the streets of Portland, Oregon. His hand is at work in Seattle; Oakland, California; and Los Angeles, too. This agent provocateur set out to inflame protests simmering in these cities by making sure that armed hordes were in their midst, and it has worked: Many more protesters are out on the streets, throwing bricks at law-enforcement officers and engaging in vandalism. Blocks of these cities have been engulfed in tear gas. Mayors are pleading for calm . . . . The outside agitator’s name is Donald Trump.
Let’s stop and think about what is really being said about Trump’s culpability in the riots and violence. The looters, vandals, arsonists, thugs, and, in some cases, murderers, are not responsible for their actions because they’re reacting to Trump’s “rhetoric,” his “provocations,” and his tweets. This excuse—Trump made me mad so I can be violent—should be dismissed as ridiculous. It reminds us of what an abusive husband says to justify beating his wife. If only Trump would apologize and learn to adopt leftist policies, then there could be peace. But he insists upon charting an offensive and non-conforming political agenda. What choice do the rioters have?
In light of last week’s Democratic National Convention and Joe Biden’s speech, we’re left to wonder: Is this an election or a hostage situation?
While many rightly condemned Biden for his silence in the face of the rising violence in so many cities, it’s not entirely accurate to state he’s ignoring the violence. Last week’s acceptance speech actually endorses the “Trump provocateur” justification for the “darkness” in which we find ourselves.
“The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long,” Biden said at the outset of his speech. “Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division.”
Whose anger? Who caused the fear? Who caused the division? Trump did—the same way he created the riots. He failed to bend the knee to the church of wokeness. The solution, Biden reminded us, is ending dissent and uniting to unite, Chinese-style, under a single harmonious philosophy.
“United we can, and will, overcome this season of darkness in America,” Biden said. But if the president is reelected, “we know what will happen . . . . More mom and pop businesses will close their doors for good . . . ” Biden described this moment as “a call to action.” Repeating the discredited slur that Trump lauded white supremacists at Charlottesville, Biden said, “At that moment, I knew I’d have to run. My father taught us that silence was complicity. And I could not remain silent or complicit. At the time, I said we were in a battle for the soul of this nation.”
Silence is complicity? Joe Biden’s silence is deafening. And his speech served as a wink to the black-clad anarchists terrorizing neighborhoods and shopkeepers.
This isn’t a campaign of persuasion. It’s more like a block-letter ransom note carefully constructed to avoid fingerprints. It sure would be a shame if something happened to your nice towns and cities if you vote incorrectly again. Do you think those mobs burning police stations and city halls look angry now? Just think about the consequences of your vote before you lick the envelope to your mail-in ballot. A big victory for the bad orange man will have serious repercussions.
Andy Ngo, a journalist who Antifa routinely targets with violence, recently tweeted, “If Donald Trump wins re-election in November, Americans will experience a wave of mass left-wing violence, rioting and looting much worse than what we’ve already experienced so far.” Based on the lack of condemnation by the Democrats of the violence, we have reason to worry.
Will submitting to the implied threat of violent consequences spare us from the Left’s rage? Or will Biden become a Trojan Horse for radicals to seize the awesome power of the federal government?
President Biden the spectator will leave the machinery of federal prosecution in the hands of his puppet masters. He has already promised to stand aside while his politicized Justice Department prosecutes Trump for . . . well, they’ll find something. A Vice President Kamala Harris, who has a disturbing history of prosecuting political enemies, won’t simply stand by. She’ll push to have her political opponents arrested. Speaker Nancy Pelosi added her own call to criminalize opposition calling the President and all allied members of Congress, “the domestic enemies to our voting system.”
John Feffer of the Nation has an even more expansive enemies list. He writes:
Because Trumpism is a cancer on the body politic, the treatment will require radical interventions, including the transformation of the Republican Party, a purge of Trumpists from government, and the indictment of the president and his top cronies as a criminal enterprise.
Feffer lists a number of Trump donors and calls for a post-election purge. Purges, firings, and arrests of political opponents—like I said, harmony, Chinese-style.
But before that purge can happen, the election must be resolved in favor of Biden. Anything short of a decisive result for Biden, and we can reasonably anticipate a combination of lawyers and riots for weeks if not months after the election as local officials keep finding new mail- in ballots to tip close elections.
Recall that in California, more than a half-dozen apparent Republican congressional victories disappeared as “harvested” ballots continued rolling in long after Election Day in 2018. Universal mail-in balloting could make every close state into another post-election battleground as mailed ballots continue to appear.
And recall the experience in Florida in 2000, when the recount of ballots in the too-close-to-call presidential election was litigated all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Expect any resistance to counting any Democrat ballot, no matter how sketchy and suspicious, to be met with megaphoned accusations of “disenfranchisement” and probably racism, too.
Election Day could be just the beginning of the really ugly parts of this already horrible year.