When the enemy starts shooting, there is no principle to which one can appeal to make them stop. This is increasingly the problem in America. Politics has become intensely factional. “Norms” are losing their grip. There’s chaos in the streets. Who’s to blame for all of this? Conventional wisdom tells us Donald Trump, of course.
What has Cheeto Hitler done this time? First, it was ignoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s “dying wish.” Then a smarmy journalist asked the president whether he was secretly planning to overthrow the country, and his response was essentially, “Up yours.”
Trump, the narrative has it, continued his assault on “our norms” at Tuesday night’s presidential debate, when he “declined to condemn” so-called “white supremacists,” just as he had “declined to commit” to a “peaceful transition of power.”
These talking points are a complete inversion of reality. Only the most cynical people could deny that the violence in our cities is coming from the Left. Trump might be a bully, but his adversaries are barbarians. In their ideas and methods—in what they have done and promise publicly to do—they are far more hostile to the “norms” of a civilized country than the president, who they have treated like an illegitimate impostor from day one.
After four years of non-stop agitation, propaganda, and hatred directed at Trump and his supporters, it’s clear by now that the Left has no desire to share a country with the rest of us.
From Trump’s first day in office and even before, #TheResistance has waged a ruthless campaign to remove him from power, against the explicit will of the people, and failing this, to frustrate his every initiative. There is no doubt that should he win a second term, the Left will not accept it, and as Darren Beattie, Michael Anton, and others have explained, they appear to be plotting something to force Trump out in case he is successful.
Thanks in large part to the Left, Americans won’t even know who their president is going to be on Election Night. We just have to accept this nonsense. Because, you know, norms!
And that’s just the election. They also reject the Republican Party and every remnant of constitutional government and convention that allow it to continue existing. They don’t keep these plans secret: they talk openly about abolishing the Electoral College, ending the filibuster, packing the court—whatever they think is necessary to ensure a permanent hold on political power.
Beyond rewriting the rules of the system, they have zero shame about blaming riots and outright assassinations on the Right, when these are solely their doing. That Joe Biden could get away with calling Antifa “an idea” and then smile from ear to ear while Trump has to disown imaginary klansmen on national television is a disgrace. These are absurd, dishonest, and unfair burdens.
After all that the Left has put Trump, his supporters, and the country through, Trump is the last person who should be challenged to disavow political violence or prove that he is not conspiring against the “peaceful transition of power.”
But the Left is used to having everyone play their little game. Although they control most of our institutions, that isn’t good enough for them. They want it all. To them, it’s “cheating” when their power is challenged.
President Trump has always enraged the Left for this reason. He understands they are ruthless and he rejects their B.S. framework—unlike the Left’s useful idiots on the Right, who invoke words like “principle” to admonish their putative allies into accepting a skewed political system that has little to do with America’s actual principles, but which guarantees that those who are hostile to those principles grow stronger.
Perhaps if we just sat down and had a rational discourse with people harassing diners and shooting police officers, we could philosophize our way back to a peaceful status quo.
It is wrong to let innocent people be attacked and then lie to the country about who is responsible. It is impossible to have law and order when it is forbidden to speak plainly about those threatening law and order.
Trump has rightly called out the real threats while refusing to acknowledge the Left’s made-up ones. “This is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing problem,” he said of the riots Tuesday night. He has rightly called out the Left’s funny business with voting and justifiably has refused to commit to accepting a result that cannot be guaranteed to be fair. If it is partisan to demand transparent elections, if it is partisan to oppose lawlessness, then Trump is partisan to the fundamentals.
Begging people who are aggressively trying to dismantle America and its institutions, who lack all scruple, to be nice isn’t going to solve anything. It isn’t “principled” either. It’s cowardly and foolish.
To what principle could the Right possibly appeal in seeking compromise, what principle that the Left has not rejected? The Left clearly doesn’t respect the consent of the governed. They consider borders meaningless and citizenship an arbitrary privilege. The right of the minority to dissent, and the republican system of government that makes that possible, they find a nuisance and an anachronism to be abolished. They think America itself is “systemically racist” and in need of purgation.
If the Left were not so extreme in every way, if they would let Americans have a say in our own affairs, just, say, let us enforce our immigration laws, if they didn’t back half the country into a corner, Trump might not even be where he is today. But they will never accept that, of course. They want to crush Trump and the remnant of the country that he represents, along with anyone else who stands in their way.
The radical Left is willing to burn the country down for political power. People like that cannot be reasoned with. They are dangerous and they must be demoralized. Donald Trump gets this, which is why he is the president, and Mitt Romney is not.