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Leftist Violence in the Wake of the Election Is Unacceptable

With just a few days to go before one of the most hotly contested elections in our lifetimes, violence has become commonplace in big cities like Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City. That violence cannot be allowed to spread after the election if and when President Donald J. Trump wins his second term. 

It’s amazing that this even needs to be said in our country, but violence should not become an accepted tool of politics. Yet, for the Left, we see brutal attacks exploding nationwide when their activists don’t like an expression of a contrary opinion. We are right to worry about what they will do if they don’t like the results at the ballot box.

Even though it is obvious that President Trump is committed to the idea of a peaceful transition, he is not going to be bullied by left-wing reporters and Democrats into publicly saying it. The virtue-signaling Democrats are quick to criticize President Trump, yet they are silent when it comes to the increasing violence of left-wing revolutionaries who will not be peaceful when Trump wins a second term. The Left are hypocrites yet again, because they ask of Trump a pronouncement they themselves are reluctant to deliver.

Of course, these radical Leftist revolutionaries burning and looting cities are not being vigorously denounced by former Vice President Joe Biden or Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). In fact, they’re not being denounced by them at all. Have you heard either Biden or Harris denounce Antifa by name? I’ll wait, but I’ll be waiting for a very long time. Biden and Harris should be held to account for refusing to denounce the Left’s violence.

Democrats are openly refusing to accept the results if they lose. We all remember when a shocked Hillary Clinton refused to take the stage in 2016 to congratulate President-elect Trump and concede defeat on Election Night. Democrats are hypocrites because they ask Republicans to abide by a set of rules they refuse to apply to liberals.

The Constitution is a sacred contract that has been made, and modified, to allow for a peaceful way to resolve political disputes. The system has worked for well over 200 years, yet the hard-core Left does not respect our nation’s supreme law. It particularly does not respect the fact that it allows people like President Trump or, really, anyone who differs with them to win. This is just another way of saying that the Left does not respect America. 

Democrats didn’t view the outcome of the 2016 election as legitimate and we saw the consequences of that with many on the Left questioning the legitimacy of the Trump presidency. These same radicals proudly burn the American flag and look for any excuse to attack symbols of American power. Confidence in the democratic process and our republican form of government is the lynchpin of America’s survival, yet many leftists are occupying chairs in the ivory towers of major universities and teaching hate for America—a hatred that greenlights violence.

The United States has survived invasion, terrorist attacks, and massive social changes with relatively few instances of political bloodshed—with the obvious exception of the Civil War. Yet we survived. Attempted overthrow of a democratic republican form of government founded in the consent of the governed is not what happens in a mature nation and it should not be tolerated. The rhetoric used by groups preaching anarchy and violent revolution needs to be denounced by leading Democrats today, before Election Day, with a view to the possibility that the election may give leftists license to loot, shoot, and burn again.

Nothing is sacred to the Left anymore. Anything standing in the way of their power is treated with dismissiveness and sneered at. If they find it inconvenient, and they find many things about this republic wildly inconvenient, they will denounce it or try to change it. In the last election, there was some talk on the Left of motivating electors to vote for somebody other than the candidate who won their state. They do not respect our institutions or our norms. Any allegation of fraud should be fought out in the courts, not in America’s streets. But who believes they will adhere to this standard?

Prominent Democrats and liberal thought leaders, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, have yet to preemptively denounce any attack on our republican form of government. And, of course, they won’t do it. They will do absolutely none of the above. Their silence is violence and it is, of course, intentional. More than that, it is a failure of leadership. If they aren’t capable of denouncing attacks on our nation, on our republic, then they aren’t capable of leading it. Period. 

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About Ned Ryun

Ned Ryun is a former presidential writer for George W. Bush and the founder and CEO of American Majority. You can find him on Twitter @nedryun.

Photo: Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images