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Warning: This opinion piece features profane language, as originally expressed by those quoted herein.
As American civil discourse devolves into mob rule, the received wisdom is that Democrats and Republicans are equally to blame for verbally abusive political rhetoric, in-your-face tactics, and genuine violence. "Both sides do it," the argument goes.
Rubbish.
This is like comparing a communion-wine-sipping parishioner with a street-corner drunk and saying, "See! They’re both alcoholics!"okay. Neither is a teetotaler, but only one’s behavior endangers himself and others. The right must take responsibility for its rare instances of deplorable behavior. But the left is light years more culpable for today’s political mayhem.
Liberals denounced Rep. Joe Wilson, R- S.C., for shouting, "You lie!" during Barack Obama’s September 2009 address to Congress. Some conservatives believed that Obama was a closet Kenyan.
"If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?" candidate Donald J. Trump told Iowans at a February 2016 rally. "I will pay for the legal fees, I promise."
A handful of early Trump rallies witnessed fisticuffs between pro- and anti-Trump participants. Some Trump supporters swung first, although Project Veritas caught Democratic strategist Scott Foval of Americans United for Change saying, "We have mentally ill people that we pay to do s**t." This included attending Trump’s events and "starting confrontations" to taunt Trumpians into violence. Foval explained, "You can message to draw them out, and draw them to punch you."
Liberals love to quote Michelle Obama: "When they go low, we go high." If only. Rather: " few of them went low, so we went highly bonkers and stayed that way."
John Nolte of Breitbart recently documented 352 acts of harassment and violence against Trump supporters, since Sept. 1, 2015. His frequently updated list of news accounts is chilling.
- Nolte cites 54 examples of assassination chic: expressed desires for and artistic depictions of the cold-blooded murders of President Trump, his family, staffers, and other Republicans. Actress Lea Delaria stated her wish to "pick up a baseball bat and take out every f**king republican and independent I see." On CNN, Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe said of Trump’s possible impeachment, "If you’re going to shoot him, you have to shoot to kill." Perhaps most notoriously, comedienne Kathy Griffin posed for photos with a mock-up of Trump’s severed head.
- Vandalism, property destruction, and arson appear 43 times in Nolte’s compendium. The GOP office in Hillsborough, North Carolina was firebombed. Republican campaign facilities in Florida, Kentucky, Nebraska, and New Hampshire suffered deliberate damage. Seventeen cars were harmed at a Maine Trump rally. A bumper sticker led a Trump follower’s truck to be set ablaze. A DHS official last month discovered a burned, decapitated animal carcass on his porch.
- This rap sheet contains 101 violent incidents against human beings. Pro-Trump women, kids, and seniors in California were pepper sprayed. A Trump-hater set a Trump lover’s hair on fire. Protesters knocked Rep. Dana Rohrbacher’s, R-Calif., district director unconscious. Wendi Wright allegedly tried to run Rep. David Justoff, R-Tenn., off the road with her car for voting to repeal Obamacare. A pack of Chicago thugs kidnapped, beat, and partially scalped an 18-year-old schizophrenic while yelling, "F**k Trump!" Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., campaign volunteer James Hodgkinson gunned down a Republican congressional baseball practice in a Virginia park, nearly killing Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La.
The solution to this carnage is inescapable. Democrats and the left must be crushed — metaphorically — in the midterm elections. An undisputed trouncing on Nov. 6, with the GOP keeping Congress, and possibly gaining seats in both houses, would accomplish two vital objectives.
First, after an unambiguous shellacking, Democrats at last might see that America rejects their unhinged, demented, increasingly socialist worldview. Once they finally heel, Democrats might crawl from the rubble and construct a credible, positive agenda beyond "Resist!"
Second, until that happens, an unmistakable plastering will keep power out of the hands of Democrats and their leftist comrades who are turning blood-soaked political violence into America’s new normal.