The irony pervasive in mainstream media reports is so thick these days that it’s beginning to feel like quicksand. As I noted in my column earlier this week, Donald Trump is under attack by the entire progressive movement, who seem simultaneously in the grip of a violent paranoia while having lost all grip on the real world. Politicians come and go. Sometimes, a politician comes along that you hate. This does not mean fascism has come to America. It means that democracy works for people you disagree with sometimes, too.
But as I noted in my column, it appears that the Left is the real threat to democracy here. They claim the legitimately elected president is not legitimately elected or their president. They want to “rig the system” to ensure that the election of a candidate who triggers their hysteria will not happen again. The media claims that Trump is so repulsive that he justifies their open warfare on him. Keith Olbermann told a studio audience to cheers that the United States had been “invaded.” And worst of all, certain progressive elements have used the election of a candidate they dislike to justify open violence.
It started right after the election, when videos surfaced of Trump voters getting viciously beaten, to widespread silence and perhaps satisfaction on the part of the media, who were instead covering a largely fake explosion of hate crimes that we were to believe was the new normal in Trump’s America. At the Inauguration, riots and attacks on police exploded in the streets, with protestors confusingly smashing up a Starbucks, which donates religiously to secular progressive causes. At the Women’s March, there were calls for a revolution and violent threats directed at pro-lifers who were at the rally. Lovely folks, these defenders of democracy. Glad they’ve got our backs.
Universities, of course, are the worst. I’ve seen many campuses explode into violence or vandalism when the secular snowflakes are presented with a point of view they don’t like, most recently at a Milo Yiannopoulos event at Michigan State University, when angry protestors tried to physically block the doors and scuffled with police. Earlier this week, at UC Berkeley, the progressives upped the ante. “Anti-fascist” protestors in black masks and black shirts smashed buildings and set them ablaze, pepper-sprayed and assaulted women, and battered event attendees into unconsciousness before ramming into the building the event was supposed to be held in with a stolen police barricade. There’s even footage of them kicking a prone, unconscious man lying on the asphalt.
It’s impossible for me to understand why many of my very smart progressive and liberal friends don’t seem to see that the real threat to democracy is coming from the Left. You may think Trump is stupid, and repugnant, and that he is doing or will do a terrible job. We’ll all find that out together. But when blackshirts shut down opposing points of view with arson, assault, and anarchy, it’s time to ask whether the hysteria and paranoia has perhaps gone a little too far, and if levels of hypocrisy this far off the charts are sustainable for much longer.
These protestors seem incapable of making the case for anything at all, much less “democracy.” They’ve lost both the argument and the will to argue, so we have armed adults throwing a temper tantrum, and a few Molotov cocktails too. In defence of the law, they break the law. In defence of feminism, they assault women who hold different views. In defence of tolerance, they beat those they disagree with into unconsciousness. In protest against the fact that Trump “isn’t normal,” they set the university on fire. This, ladies and gentlemen, is apparently what progress looks like. Congratulations, protesters. Some days, you’re the only thing making Trump look good.
Reminiscent of the ‘brown shirts’ of another terrible time. 🙁