We’ve been kicking around a lot of pixels over the election, and as it grows nigh, there have been many discussions about what happens next – especially if Donald Trump wins. In 2016, there were protests. 2020’s “Summer of Love” riots, looting, arson, and yes, insurrection were another step towards establishing violence as an acceptable form of political discourse for the left. And yes, I said insurrection – not like the January 6th kerfuffle, which was, at most, hooliganism, but the actual takeover of a portion of an American city by an armed mob in defiance of established civil authority. That happened.
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Now an editorial at Issues & Insights, one of my favorite opinion sites, is describing how, this year, things could be worse – than 2016, maybe than 2020:
Two months ago, as the Democrats were preparing for their national convention in Chicago, we were concerned that it would be a repeat of the party’s 1968 convention that was marred by riots. But sanity prevailed. It was a relatively quiet affair. Will the Democrats be just as quiet if Donald Trump wins next week’s election? It’s more likely that they will erupt with rage.
After all, there have been two failed attempts to assassinate Trump. Yes, the suspects in both cases appear to be disturbed. But it’s been the nonstop vilification of the former president from the left that likely motivated them. The prospect of another term for Trump is going to push many over the edge that they’ve been teetering on since the man announced in 2015 that he was running for president.
Of course, they are teetering, and Trump (possibly) winning the election next week would certainly set a lot of them off. They have tried everything – impeaching him didn’t work; prosecuting him didn’t work. Joe Biden has been figuratively shouting “Will no one rid me of this turbulent presidential candidate?” for four years now, and that didn’t work. Now, two nutjobs have tried to kill him, and the only thing that happened is that Donald Trump was handed one of the most powerful political images since Ronald Reagan thundered, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
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The left has thrown everything at Trump but the kitchen sink and it would not be surprising to see that tried next, because, like a political Rasputin, Donald Trump just will not be removed from the game. Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump – his occasional careless comments, his flashes of boorishness, all that – the man has no quit in him. He just keeps coming back, and that’s not the worst trait in a politician, especially one who seems bent on being a bull in the Washington establishment’s china shop.
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Five days to go and the race is tightening. As I wrote earlier on Wednesday, I take great pride in being a creature of reason, but I also have some intuitions; my reasoning side looks at the data and admits that things seem very close, but my intuitive side tells me the arc of events seem to be bending towards Trump/Vance winning – and both sides think there will be serious unrest, including violence, in our major cities.
Issues & Insights’ piece continues:
Democrats have warned the country that Trump is a “danger to democracy,” a fascist, another Hitler. But it’s the Democrats who use the threat of violence to turn the election in their favor. “If Trump does win the election, the left in America will certainly riot,” says author and political commentator Douglas Murray. “They will make sure cities they believe they dominate go up in flames again.”
And they’ve apparently been considering the insurgent option for months. Jonathan Tobin wrote in the Federalist in February that Democrats “need a backup plan if the courts won’t do their bidding” to keep Trump out of the White House if he wins by “doing exactly what they labeled as ‘insurrection.’”
“A Trump victory would almost certainly set off bloody riots in every American city,” he said.
Hell hath no fury like the Democrats who won’t allow a peaceful transition of power.
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But the left should keep this in mind: The people who are engaging in these acts tend, broadly speaking, to see political violence as a dial, like a dial on a stovetop, where the heat can be turned up a little, down a little, as the recipe calls for. But many on the right see political violence as a toggle – with the preferred OFF position marked “peaceful discourse,” and the other, less desirable, to-be-avoided ON position marked “raise the black flag and start sorting some stuff out.”
And I would also remind any would-be rioters or looters of an old Alaskan saying: “The wolf’s strength lies not in its fangs but in its pack.”