Hypocrisy, irony, unabashed contradictory behavior now defines modern politics. Call it duplicity, disregard for truth, honesty, consistency. Sometimes it becomes too much. As Democrats play at show hearings around riots on January 6, 2021, they now boldly push pro-abortion violence. That must stop.
Bad enough, during 2020 there were race riots in 200 cities, encouraged by Democrat politicians. These ended in vast personal and property damage, the death of innocents – including police officers, weak prosecution, few convictions, and leading Democrats – including now-VP Harris – helping bail out violent offenders.
Downstream effects of ignoring violence are always bad. Violence in the past three years has spiked, with effects almost incalculable, partial assessments rising to billions in property damage (often in minority neighborhoods, Atlanta to Chicago, Detroit to Seattle, New York to Portland), hemorrhaging of public trust, rise of public fear, a shaken belief in public safety, new concerns for life, limb, and liberty. Only two in ten Americans trust the government to do what is right in 2022.
Democrats pushed police defunding in the name of social justice, reverse racism (later codified in CRT), shadowy groups espousing Marxism, neo-socialism, communist, anarchist, and social reengineering credos. The effect was to demoralize police nationwide, reduce response times, recruiting, and retention.
At the same time, violence against police officers rose – exponentially. By 2021, with Biden and Democrats running the federal government, police ambushes hit records in 2022. Police found themselves fighting for their lives, less well equipped or supported, suicides spiking.
Many outspoken Democrats, inconceivably, did not care. They continue to block Republican police reform efforts, intended to reduce distrust, improve respect, properly fund the police. They have continued to push jingoistic anti-police rhetoric, and they have strived for racial polarization.
Ironically, record numbers of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians seem to be leaving the Democrats, instead speaking out as parents, citizens, and defenders of free speech, worship, and gun rights. Record numbers of minorities – and women – are buying firearms, signaling disenchantment with Democrats.
But the big Democrat push for violence that boggles a traditional constitutionalist’s mind is happening right now, this month, this week, in recent days. Leading Democrats are pushing violence – seeking to inflame passions, invite anger, and place the idea that we are a non-violent republic, to the side. Some call for a “Summer of Rage,” others for a “revolution” in the streets.
Why? The claim is that violence is somehow now permissible – because the Supreme Court is returning abortion to the states, and likely to restore original meaning to the 2nd Amendment.
Rather than respecting High Court decisions, leading Democrats in Congress and White House are doing the reverse, the unthinkable, stirring violence. Their words are hard to misunderstand. They push “pay” back for justices who rule against Democrats, “righteous anger,” and “revolution,” are silent about violence, have held up a bill to better protect justices, even when passion-pushing nearly killed one.
The question must be asked – do they want all this? If not, why are they not universally speaking out against violence? Do they want more street violence? Are they inviting overreaction? Do they nurse the idea that, while radical and unfortunate, a dead justice would potentially delay reversal or Roe? Do they see some political advantage, national distraction from Biden’s disgraced leadership, in violence?
These questions are, in one sense, absurd – How can any national leader wish for violence in a society premised on rule of law. To encourage the breakdown of civil order, in any degree, is to start a process hard to stop, and to win a pyrrhic victory at best, when the civil order itself disintegrates.
Having said this, evidence continues to mount – from 2020, 2021, through mid-2022 – that some in the Democrat Party, particularly those beholden to or seeking favor from the far left, are either indifferent to the effect their reckless words can have on the civil order or intend to trigger violence.
Let us be clear. No one who lived through the 1960s, when America saw the death of a president, death of a presidential candidate and former Attorney General, death of an iconic civil rights leader, loss of billions in physical property, productivity, educational quality, and public trust – could want that again.
Only those utterly unaware of what they are doing, or wishing the worst for this country, could press the cause of violence in the streets for political gain. Not only is that approach anathema to our Constitution, and federal statues, it is the bold promotion of public fear and personal insecurity.
So, what should every public leader do right now – to dispel that idea that violence is an answer to anything, as we await Supreme Court decisions, a fraught election cycle, fight inflation, and watch the world in tumult? They should strongly advocate AGAINST street violence, strongly encourage public restraint, support for police, the Supreme Court, civil dialogue, rule of law, and their fellow citizens.
Having watched societies become unstable around the world, when serving at an Assistant Secretary of State and in other capacities, this much is clear: More societies collapse, become unmanageable, go from order to chaos, spiral downward … from violence and public corruption, or from ends justifying means, than any other cause. Let us not be one. Democrats should wake up, not encourage violence.