The Only Reason to Fear Trump's Return to Power, the Respectable Right Says, Is ... You Won't Believe How Stupid This Is.
Hint: Everything is the Democrats' fault.
Does America have a problem with political violence? I yield to no one in my opposition to political rioting, and, in fact, during the summer of Black Lives Matter protests following the police killing of George Floyd I wrote here a piece entitled, “Stop the Rioting.” In the end, however, this amounted mostly to some vandalization and some looting. According to the nonprofit Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, during the year following Floyd’s death, 94 percent of all Black Lives Matter protests involved no violence, vandalism, or looting, and in the remaining 6 percent it was not always clear who instigated the violence. By contrast, only 86 percent of right-wing demonstrations during the same period involved no violence, vandalism, or looting, which means 14 percent contained these elements. Right-wing demonstrations are twice as likely as left-wing demonstrations to threaten life and property. As I’ve written previously, we don’t have a political violence problem in the United States. We have a right-wing political violence problem in the United States.
Pick a timeline, any timeline. 2015-2021? Right-wing extremists were responsible for 83 percent of all deaths connected to domestic terrorism. The late 1940s onward? The incidence of right-wing violence was nearly double that of left-wing violence. Every time some law-enforcement official states the obvious truth that political violence tends to be right-wing, he gets called on the carpet by congressional Republicans who don’t want to hear it.
That makes it especially ridiculous that National Review, in fumbling around for some reason to regret the possibility of a second Donald Trump presidency, can come up only with the possibility of a left-wing January 6 (though of course it doesn’t call it that because that would require saying “January 6” out loud). National Review’s rationalization of Donald Trump, whom previously it called “unmoored,” “heedless and crude,” “reckless,” and someone who “disgraced the office of the presidency,” testifies to the moral bankruptcy of respectable conservatism. That’s the topic of my latest New Republic piece. You can read it here.
Projection is all they've got. Liberals don't generally incite violence, other than "punch a Nazi" sorts of rhetoric (and a rare real life punch). In our current timeline, it's a silly suggestion, that a gaggle of liberals would gather to attack any of our nation's institutions.
My paranoid tenant found a great house to rent. This is good because my apartment that I rent was too small for this couple. They have too much stuff. So as I’m fairly laissez-faire about locking up the now mostly empty apartment. I offered to leave it open so they could come collect stuff from the refrigerator the next day. He was incensed. How could you leave that unlocked. Don’t you know someone could come in. I’m like what would they do? Steal some crappy furniture that I left in there. Take a nap? Use the bathroom? Of course I am locking my door. I thought about it for a while. The only thing I could come up with is that his paranoia stems from his sneaky persona. He simply can’t imagine why someone wouldn’t sneak into the apartment and wreak havoc because HE would.
This particular couple, have applied for government assistance when they don’t need it. They lied on their applications, as many do. it was really not my problem, but they do other things that are all victimless crimes. They don’t understand what might be wrong with that. It’s as I said little stuff, they bought a service dog vest from Temu so they could take their dog into stores, little stuff. They absolutely don’t understand what might be wrong with that. I am not going to educate them, but I also don’t admire them. They don’t understand that. I think the GOP doesn’t understand why liberals would never storm the capital for the same reason that the proud boys would.