After the spectacle of Robert Mueller’s real time crumbling apart like a stale cookie, pundits took to the air to voice their frustration that Democrats are simply not tough enough to take on the Trump machine. For what it’s worth, recurring mosquito Joe Scarborough buzzed, “If you want to stop Donald Trump, it is time to ... roll up your sleeves and go after him and do whatever it takes to win”. Michael Moore tweeted that Trump wins because “he understands that Dems aren’t street fighters”. It’s a crude but successful tactic. It’s the I thought I married a real man, but I guess I was wrong attempt to shame your partner into dealing with life’s challenges more forcefully.
Over at National Review, Michael Brendan Dougherty opined that Trump’s victories are the result of a timid opposition. He writes that “aggression is not the natural language of our political class”. I would argue that he is half right. Many Republicans, especially the self-proclaimed "principled" types, are loath to use not just aggressive language, but any uncouth monosyllabic brogue they consider beneath their pedigree. But aggressive language seems ominously natural when leftists speak about pretty much anyone who disagrees with them.
It was aggressive language when then-candidate Barack Obama told a Philadelphia crowd, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.” Ever the politician, Obama had enough sense to add the cute football reference, giving him the wiggle room needed for a future cop-out.
It is aggressive language when, in reference to Tea Party voters, Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa Jr.told a Detroit rally to “take these sons of bitches out”. Attending the rally was President Obama who, taking the podium shortly thereafter, passed on his chance for a Sister Souljah moment.
It is aggressive language when Joe Biden, speaking at the Moral Action Congress of the Poor People’s Campaign, said, "The fact of the matter is if we can't get a consensus, nothing happens except the abuse of power by the executive. There are certain things where it just takes a brass knuckle fight." He later said, "Let’s start a real physical revolution if you’re talking about it." In short, this is a former vice president and the current front-runner for the Democratic nomination encouraging civil war because of congressional deadlock.
It is aggressive language when Eric Holder appealed to violence, telling listeners that “when (Republicans) go low, we kick them". It is aggressive language when Hillary Clinton declared to CNN viewers that they “cannot be civil” with Republicans, or at any rate until Democrats win full control of Congress.
It is aggressive language when Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) told Mika Brzezinski that Democrats need to “fight in Congress, fight in the courts, fight in the streets, fight online, fight at the ballot box”, prioritizing SA-style street brawling above voting. It is aggressive language when congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), lectured a church audience that President Trump to be “eliminated,” when Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) implored Democrats to punch Trump in the face, and when Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA), encouraged rally goers in Los Angeles to physically harass Trump administration officials. It is aggressive language when Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) lamented that there are not yet uprisings across the country, and then hinted that she wished there were.
It is aggressive language when Michigan state representative Doug Geiss (D-Taylor), during a House debate on right-to-work legislation, threatened, “There will be blood. There will be repercussions,” if the legislation passed. It is aggressive language when State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal (D-MO) postedon Facebook her desire for Trump’s assassination, when state representative Brian Sims posted video online of pro-life teenage girls and offered money in exchange for their publicized identities, and when state representative Stephanie Kifowit (D-IL) called for the family of a Republican colleague to be lethally poisoned.
It is aggressive language when the New York Times ran an op-ed calling for the publication of identities and home addresses of Customs and Border Protection agents and pressing for their harassment. It is aggressive language when MSNBC’s Joy Reid suggested that, following the shooting of Republican congressman Steve Scalise by a Bernie Sanders supporter, that Scalise deserved it because of his views on gun rights and gay marriage. It is aggressive language when National Catholic Register journalist Michael Sean Winters clamored forRepublicans to be guillotined “when the revolution comes,” when Vicecommentator Kim Kelly encouraged the “milkshaking” of conservatives, and when Vox journalist Carlos Maza did the same.
It is aggressive language when Madonna threatened to blow up the White House, when Rob Reiner called for “all-out war” against the president and Fox News, when Morrissey said he would murder Trump “for the sake of humanity” if he could, and when Peter Fonda suggested that Barron Trump should be kidnapped and put in a cage with pedophiles and that Kristjen Nielson should be sexually assaulted. It is aggressive language when Bette Midler asked for Trump to be stabbed to death, when David Simon wrote that Trump opponents have no choice but to “pick up a brick”, and when Larry Charles encouraged leftists to arm themselves and wage war against “MAGA people”.
It is aggressive language when professor Lars Maischak tweeted that two Republicans should be executed for each deported illegal immigrant, when professor James Thomas advocated for physical harassment of Republican senators, and when professor Carol Christine Fair wrote that “entitled white men” deserve “miserable deaths” followed by postmortem castration.
The language of physical aggression is bellowed loud and clear from the political, cultural, journalistic, and academic classes of the Left. These aren’t vague, ambiguous slips of the tongue that can be explained away by context or poor phrasing. There is no dog whistling here. These are direct calls to violence. And this violence is being encouraged not by fringe lunatics who show up at baseball games to shoot congressmembers, but whom Dougherty refers to as the “political class.” Many of these examples were uttered when John Boehner, Mitt Romney, and John McCain were the face of the Republican Party, long before Trump rode down that escalator to declare his candidacy.
These threats are voiced by people who won’t throw the Molotov cocktails themselves but expect the friskier elements of their base to take the hints and do so. And they indeed do so, with relish and increasing brazenness. The growing violence on our campuses and in our streets is almost exclusively leftist and is a direct result of the green light being given to them by their leaders.
There is hesitation on the part of some Republicans to downplay the Left’s calls to violence or, worse, accept their equivocations that such speech is only metaphorical. Relax, you uppity clingers, you’re not so dumb as to actually think we are inciting violence, do you? What are you gonna believe, our smug denials or your Antifa inflicted head gash?
This hesitation, grounded in a desire to retain the moral high ground of decorum, is commendable. But it is also whistling past the graveyard. It is not my intention to speak on Dougherty's behalf, nor to cherry pick two sentences from one of a plethora of well written articles with which to misrepresent him. But this is an ugly time in our history, and we need our eyes open wide to the fact that our friends across the aisle are increasingly comfortable with promoting violence rather than civil dialogue in their dealings with us. These agitations are directed not against foreign dictatorships, but against American citizens with whom the agitators simply disagree. We cannot coexist with an ideology that is currently integrating the concept that conservatives publicly expressing their views, or even of conservatives being allowed to go about their lives in peace, are of themselves acts of violence.
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