On Bellwethers and Blinders

 

Photo Credit: Emilian Robert Vicol

This past November 10th, my wife and I were in a small, country diner having breakfast with our friend, a Cold War Intelligence hero. He had served under President Reagan, so we were keenly interested in knowing his thoughts on the presidential election of two days before. However, as our friend was regaling us with his analysis, something happened, a bellwether; an exceedingly unsettling one.

A couple of tables away from us sat a man. He was accompanied by an elderly gentleman who was wearing a WWII veteran cap; the elderly man was obviously under this younger man’s care. Overhearing our conversation, the younger man decided to make us aware that he approved of neither the election results nor of us happily discussing those results in front of him. He began speaking, loudly and with agitation, apparently to the elderly gentleman, but really to us. His comments were racially tinged and clearly meant to intimidate: Clinton won the popular vote; Trump doesn’t represent people like me, he represents people like them over there. He continued in that manner for some minutes.

It was a situation that bordered on the surreal. Here I was, in a room with my wife, two elderly, legitimate American heroes, and a guy, radicalized by Leftist narrative, who was quickly becoming unhinged. Further adding to my discomfort was the fact that I was both armed and blocked from being able to quietly leave and stow my weapon in my car.

Thankfully, the situation defused without incident, but I was left rattled. I began to ask myself: If someone could behave this irrationally over the election, with a WWII vet in his care, in mostly conservative Wyoming, if the Left’s current propaganda narrative of electoral illegitimacy and Popular Vote vs. Electoral College could be so effective here, then what must the rest of the country be like?

With this concern in mind, I relayed the event to a few political peers. I added to the telling the growing political fear of mine that the Democrats were planning to sow as much social unrest as possible before the handover, and in doing so, were possibly giving Obama an excuse not to do the handover.

The responses I received were discouraging: One of my peers dismissed me outright as delving into conspiracy, another engaged in abject ridicule. And yet, what I found far more discouraging was watching the weeks and days leading up to the inauguration unfold pretty much exactly as that bellwether in the diner had led me to fear.

The Democrats and their media, frantic for a narrative that would resonate, bounced from “Popular Vote” to “Fake News” before finally landing on their most effective narrative: “Russian hacking.” And with each narrative push to delegitimize Trump’s electoral victory, the Democrat base became more agitated. This agitation eventually began bearing rotten fruit, as America evidenced in horror when they watched news reports of a mentally disabled man who was tortured for hours on a Facebook live video stream because his torturers assumed him to be a Trump supporter.

On the same day as the Facebook torture video, after eight years of Russian foreign policy highlighted by a ridiculous “Reset” button and a live mic admission, “After my election, I’ll have more flexibility;” after a constant barrage from the Democrats and their media that the Russians had “hacked” a United States Presidential election; after having ejected 35 Russian diplomats as spies only five days earlier with Russian hacking cited as the reason, Barack Obama moved US Special Forces to the border of Russia.

Describing Obama’s actions as an “outrageous provocation” is an understatement. And describing that as an understatement is itself an understatement. But, when you consider that Obama pulled this little stunt with only seventeen days remaining until the inauguration, perhaps a more “conspiratorial” description is justified.

And then, just six days later, BuzzFeed published a now debunked report that, while in Russia, Donald Trump hired prostitutes to engage in a session of passive-aggressive urinary revenge-kink against Barack and Michelle Obama, and that he was covertly filmed while doing so.

Of course the Democrat base, now agitated beyond any semblance of reason, believed every absurd word of all of it. So much so that the very next day on Twitter, which was already flush with tweets to an #AssassinateTrump hashtag, Hollywood elite Rosie O’Donnell tweeted her demand that martial law be imposed to “delay” the inauguration.

But, despite all of the Democrats hysterical accusations, blatant agit-prop, and ham-handed militaristic stunts, in response to them Russia did… nothing. And now, as a delicious satire that the Democrats themselves wrote, they have to come to grips with their own malfeasance come back to bite them: i.e., Russia actually was instrumental in securing the Presidency for Trump, because Putin wasn’t stupid enough to take Obama’s and the Democrats’ outrageous bait to war.

But now, unfortunately, the rest of the country as well has to come to grips with the aftermath of what the Democrats have wrought in their obscene temper tantrum, a tantrum which had and has not yet ceased:

  • Two days before the inauguration, Wolf Blitzer on CNN pondered, “What if an incoming president and his immediate successors were wiped out on day one?” as an introduction to a CNN piece on how an Obama cabinet secretary could become the next President.
  • During his speech on the day of the inauguration, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, identified himself with, and quoted at length from, an American Civil War soldier, about to die in battle and vowing to never give up his fight.
  • The day after the inauguration, while addressing the purported half million protesters who attended the D.C. “Pussy March,” Hollywood elite Madonna Louise Ciccone confessed to having fantasies of “blowing up the White House.”
  • And over the inauguration weekend, up to 230 anarchist agitators (possibly paid for) smashed windows and set fires in D.C. and are now facing charges of felony rioting with prison sentences of up to 10 years.

However, I think one of the most telling tantrums is the one that focus group guru Frank Luntz experienced over the inauguration weekend. He was assaulted in the lobby of a D.C. hotel. A screaming protester threw glitter at his eyes: because tiny, jagged pieces of metallic plastic in an eye socket make for a laugh riot. Seriously. Try it sometime. And here’s what Luntz had to say about the incident on Fox News:

These protests are out of control … and to have to face this personally … I never thought this would be America. I never thought that this would happen in this country.

Unfortunately, Mr. Luntz, some of us did. But that’s the thing about bellwethers: A bellwether doesn’t appear often or to everyone, and if you don’t have your blinders off, you’ll miss it, and if you miss it, then you’ll probably find the report of one unthinkable.

Regardless, this is who and what the Left are now: once beyond parody and now apparently beyond conspiracy. And, thanks to them, this is what our country is now. As such, I’d like to suggest that maybe the day has past when one can glibly dismiss another’s fear concerning the Left as silly conspiracy simply because one considers that fear to be “unthinkable.” Just ask Frank Luntz, I suspect he might agree. Just as I suspect that he’s started to realize that tin foil can be fashioned into any number of items: not just hats, but all sorts of blinders.

This post was originally published on Jan. 29, 2017.

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  1. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    This is serious and requires a serious, steady and strong pushback. It looks like Trump is up to the task. Will enough people have his back?

    • #1
  2. ST Member
    ST
    @

    Even if we saw this coming (and I’d like to think that I did), I have no idea how we could have prevented it from happening.  The only thing that I can think of is to throw the book at each and every last one of these nut-jobs until they are either all locked up or stop misbehaving for fear of being locked up.  Half measures are not going to cut the mustard with the unhinged left.

    • #2
  3. Ilan Levine Member
    Ilan Levine
    @IlanLevine

    Yep. The left has been rejecting the legitimacy of presidential election results they don’t agree with, with increasing intensity, since Reagan’s election. Now that disease is starting to spread to many on our general side too. This will not end well.

    • #3
  4. Judithann Campbell Member
    Judithann Campbell
    @

    I am so sorry for what your wife and yourself had to experience, and especially sorry that two elderly veterans had to be exposed to that. The way many liberals are acting is truly shameful.

    There is hope, though, and there are reasonable people on the other side. In the relatively conservative town in Massachusetts (lol) that I live in, there is a nearby convenience store owned by Muslim immigrants. Many people in our neighborhood go there and hang out there; there are two other convenience stores directly across the street, but the one owned by Muslims is the one we choose: it’s locally owned not corporate and very friendly. And they don’t mind loitering :) Several guys have been hanging out there for years, and we have been going there for years.

    When Trump came along, most of the people who hang out there were and still are loudly supportive of him. And the owners of the store are totally unfazed by this. At first, I was afraid that there would be problems, but it’s pretty obvious that the locals who support Trump are not Islamaphobes; if we were, we wouldn’t be regular customers of a Muslim owned business. And the Muslims who own this business are reasonable people who understand this. The main problem is with liberals who live in their own little collegiate bubbles and cannot deal with life outside of their safe spaces.

    • #4
  5. Robert McReynolds Member
    Robert McReynolds
    @

    ST (View Comment):
    Even if we saw this coming (and I’d like to think that I did), I have no idea how we could have prevented it from happening.

    The simplest way to have prevented this is to tell these children “NO!”. I’ll give an example. When the Lawrence v. Texas ruling came down, Texas–under a Republican governor–should have told the Supreme Court and by extension the Left NO. Texas should have told the federal government that they have no authority to dictate to the state of Texas how it manages its internal affairs and then it should have passed a law authorizing its state law enforcement to deny, degrade, or detain any attempt to enforce Lawrence by the federal government. Another example: when Obama told the states and companies involved with the Keystone Pipeline that they can’t build it, they should have said the same thing to Obama that Texas should have told SCOTUS.

    The cure to what the Left has afflicted us with is encouragement of the states by the people to stand up to the general government and threaten the general government with force if any attempt to tyrannize their people should occur. The Left simply needs to be told no as though they are 4 year olds.

    • #5
  6. ST Member
    ST
    @

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):

    ST (View Comment):
    Even if we saw this coming (and I’d like to think that I did), I have no idea how we could have prevented it from happening.

    The simplest way to have prevented this is to tell these children “NO!”. I’ll give an example. When the Lawrence v. Texas ruling came down, Texas–under a Republican governor–should have told the Supreme Court and by extension the Left NO. Texas should have told the federal government that they have no authority to dictate to the state of Texas how it manages its internal affairs and then it should have passed a law authorizing its state law enforcement to deny, degrade, or detain any attempt to enforce Lawrence by the federal government. Another example: when Obama told the states and companies involved with the Keystone Pipeline that they can’t build it, they should have said the same thing to Obama that Texas should have told SCOTUS.

    The cure to what the Left has afflicted us with is encouragement of the states by the people to stand up to the general government and threaten the general government with force if any attempt to tyrannize their people should occur. The Left simply needs to be told no as though they are 4 year olds.

    Works for me, but is it possible to resurrect the tenth amendment from the dead?

    • #6
  7. Brad2971 Member
    Brad2971
    @

    Rodin (View Comment):
    This is serious and requires a serious, steady and strong pushback. It looks like Trump is up to the task. Will enough people have his back?

    President Trump can quite easily take care of himself. He doesn’t need my “help,” or yours for that matter.

    As for the increasingly unhinged Left, it seems as though they have another Kent State coming their way. We’ll see in due course how quickly their street theater dies down.

    • #7
  8. Robert McReynolds Member
    Robert McReynolds
    @

    ST (View Comment):

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):

    ST (View Comment):
    Even if we saw this coming (and I’d like to think that I did), I have no idea how we could have prevented it from happening.

    The simplest way to have prevented this is to tell these children “NO!”. I’ll give an example. When the Lawrence v. Texas ruling came down, Texas–under a Republican governor–should have told the Supreme Court and by extension the Left NO. Texas should have told the federal government that they have no authority to dictate to the state of Texas how it manages its internal affairs and then it should have passed a law authorizing its state law enforcement to deny, degrade, or detain any attempt to enforce Lawrence by the federal government. Another example: when Obama told the states and companies involved with the Keystone Pipeline that they can’t build it, they should have said the same thing to Obama that Texas should have told SCOTUS.

    The cure to what the Left has afflicted us with is encouragement of the states by the people to stand up to the general government and threaten the general government with force if any attempt to tyrannize their people should occur. The Left simply needs to be told no as though they are 4 year olds.

    Works for me, but is it possible to resurrect the tenth amendment from the dead?

    Sure it is, but you have pressure your state legislature.

    • #8
  9. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    Funny thing about “can’t happen here.” It can’t until it does.

    • #9
  10. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    Brad2971 (View Comment):
    President Trump can quite easily take care of himself. He doesn’t need my “help,” or yours for that matter.

    I beg to differ. He doesn’t personally need our help, but “we the people” will need to stiffen the backs of the Republican majority in the senate and house to act like a majority.

    • #10
  11. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    This was, sadly, all quite predictable.  the Dems have been sowing division of all sorts for a generation now.  And by trying to turn Trump into Hitler they have made extremism in opposition a moral duty.  It is nothing less than brainwashing and it is disgusting.

    • #11
  12. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Great post.  Thanks, Rick.

    • #12
  13. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    And so how do we “reach out”? How does Trump? Will the Senate kill the filibuster and approve conservative Supreme Court Justice(s)? It seems we have the opportunity in unity right now to push forward and push the left back. But we always have the Bobbsy twins, McCain and Graham, to worry about.

    • #13
  14. Doug Watt Member
    Doug Watt
    @DougWatt

    Well not all hope is lost. The Mayor of Portland is Left of center, but he won’t tolerate blocking traffic, or vandalism.

    • #14
  15. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Doug Watt (View Comment):
    Well not all hope is lost. The Mayor of Portland is Left of center, but he won’t tolerate blocking traffic, or vandalism.

    Outstanding, Doug.  Thanks.  If Portland can figure it out, hope is not lost.

     

    • #15
  16. Bigfoot Inactive
    Bigfoot
    @Bigfoot

    Judithann Campbell (View Comment):
    There is hope, though, and there are reasonable people on the other side. In the relatively conservative town in Massachusetts (lol) that I live in, there is a nearby convenience store owned by Muslim immigrants. Many people in our neighborhood go there and hang out there; there are two other convenience stores directly across the street, but the one owned by Muslims is the one we choose: it’s locally owned not corporate and very friendly. And they don’t mind loitering  Several guys have been hanging out there for years, and we have been going there for years.

    Jay and Silent Bob for Trump? That is a real switch!!

    All seriousness aside, as they say….. It is great to hear of reasonable people in Massachusetts welcoming an immigrant family of entrepreneurs among them. Tolerance and kindness breaking out as if we can actually live together in peace and harmony. I love it!! Would that the leftist enclave to your south(CT) also experience the same.

    It would be wonderful if the always offended leftists among us would be still and look around and allow more of this type of human relationships to blossom. I fear, however, they will not rest until society degenerates into widespread acrimony and outright violence. The other alternative that appears to be gaining favor on the far left is to send those of us who oppose them to an isolation camp.

    • #16
  17. Judithann Campbell Member
    Judithann Campbell
    @

    @Bigfoot: Who is Jay and who is Silent Bob? Never heard of them :)

    I don’t know much about Connecticut, but there are sane people and sane enclaves in Massachusetts. And then there are the insane people and the insane enclaves :( But I suspect that the hard leftists will find themselves more and more isolated. For instance, Springfield MA was until a few days ago a sanctuary city; Northampton still is. About a week ago, my husband and I were talking about the whole sanctuary city thing, and I predicted that the mayor of Springfield would back down on it because there isn’t enough popular support for it in Springfield. I turned out to be right. Northampton will probably never back down; they are true believers. But there are a lot more people in Springfield than there are in Northampton.

    The hypocrisy of it is unreal, though: You have be making six figures to be able to afford to live in Northampton. All their talk about welcoming refugees and illegal immigrants is just that: talk.

    • #17
  18. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Rick Poach: (possibly paid for)

    And almost all of the protests are paid for by one man. Sure, there are a few amateurs, but almost all of the money to these various groups comes from your favorite Hungarian.

    • #18
  19. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    ST (View Comment):
    Even if we saw this coming (and I’d like to think that I did), I have no idea how we could have prevented it from happening. The only thing that I can think of is to throw the book at each and every last one of these nut-jobs until they are either all locked up or stop misbehaving for fear of being locked up. Half measures are not going to cut the mustard with the unhinged left.

    Amen! Law and order.

    • #19
  20. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Doug Watt (View Comment):
    Well not all hope is lost. The Mayor of Portland is Left of center, but he won’t tolerate blocking traffic, or vandalism.

    I like the older lady giving police the thumbs up.

    • #20
  21. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Great post, Rick. I agree with ST; whenever possible, lock ’em up. Too bad temper tantrums over the age of ten aren’t illegal.

    • #21
  22. Terry Mott Member
    Terry Mott
    @TerryMott

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Rick Poach: (possibly paid for)

    And almost all of the protests are paid for by one man. Sure, there are a few amateurs, but almost all of the money to these various groups comes from your favorite Hungarian.

    There have been rumors for years that Soros funds these anarchist groups.  Assuming this isn’t just conspiracy-mongering on our side, surely this breaks some sort of federal law.  Financing and stirring up political violence sounds like sedition or something (IANAL).

    Maybe some of the legal minds around here could weigh in.  Could a federal case be made against whoever is financing these thugs (Soros or otherwise)?

    Surely the FBI could track the funds back to the source if they wanted to.  Why don’t they want to?  Have they tried and found nothing to indicate a conspiracy?  Or has pressure been brought to bear to leave it be?

    • #22
  23. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    I wonder what the opinion of the WWII veteran was.  At any rate, you were having a private conversation and the other party was being disrespectful – oh wait….manners…..that went out the window with Obama. I have decided that we will see growing pains – there will be rants, writhing, screaming and protests – that’s ok – we are America and can absorb it, because the Constitution allows for it.

    The Trump administration adjusted its Green Card rule for immigrants coming from the 7 banned countries for 120 days, while they find out what is going on with our vetting process.

    I am not going to have a knee jerk reaction, but will trust our “strange, new president”, because I believe a couple of things:

    1. As president, he has been briefed on top secret information (that we are not privy to) and is acting accordingly.
    2. I believe he is giving the green light to works in the pipeline that were concerns by the last administration.
    3. I believe he will make adjustments to his policies to allow for flexibility in his decisions as they unfold.
    4.  I believe his recent actions will smoke out terror cells within our own country. We know they are there.
    5. I think that our country has been lulled into a false sense of security by our last leadership who had a global view of burying one’s head in sand.
    6. Evil, whether its ISIS, communism, anarchists, etc. hates the US, hates Israel, and seeks our weakening / demise.
    • #23
  24. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    cdor (View Comment):
    But we always have the Bobbsy twins, McCain and Graham, to worry about

    Arrrrrggghh! 

    Great post, Rick. Thank you for writing it.

    It never fails to surprise me how many highly educated, intelligent, good people fail to see the destructiveness and animosity to American excellence of the Left. Prager has been trying to raise awareness for years and years. His recent article, America’s Second Civil War, is spot-on in my view. We do not share the same values, the same ends, and most definitely not the same means. Hopefully this national tantrum will enlighten more people as to the domestic enemy (used advisedly) we face.

    However, I am not hopeful for our society (barring a religious revival) when I consider, at the height of the Soviet Union, only 10% of the populace belonged to the Communist Party. The lawless, self-righteous, ends-justify-the-means Left owns the commanding heights of information and values transmission — the education establishment (K thru 12 and beyond), the entertainment industrial complex, the “news” media, the courts — even “science” has been deeply corrupted. D.C. addressed the lack of belief in objective truth in Dave Carter’s podcast. Anthony Esolen (himself a target of the Left) discusses the loss of the ability to reason among our youth in Higher Education in Hell. Despite Trump’s election, things are looking rather grim for our future. The world will miss us when we’re gone, but it should solve the immigration problem. :-(

    • #24
  25. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Terry Mott (View Comment):
    Surely the FBI could track the funds back to the source if they wanted to. Why don’t they want to? Have they tried and found nothing to indicate a conspiracy? Or has pressure been brought to bear to leave it be?

    Think about the politicized Justice Department of the last eight years.

    • #25
  26. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):
    Arrrrrggghh!

    My thought, exactly.

     

    • #26
  27. Terry Mott Member
    Terry Mott
    @TerryMott

    I first became fully aware of the depth of the divisions between left and right in this country back in the ’90s.  At that time, the running joke was “Who is a racist?  Someone winning a debate with a Democrat.”  Today the answer is “someone disagreeing with a Democrat.”

    I spent years wondering how to reach these people, how to bridge the gap.  I no longer believe it’s possible.  I’m willing to live with them, but they’re not willing to live with us.  We’re evil, don’t you see?

    Fine.  It comes down to power.  If they get it, we’ll be forced to their will.  We must defeat them.  They refuse to even grant that our perspective is legitimate.  It’s time to treat them as our enemy just as they treat us as theirs.

    De-fund the universities and tax the hell out of their endowments.  De-fund Planned Parenthood, the NEA, and every leftist entity that suckles at the government teat.  Outlaw public-sector unions.  Drive the political enemy before us and hear the lamentation of their non-gender-binary partners.

    And yes, invest in firearms, ammo and training for ourselves and our children, so that if the soap box and ballot box do not avail, we’ll be able fall back on the last resort of the cartridge box in order to defend ourselves amid the chaos that is looking more and more likely.

    Stand firm.  Hold the line.

    • #27
  28. Terry Mott Member
    Terry Mott
    @TerryMott

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Terry Mott (View Comment):
    Surely the FBI could track the funds back to the source if they wanted to. Why don’t they want to? Have they tried and found nothing to indicate a conspiracy? Or has pressure been brought to bear to leave it be?

    Think about the politicized Justice Department of the last eight years.

    This didn’t begin eight years ago.  The Bush administration didn’t do anything about it, either.

    • #28
  29. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Meanwhile, the Muslim call to prayer echoes through the baggage claim at DFW. Totally benign. Religion of peace. Nothing to see here — move along.

    • #29
  30. Terry Mott Member
    Terry Mott
    @TerryMott

    Here’s the latest, courtesy of Instapundit.

    California is contemplating taking their ball and going home in response to Trump’s sanctuary city policy.

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/255841/

    They truly have no idea what they’re starting.

    What would their reaction be if, for example, Texas pulled a similar stunt in response to the EPA’s over-reach?

    Either we’re a nation or we’re not.  They love using the federal government to force others to their will, but they’re no longer willing to go along when things don’t go their way.

    This will not end well.

    Stand firm.  Hold the line.

    • #30
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