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The Upside of the Leftist Turmoil: We’re Pushing Back
We already know how horribly the Left has behaved; their actions have become increasingly abhorrent over time. Their immorality is laid out for everyone to see. Their hypocrisy on the values they supposedly espouse—tolerance, fairness, non-judgment, support of women, justice—can no longer be ignored by the Right or denied by the Left (although I’m sure they will try).
The benefits of the recent chaos, though, should not be ignored, since they have played their cards. And we must find ways to minimize their impact or stop them in their tracks. The viciousness of their attacks on the Constitution, the Congress (senators and representatives) and their families must be addressed. Here are examples of their outrageous behavior:
- Leaking information to defame
- Harassing people and their families in public places
- Staking out the homes of people
- Lying to add more fuel to the fire
- Making demands that should be discounted and ignored
- Manipulating procedures and the law to meet their agenda
These are only examples; the complete list is a longer one.
So here are my questions:
How do we block protestors from initiating the vicious attacks on innocent people? For example, can we protest restaurants that don’t protect their Republican guests through social media? Can we call flash mobs to protest protestors who act in this way? Is there a legal means to threaten protestors, such as restraining orders or restrictions?
More important, how do we encourage members of Congress to stand up to their colleagues who think that the government is their playground and that their irresponsible demands should be met? When we deal with children, we seem to be able to use boundary management. When the Left acts like children, aren’t there ways we can do the same?
Published in Politics
I’m laughing as I read this.
Of course yelling in someone’s face is hurtful in some sense. So is standing on the sidewalk outside of their home, holding up insulting signs. So is lining up outside their place of work and calling them awful names as they go by. All of this stuff is unpleasant and rude. Surrounding someone’s table in a restaurant and making it impossible for his family to enjoy a meal is rude and awful, and people shouldn’t do it.
But let me ask you (and actually I’m asking everyone else, since I’m going to assume you and I probably won’t see eye to eye on this, and that’s okay): what do you expect to gain?
Let’s pick an example. Suppose Senator X (R-Somewhere) is back in his home state, dining with his family at a local restaurant, and suddenly a bunch of leftist creeps waving signs barges in and starts chanting and hurling insults. What are his choices?
Any of those choices are within the Senator’s rights. I’d recommend one of the last two, and, most importantly, that the Senator obtain good video of the incident and disseminate it broadly. And, if the police get involved, I expect the law to be upheld: you’ll find that I’ve never encouraged breaking the law.
But go back and look at the examples of possible action Susan offered us.
The first one isn’t bad, though it addresses only those incidents that occur in private spaces, and I seriously doubt that it will have an impact on leftist rage. By all means boycott places that allow leftist mobs to gather, if you like.
But the other two, the flash mobs and the restraining orders — and anything like that, including the first four items on my list — are, I think, and as I’ve explained, missing the bigger point. If we do things that escalate an unpleasant situation, we blur the line between the left (which often behaves very badly) and the right (which very rarely does).
So what do you want to gain? Momentary relief? Some sense of justice rendered? Or political advantage and victory with the electorate? I want that last thing.
Evening Henry,
I think the folks who have hounded people from the public square are determined not to engage in a dialogue, and that a video of public humiliations might inspire more people to copy this behavior. We have not seen videos of the screaming girl at Yale, or at the library at Dartmouth, or the crowds who have chased Charles Murray, or Heather McDonald cause a revulsion and backlash in our politicians, or public. What you suggest is that we walk away and let the thugs drive us from public space. We have seen no consequences to these type of tactics and we have seen attempts to drive speech and religion from the public square. Where has a passive response successfully defended speech or religious freedom.
Hank, I keep feeling some resistance to your ideas, and I don’t think it’s because I’m trying to defend my ideas. In part, I agree with @jimbeck— it not only sounds passive, but it’s too tidy and easy. I think we have to get our hands dirty, but we have to be smart about it. For example, if the Right held demonstrations in towns that would welcome us (conservative towns in the mid-west?), got permits, warned our demonstrators that initiating violence would not be tolerated–we’d call the cops on them–and we had the backing of law enforcement, we might be able to speak out without it leading to violence. Yes, it might still lead to violence, but we have to show a backbone; we have to let the country know that we are willing to stand up for our principles in more ways than one. Maybe we can just sing beautiful patriotic songs and refuse to engage with nasty dialogue. I don’t have the exact answer, but darn it, we need to get creative and speak up. Don’t misunderstand–I like your suggestions, too, but we have to change the perception that we are the party of nice. Instead, we are the party of resolve and determination. Can anyone else help me out here?
Jim, Susan, All,
I don’t want to bore everyone with this, and I’ve said similar things over and over. I appreciate your comments, and I realize I’m a bit of an outlier here, and of course I could be assessing things incorrectly. But I want to share one more bit of my perspective.
I don’t think the incivility we’re talking about is really a problem, in and of itself. Certainly it’s irritating, but it isn’t actually suppressing free speech in any meaningful way. Yes, I know about the campus shutdowns, and I deplore them, but they are not, realistically, preventing ideas from getting out.
What does prevent free speech is the implicit respect the victim class has gathered to itself. So many times I’ve argued this: the chronic is worse than the acute. It isn’t the infrequent riot or public protest that stifles us, but the political correctness most of us feel when confronted by leftist dogma every day, whether about racism or sexism or one or another phobia.
Pushing back against the acute outbursts does nothing to prevent the quotidian suppression of speech that most of us face. All it does is add conservatives to the disagreeable spectacle of public outrage.
What does work, I think, is discrediting the left more broadly. There’s a reason the press avoids showing March for Life, and the worst bits of the antifa protests: they don’t want the right to look good or the left to look bad. So show them how bad the left looks. Don’t join in.
I guess that’s the biggest single point I’d like to make, that these vulgar clashes aren’t ultimately very important, except as an opportunity to show the people what the left has become. For that, they’re valuable. Ted Cruz and Charles Murray won’t stop saying and doing what they do just because they were treated like dirt. But if people come to see that this is how the left deals with dissent, it makes it easier for all of us to risk the embarrassment and friction that comes from being politically incorrect.
I’m not a pacifist; far from it, in fact. But I’m more interested in long-term victory than temporary satisfaction. Temporary satisfaction doesn’t shift the culture. It just makes us feel good right now. Anyway, I appreciate your comments.
I like the examples of MLK, Ghandi, and Jesus who said, “do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also.” If the country is worth saving, it will respond to righteous behavior and will shun tit-for-tat confrontations.
I am glad that you find abuse something to laugh at. Must be nice to see the humor in children, cowering in their homes, terrified of the mob outside. A really laugh riot.
Glad you agree on that. And here I thought you found it funny.
That is easy: I expect the bad guys to be punished. The whole point of laws is to punish the guilty and act as a deterrent.
So basically, anything that leads to some form of escalation is wrong. By that logic, we should never try to arrest anyone as long as they are willing to escalate. Some champion of law and order you are.
The only way to make them stop is to give them some sort of negative outcome for them. They will not stop for any other reason. You seem to think just letting them run rampant is dandy, because really, it just makes them look bad. Who really cares if children cower in their home. We have to have a few martyrs to the cause.
I want the wicked punished and I want victory with the electorate. Your pathway, Sir, one of being passive, has lead to neither. In fact, it has just made things with the Left worse.
Again, I am glad I gave you a laugh. To me, none of this is a laughing matter.
Ultimately? MLK.
Emotionally, I want to punch them in the nose.
Rationally, I know full well that it has nothing to do with the protesters themselves—who are unbalanced people—but with the vast, vast majority of Americans who find these behaviors deeply disturbing when they see them. If what they see is the Tiki-Torch guys fighting the black-mask-red-flag guys, the reaction will be “well, there’s fault on both sides.”
Because this is a far more comfortable idea than “actually, it’s my side is doing the bad stuff” the moderate is going to be looking for evidence of equivalence and that’s what the media will do its best to provide.
Non-violent resistance (with lots of cameras around) worked because it hauled the wavering moderates across that hurdle in a way that punching people in the snoot (however richly they deserved it) would not.
By the way, I figure one thing I can do is send encouraging messages to the people who are enduring a lot of wrong and doing what’s right. I sent a card to the Kavanaughs c/o Blessed Sacrament, for what that’s worth.
Don’t misunderstand–I like your suggestions, too, but we have to change the perception that we are the party of nice. Instead, we are the party of resolve and determination. Can anyone else help me out here?
At least in my neck of the woods, Susan, you aren’t the party of nice. You’re the party of mean, selfish, stingy and -ist.
Where the Republicans have gone wrong—as far as I can gather, anyway—is not that they don’t get belligerent, skeevy and cruel, but that they don’t exhibit the sort of righteous indignation that Lindsay Graham and Kavanaugh did last week. I’m with Henry: the GOP and the various PACS (or whatever) should be buying air time and putting up lots of advertisements, speakers, op-eds and so on, hammering the theme “The Choice, 2018: Reasonable and Decent, or Vindictive and Vicious?”
Wrong, wrong wrong. The Left gets speech, the Right gets shouted down. The Right is not allowed so speak. The Campus Shutdowns are coming out to Congress. Republicans are hounded on Campus, and we have seem many people lose their jobs over their political beliefs.
People are afraid to speak their minds. They know a mob, virtual or otherwise is coming for them.
Oh Please! You think this works. Do you have examples of this actually getting better? Really? Please, by all means, point out where is is getting better.
Well great for them. What about all the people who stay quiet, who’s speech is squelched out of fear? What about them?
If violent protesters were locked up on a routine basis, we would have less of them. They do it because they can get away with. Protesting in a mask is illegal. They should be arrested. People rioting should be stopped.
And people scaring small children in their own homes should be hauled away, with as much force as needed to restore order. This nation needs to return to order.
Bryan, of course I don’t find abuse funny. What I do find amusing is the indignation that consistently greets calls to act like adults, rather than like young toughs who have to get their instant justice and personal satisfaction. It’s expressed in various ways, but it generally comes down to one or another charge that I’m in favor of “backing down” or “giving up” or “surrendering.”
Here’s reality: Actual leftist violence is not a big deal. There isn’t much of it, and it doesn’t achieve anything meaningful in terms of suppressing thought or speech. It’s a stupid, vulgar practice in excess.
Now I get it if some people get their backs up at the thought of not hitting back hard. But, in case you haven’t noticed it, we are losing the larger war. Things that a mere decade ago would have been preposterous are now so much a part of the common wisdom that you’re assumed to be a bigot if you dare speak out against it. That, and not a skirmish at a pizza place or university lecture hall, is the real battleground. That is where we will win or lose the culture.
Our best weapon is not a restraining order, for goodness sake, or a counter-protest. It’s the revulsion people feel when the witness the crudity and hatred of the left. That is how we shape the culture.
It isn’t as satisfying as punching someone, I’ll admit. It’s just more sensible. In my opinion.
We are losing the larger war, because for my entire life, we have not been fighting back. We have been trying it your way for half a century and it is not working.
But you don’t see that. Nope, you call for more of the same. It will start working any time now. Meanwhile, we can wait until leftist violence gets worse. I mean, they only managed to shoot one Congressman so far.
I dunno, but when the bullies got in my face, all I had to do to shut them down was not run away. It was enough to stand my ground, no punch to the nose necessary.
Don’t confuse “passive” response with surrender. The negative consequence you seek will arrive soon enough and possibly already has. We have nominee who has not retired from the field, probably much to the shock of several D strategists. He (and others) are no longer playing by the rules established by the left some time ago. It doesn’t seem like much, but refusing to play that game is devastating to their power model.
You cannot sit there and have dinner when you are being asked to leave when you have done nothing wrong.
You cannot stand up to man beating you without responding with violence.
They have already incited a man to try to murder Congressmen. They have incited people to attack police. 100% of the violent protests are being started by the left.
They will continue, and what is being called for her is surrender in the hopes that we will look bad enough getting beat up that the American people will say enough.
I say the American people already said “enough” in 2016 when half the nation voted for a man who will fight.
The passive approach is how we got Trump.
Exactly right. And one manifestation of being politically incorrect was voting for DJT.
The way I see it, it was left’s ceaseless, open, and well publicized contempt for all non-leftists (” the deplorables”), and DJT’s talent for baiting leftists into showing their contempt, that snatched defeat from the jaws of an otherwise inevitable HRC victory.
Let the leftists show their fangs. It will only drive more voters away.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/10/how-far-will-democratic-party-violence-go.php
No danger, nothing to see here. Be passive about it and it will all be OK.
So I wonder if we can re-frame this discussion in a way that is helpful. First, I actually hear Hank and Bryan both suggesting that we on the Right need to behave differently. I would like to believe that both believe in the rule of law, so if people are actually breaking the law, law enforcement should intervene and arrest them. What I’m hearing that I hadn’t quite gotten before is that Hank seems to be saying that we do need to be more assertive. As @chriso says, we can hold our ground and not back down, but not incite violence. I think if we go with the ads showing how terrible the Left is, those promotional pieces need to be passionate–not nasty, but firm and even outraged at times (as Lindsey Graham says). (I still think if I were in a restaurant, I would go to the manager and ask if he or she is going to allow this reprehensible behavior, and if so, I will be sure to notify every media outlet of their support of harassment and verbal attacks. If the manager is unswayed, I would leave. I would also later consider demonstrating with the HOGs outside the restaurant.)
I’m trying to find if there are strategies that are new and creative from the “Hank-and-Bryan” perspectives, because I think there is merit in both. And I don’t think the Left cares what we do. But the undecideds are the ones we’re trying to reach. And since the Left will try to turn everything we do into horror scenes, we need to do things that are less likely to be smeared in order to win people over. There isn’t a point to punishing the Left; they will wear those kinds of efforts as badges of honor. That’s where I’m sitting at the moment . . .
Evening Grannydude,
Let us remember the civil rights resistance led by MLK, when sitting at a restaurant where people are screaming at you, you do not leave, or try to engage we the screamers, you do not get off the bus, you march, and you clearly and strongly speak about the values you champion, and you denounce people and actions that are wrong, and you are willing to go to jail, and you may get killed. I hear from Henry a passivity we see from the senators who silently let good men get defamed, recall Bork, Thomas, no one stood up to the character destruction, and with Kavanaugh only Graham, where are the other senators, passive, no MLK there. We have seen that in the university since the schools were physically taken over in the 60’s speech and religion have been under constant attack and that we have stripped the concept of truth from our students understanding, the assertion of a crime is now unimpeachable, think mattress girl, evidence means nothing if you are on the wrong side of the PC. Henry, I do not think you know how changes in culture occur, and you just present a hopeful spin. Read the “Coddling of the American Mind” to see how whole groups of people have been trained to self censor. Henry you say that the revulsion to the left behavior wil be their undoing, show us how that is working at our universities. With only the University of Chicago even trying to maintain an environment of contested ideas, it is rather irrational to speak about positively changing the culture of our universities when the direction of change is not toward free speech, or non PC thinking. In this world where words are violent and can injure you so the you need a safe space, speaking optimistically about the university changing is unfounded.
I’m already hearing one AZ Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives using sound clips from anti-Kavanaugh rallies to call out the Democrats, and her opponent, as in the grip of the crazies.
So… I have to say I’ve fantasized that Republicans win so strongly that the left rethinks it’s devotion to Alinsky. But without the media, I doubt that’s possible.
The reason they do this, is because it works. And that’s a shame.
I was driving home the other night, listening to a wonderful, modern version of Ode to Joy by the Christian band Avalon. It is often called “Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee” in English, with the original music by Beethoven and traditional English hymn lyrics by Henry J. van Dyke.
I was actually thinking about how I might respond if confronted, like Sen. Flake, by a crazed Leftist shouting malicious nonsense. My thought was simply to start singing the hymn. Loudly, and in my case, doubtless a bit badly.
Battle Hymn of the Republic would be a good one too, but I like Ode to Joy best. Here’s a lovely version by our British friends:
The depressing thing is that I think that, once upon a time, most Yanks and Brits would have known this one by heart.
I agree with you, Jim. Absolutely.
And I think that maybe Hank does, too: I don’t think there is as much disagreement here as it seems.
For my part, I absolutely don’t want to back down. Never, never back down and never, ever apologize. And be fairly stingy with explanations; there is no explanation that will get Kavanaugh’s persecutors to back off.
And don’t give anyone who corners you in an elevator or chases you ,shrieking, down a hallway the satisfaction of a backward glance if you can avoid it.
But I do think you can really mess with people by being unbearably polite. I fantasize about Republicans deploying a gormless verbal Aikido: “I know! Isn’t it awful!” said to the shrieking protester with innocent, uncomprehending sincerity. “Just a blob of cells, and people get so worked up. I was thinking we should pass a bill outlawing ultrasounds altogether, though it’s such fun to watch them sucking their little thumbs; just adorable.”
“By the way, I’m so glad to hear your truth! My truth is completely different from yours, of course, but what can you do? There are so many of them. And I find my truth tends to go all cattywampus around Easter. Can’t tell if it’s the jelly beans or what.”
“Where are you from? Alaska? You came all this way to share with us, aren’t you wonderful, and you being so sick! What? Oh, well, you have that medical device in your nose; my aunt had to have the same thing when her sinuses prolapsed. It was terrible. Mucus everywhere. No one wanted to sit across from her at dinner. Oh, I think this is my office! So sorry—very, very busy as you can imagine, thank you so much for coming.”
Maybe it is? That’s what I’m hoping for, too.
I don’t have much to add to Henry’s eloquent arguments. As I’ve said in other threads over the past week, I favor aggressive use of law enforcement options against harassers and bullies whenever possible. Prosecute and sue any individuals or businesses who engage in or enable the intimidating mobs. (And investigate organizations who may be supporting and coordinating these mobs.)
If law enforcement fails to do their job, find ways to pressure law enforcement to do their jobs. Leave the violence and unruly behavior to the Left.
I also think that a GOP government should be aggressively pursuing law enforcement options against real racists and white supremacist thugs, as evidence that we have nothing in common with those losers and that our commitment to prosecuting violent gangs is not political but because a system of sound and fairly enforced laws is a prerequisite for a functioning, free society.
I’m not sure I’d say this, Susan. Instead I’d say that we should do what is actually right. And we should do it loudly, often, unapologetically and with whatever media money can buy. (There is money in the GOP, right?) There’s no point, in other words, in doing unto them what they have already done to us. But there’s plenty of point in rallying conservatives and moderate-conservatives to defy the metanorm that says that we’re all just racists, sexists and homophobes, and to speak up and speak out. The correct response to a kid getting a MAGA hat stolen in a restaurant is for fifty kids to show up at the restaurant in MAGA hats.
The goal of intimidating people into silence isn’t to persuade them. It’s to make it difficult for other dissenters to realize that they aren’t alone.
Not backing down is not passive. It disrupts their power model. The model requires capitulation. It requires the company to cut a check so they won’t be labeled racist, or it requires a nominated judge to resign when faced with embarrassing allegations. When he doesn’t, nothing is gained.
The cycle starts again…this time we’ll yell louder, they say. This time we’ll really accuse…starting to sound familiar yet?
@GrannyDude, you’re wonderful. Thank you for a moment of horror and laughter!
It is as threatening as shaking a fist in someone’s face. It implies impending violence . . .
Morning Susan,
The civil rights efforts of the 60’s offer a starting point to ask the question, how do folks protest is such a way to encourage change. The first thing I would note is the the civil rights protests were not passive, they went to areas which were forbidden, they provacted abuse and accepted being arrested. We should consider going to places to provoke abuse, go to a university and read the Constitution, every day even if you are arrested every day. Going back to restaurants where we have been driven out, every day, and stay there until we are arrested or the hecklers are arrested. I am advising the opposite of Henry.
Also think about Project Veritas whose videos have shown voter fraud, abortion parts sales, government employee sabotage; these videos are very powerful and yet the effect was short lived and minimal. However think about what happened to Evergreen College, and the University of Missouri, videos of leftist protests drove down enrollment immediately. So we need greater understanding to predict when videos become powerful in shaping public awareness. Sheryl Attkisson in her book “The Smear” points out, “Pubic ideas are meticulously orchestrated to appear random.”…”What you may not know is that a lot of this manipulation is done through methods that are utterly invisible to the average consumer.”……”Repeat it often enough and it becomes undeniable–something ‘everybody knows'”….the press has become “a willingreceptiacle for, and distributor of ,daily propaganda.” To have success in our efforts to defend conservatives and their principles we need to become wiser about the manipulation, and the great danger of Google and Facebook.
Lastly on Trump and what his election and his current behavior tell us. Recently at a press conference, a reporter questioned Trump characterizing his statements as rough, Trump responded that he had said a lot worse things. What a wonderful response, fearless, he will not be hounded by the press trying to silence him, he does not care what they will say. He stood up for Kavanaugh and stood by him when many would have caved and withdrew the nomination. Why do we have Trump, because only Graham stood up for Kavanaugh, the rest were afraid. We have Trump because our “conservative” leaders lack courage, they are afraid of the firestorm the press will throw at them or their family. Their fear is understandable but it only encourages more intimidation not less.
Morning Grannydude,
I think the extreme politeness sounds elegant but I think it will be ineffective. From Roger Kimball, https://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/its-all-gone-the-democrats-dead-ideals/ quoting Aristotle, “We praise a man who feels anger on the right grounds and against the right person, and also in the right manner and at the right moment and for the right length of time”; to respond to attacks on us with politeness trivializes the issue. Should Kavanaugh respond with this extreme politeness. I think not.
DiFi held onto those pubic ideas for seven weeks, didn’t she? Meticulously orchestrated indeed.
Yes. Never apologize, never back down, and do not care what they say let alone what they think about you. And perhaps this is what the Kavanaugh moment might signal; the point at which too many people realize they have nothing to lose.
Personally, I’d like to have this publicized a bit more: The absurdity of the claim that being arrested is in any way heroic.
The Hollywood stars sat on the floor with their entourage for approximately 30 minutes, chanting and singing along with the rest of the protest. The police asked groups of the protesters to line up in an orderly fashion to get “arrested.” All protesters complied. According to the Capitol Police, the protesters were charged with unlawfully demonstrating and then immediately released.
“The individuals arrested are being processed on site and released. At this time, we are unable to confirm the names of those arrested due to the large number being processed,” a Capitol police statement read. To get the charges dropped, all one must do is pay a $50 ticket.
So much for consequences.