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Democrats No Longer See Republicans as Fellow Citizens
One difficulty that Abraham Lincoln had in fighting the Civil War was that he understood that if the Union won, they would then be fellow citizens with the newly defeated Confederates. He was fighting a war against people with whom he had a great deal in common, and with whom he would have to cooperate to govern their unified country in the future. This somewhat limited his ability to ruthlessly destroy his opponent, and made his battle planning more complex.
Yesterday’s hearings with Attorney General Barr looked to me like the Democrats don’t feel similarly constrained. In fact, the last few decades of leftist behavior suggests that American leftists no longer feel that they have enough in common with American conservatives to make an effort to cooperate with them on, well, on nearly anything. I find this extremely concerning.
Many Democrats openly disdain Republicans and avoid associating with them. If a college student is outed as a closet conservative, even if it’s not true, the social stigmatizing of that student is absolutely vicious. A girl who is set to start as a freshman at Marquette this fall nearly lost her admission to Marquette because she openly admitted that she was a Republican. These are not isolated incidents, and they are no longer limited to academia. Cancel culture is now mainstream.
When you add the vicious social stigma to the literally vicious new militant wings of the Democrat party, like Black Lives Matter, Antifa, NFA, and so on, you end up with an extremely hostile environment for Republicans. Republicans no longer feel welcome in their own country.
In yesterday’s hearing, Attorney General Barr asked the assembled Democrats,
“This is the first time in my memory that the leaders of one of our two great political parties, the Democratic Party, are not coming out and condemning mob violence,” he said. “Can’t we just say the violence against the federal courts has to stop? Could we hear something like that?”
The room was silent. The attorney general challenged their loyalty, and not a single Democrat objected. For them, it was just another day at the office.
This trend did not start with President Trump. This sort of thing was starting when I was in college in the late ’80s; it’s much, much worse now. Democrats and Republicans used to be friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens, but over the past few decades, Democrats appear to have reached the conclusion that they don’t have enough in common with Republicans to make any effort to cooperate with them in any way.
The Civil War appears almost civil by comparison. That’s an exaggeration, but not by as much as I’d like.
So imagine what happens if the Democrats win this next election. Heck, imagine what happens if they lose.
I don’t see how this can end well.
Published in General
High-tech lynchings seem to be the order of the day.
Very sobering, but accurate as well. I share your concern. I have a 24-year old grandson who is heavily involved in Democrat politics, and it literally consumes him; every aspect of his life revolves around politics and controversy. Unfortunately, that seems to be very common in his age group. No humor, not much fun that I can see.
When you read posts here you get the same sense from the right, and certainly the president has been a part of this. For example, his separation of good and bad states.
But it comes down to the insertion of politics into all phases of life.
I get the same vibe from the National Review writers who dismiss the military base renaming debate as a non-issue because military installations should not be named for “traitors.” It doesn’t seem helpful, to refer to the ancestors of an overly large portion of our volunteer military as the descendants of traitors, especially given Lincoln’s goal of “malice towards none.”
I tire of this “we both do it” meme. We don’t to the same degree ever. President Trump is the only Republican that has ever fought in kind (words only). And it is not the ‘fringe’ democrats. It is their core, and their ‘leadership’.
Republicans aren’t even human in their minds. Democrats don’t believe Republicans deserve human rights. See how they try to suppress our opinions everywhere.
Edit: Edited to clarify an antecedent.
The only civil way out is a divorce. We should have a national referendum on whether or not we should split into two or more separate countries. The only problem is the People’s Democratic Republic of Western America would conduct joint fleet exrecises with the Chinese navy, and the Socialist Democracy of New England would elect Andrew Cuomo their Dictator for Life . . .
I’m with you, Columbo. I don’t see how anyone can watch the news and reach the conclusion that both sides are equally hostile and violent. That’s a remarkable conclusion.
Either way it’s going to be rough. But I’d prefer they lose.
Great post. While I was watching this charade yesterday, with all of the incivility being shown, I thought about the attack on Senator Charles Sumner (abolitionist Republican from Massachusetts) by Representative Preston Brooks (a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina) in 1856.
The cowardly attack nearly killed Sumner, although he did survive and managed to stay in office until 1874.
It appears as though the Democrats haven’t changed much. How much longer until we see see a physical attack by one of them?
east pakistan and west pakistan
The feeling is mutual.
Do you mean by an elected representative? Because otherwise, Steve Scalise might like a word with you.
I can think of no better vindication of the founders and the Constitution than the 13 bluest states leaving and forming their own country and showing us how it should have been done, in their opinion. What a great experiment that would be, and it would fail. The red states can keep the Constitution, the National Anthem, and flag, just shave off a few stars. In fact, I am betting we would still have 48 states because red counties would not leave to follow their blue ones. We have two opposing ideologies and neither can survive unless the other is destroyed. The left never learns and never stops until it has destroyed its host.
If naive lefties think a shooting civil war won’t be any worse than their Portland and Seattle adventures, they should watch the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. If civilians think only the military will fight, they should watch the Jimmy Stewart movie, Shenandoah. Nobody is spared in a shooting civil war.
Sadly, even a peaceful split won’t be peaceful because the ideological split isn’t geographical but will see fights among residents in each state. We have been on this path since about the 1880s, in incremental steps. I wish we could return to the patriotic, religious country we once were.
I believe in deterrence. There is no deterrence if the Democrats don’t believe there is a red line they dare not cross. Draw the red line and hope it halts their progression leftward. That deterrence should come easily. If Democrats are good at anything, it is projection. They refused to accept the results of the election so now they fear Trump will do the same. They believe violence gets results. They already fear we will do the same. That is why they fear “assault rifles.”
Where did I learn that the political opposition was evil and bent on destroying America and that there was no common ground with them?
Listening to Rush a couple of years into the Clinton administration.
I have since repented.
And when Lindsay Graham lost it during the Kavanaugh hearings, he was prophetic.
Alas, we have lost that which we held in common that transcended our politics and government, and now we are all playing for keeps, scorched earth style, over nothing.
Had a zoom happy hour with some of my highly educated white-collar working 20-30 something friends. I made a joke that one of my female friends could date someone at my current workplace. I said something like “He’s an ultra-marathoner, and loves hiking biking” (we all live in Colorado). We all joked that he sounded too intense for her, then I added “he’s also a huge Trump fan” and most of them good naturally laughed. But another female friend, who is a big hiker/runner too was like “that’s so weird, that someone who’s into the outdoors and stuff also likes Trump.” It created an awkward moment and we let it pass.
But I bring it up, because it’s amazing to think about really. Here is a 30 year-old woman that thinks that only Democrats go to National Parks, like to do Marathons, or go skiing! She assumes that ever person she sees on a hiking trail is as anti-Trump as she is. But it’s worse than that. The very thought that someone she runs into on a hiking trail being a Republican might ruin her hike. I mean that’s a bit deranged. Funny thing is, we still consider each other friends.
I fail to see the problem. As Ed Koch said after losing the mayoral primary to Dinkins, “The people voted, and now they must be made to suffer.”
Over nothing?
I like to think this country isn’t nothing. I like to think it’s something worth preserving.
The split would create two natural groups. The blue country would pair people who want a nanny state with politicians who want to lord over them while the red state would pair people who want to be free and left alone with politicians who don’t have enough spine to oppose their will.
Yesterday, Joe Biden condemned the violence and called for arrests. I think the Marxists-mania is beginning to pass and more Dems will show a little bit of courage and follow Biden’s lead. We are seeing Black political leaders condemning the violence as “white people causing trouble without trying to help Black causes”.
That said, the 10% of Dems that are violently anti-American need to be put down.
The problem is density and how the groups are spread out. Do we divide by county? By neighborhood? By state? There are an awful lot of purple states, even if that usually means two or three counties of deep, dense blue and fifty or a hundred lightly-populated red.
Pity those of us who live in mostly red states that are blue only because of one or two metropolitan areas. I don’t want to live in Blue America. But I suspect that’s where I’d be stuck. Can we create a separate state described by a triangle encompassing Milwaukee, Madison, and Chicago? They essentially all act as one unit anyway.
This hatred is a logical necessity given the nature of the movement at work.
First, take a look at the pack of losers who attacked AG Barr. Nadler is a buffoon. Hank Johnson is the idiot who once asked an admiral hearing witness whether the island of Guam might tip over (he thinks Pacific islands float). Eric Swalwell may be the single most obnoxious man in Congress–think of how stiff that competition is. And then there is the deeply, deeply pathetic Ted Lieu. (see pic below.) Why are such defectives in office and not even expected to try to conceal their deficiencies?
Having a moron who can be made to vote the party line without a glimmer of independent thought is perfect for the times. From safe districts, they know that unless the money people fund a primary challenger, they are in for life.
But the dumbing-down is not just in Congress. It is all around us. Universities are pruning genuine scholars and independent minds. Antifa and BLM are movements for people who can’t do math, know nothing about law, history, or much of anything else. Google, CNN, and the NYT are ruthlessly purging actual educated, independent minds–not just conservatives.
There is a militant campaign to install stupid people in every key position in American life and make non-idiots uncomfortable and fearful.
I am so old, I can remember when the left deferred to and valued scholars and never feared open debate because they just assumed that with the possible exception of William F. Buckley, they were smarter than anybody on the right.
What has happened is that intersectionality/critical theory is self-devouring. All of the instruments of intellectual life–language, art, history, accumulated culture, science, epistemology etc–are deemed hopelessly contaminated by some form of hegemony (race, class, whatever) and ultimately must be eliminated.
The left has unleashed an intellectual and moral auto-immune disease that is attacking everything and is already devouring what used to be the American left and in a sick Darwinian twist, naturally selects for compliant morons.
It’s one thing to say, “well, perhaps there are some individuals here on Ricochet who go overboard once in a while, or who might get a bit out of round and exhibit some of the same characteristics as those on the Left” (note that I’m paraphrasing what I think is the intent of the comment I’m quoting, not expressing an opinion of my own, whatever that might be), or to say that President Trump sometimes speaks loutishly or boorishly (which I do think is the case). Both of those statements or conclusions may be true. Neither of them is startling, and absent a certain gracelessness on Trump’s part, neither is all that unusual in political discourse (if you go back and look at some of the country’s founders and early leaders, some of them could be pretty graceless too. And certainly in the modern age, LBJ and Richard Nixon could give Trump a run for his money in the vulgarity department. The difference, as with so much, these days, is Twitter and the fact that the “Tweet heard round the world” gets there before the truth has time to put its pants on.)
But it’s quite another thing to observe what seems to be a concerted, well-organized, and strenuous attack by one political party on another, an attack which starts at the top of that party leadership and which encompasses all of that party’s elected disciples, with nary (that I can see) a dissenter. In that sense, it’s a bit like those elections in banana-republic dictatorships, where the election is held and–Surprise!, Surprise!, Surprise! as Gomer Pyle might say–the General of the Junta in power ends up with 110% of the vote. And we all roll our eyes. Not likely there, and not likely here, without considerable shenanigans in either case. In a rational world, there’d be at least a few Democrats dissenting a bit from the party line. Wouldn’t there?
I think you’d have to look very, very, hard, and perhaps come up empty, to find an official proceeding of the federal government run by Republicans in which the person brought up for a “hearing” was treated with the grandstanding, rudeness, disrespect, and utter lack of good faith as was the Attorney General of the United States yesterday. It was a truly deplorable spectacle, and the people running it (that is, Democrats) should be ashamed of themselves. Fat chance of that.
Not if the House hearing yesterday is any indication. Besides, do you really think a President Biden will be allowed to make any decisions on his own? Actually wield any power? The man will be controlled by the far left. That’s why they let him have the nomination. So they could destroy the country through their puppet ruler.
Weirdly coincidental that they all hold elected office.
I suggest you read Kurt Schlicter’s “People’s Republic.” He wrote it before the 2016 election, assuming Hillary won. He is a retired Army Colonel and lawyer. He lives in West LA and has the West LA verbal mannerisms down pat. As Peter Theil has pointed out, Big Tech, like Google, has allied itself with China. Some of that is probably related to the CEOs being largely non-American in origin. His lecture on this should be watched.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JRyy2MM-rI&app=desktop
I couldn’t make sense of that either.
That just replicates the split into several smaller units.
Most of the stuff we argue about isn’t existential to the Republic, and the Republic has certainly survived much worse. I grew up watching funeral trains of assassination victims, violent riots, political and cultural upheaval, thinking that’s just the way things were because Walter Cronkite said so. And those were just a tiny bump in the road compared to some of the real crises of out history.
But yeah, we Americans of all stripes have developed a thirst for a fight over everything, and there are people who make good money catering that appetite. It would be interesting to take the subjects of controversy over the life of Fox News’ The Five and see how many days they had to manufacture outrage. My guess it would be more than 80%. Joe Biden left a church over a disagreement about a bike path.
Everything’s a fight to the death now, maybe because we’ve never had it easier.
Dr. B,
During my lifetime, I have watched the Democratic Party devolve from a defender of the lower middle class working person to a promoter of snowflake fantasies at the expense of all. They developed the deconstructionist/ intersectionalist/ nihilist passive-aggressive attack. With this weapon, irrespective of facts or reality itself, they could viciously accuse everyone around them of racism, sexism, or simply fascism. Meanwhile, a sleeping rightwing slowly realized they weren’t wrestling the old Democratic Party for the budget anymore. They were dealing with the worst kind of ideologues who, consciously or unconsciously, were bent on damaging the whole society.
Lincoln’s second inaugural contained this beautiful thought, “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds.” It hurts to remind you Dr. B but I must. A few months later, John Wilkes Booth assassinated the author of this beautiful thought.
Regards,
Jim