Radical Democrats are realizing, too late, that the beast they nurtured and then unleashed upon America is now probably beyond their control. The unrest and violence in cities across the country ceased to be about George Floyd – or any other black man or woman killed by police officers – about 48 hours after it first began. It was really about revolution: the overthrow of the American constitutional republic and its replacement by an extremist, left-wing authoritarianism that would allow no dissent and no individual liberty. Rather than returning them to power, though – as they had hoped – the beast is on the verge of devouring the Democratic Party, and they are worried.
If you want to know what is meant by American exceptionalism, you need look no further than the American Revolution. That historic event was itself exceptional, in that it achieved liberty, rather than simply substituting one system of oppression with another. It threw off the bonds of imperial colonialism and established in its place a government of the people, by the people, for the people – as President Abraham Lincoln described it. This is where American exceptionalism started.
The Deception of Revolution
Revolutions are risky endeavors that invariably fail to deliver the idealistic transformations they promise. The Chinese, the Russians, the Cubans – among many others – found this out the hard way. Even the populist French Revolution of 1789 led to years of slaughter, chaos, and terror. Eventually, Napoleon Bonaparte restored order but also restored monarchical authoritarianism – the very system from which the revolutionaries had sought to free themselves.
In modern history, at least, only the American Revolution gave the people more freedom, rather than less. In the eyes of radical leftists, of course, that was the problem. Leftist revolutions, after all, are never about freeing people from oppression, as their architects claim; quite the opposite, in fact.
Here in the U.S., the movers and shakers in the Democratic Party resisted chastising the violent street thugs who are burning, looting, and vandalizing their way across the Democrat-controlled parts of the country. Worse, they refused even to acknowledge the violence. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, after a section of her city was taken over by extremists, suggested it could lead to a “summer of love.” Numerous violent assaults and a couple of fatal shootings later, Durkan is hoping that nobody remembers her stupidity.
Not Helping the Cause
Fast forward to the present day, with a little more than two months until the presidential election, and Democrats have begun to understand that the next victim of their rampaging beast could well be their own candidate, Joe Biden.
Biden himself has only recently – and for the first time – unequivocally condemned the violence. “I would imagine it’s a potential problem,” said one Senate Democratic aide recently, referring to the unrest. He added:
“The riots in the streets and the destruction are not the only part of these protests. If you were to follow what Republicans have said about this protest movement and these moments, you would think that every single moment of these protests has been defined by violence, and they haven’t been.”
True though this statement may be, it is the violence that overshadows everything else. On this point, the left has been hoisted by its own petard: When one crazed gunman walks into a school or a church or a shopping mall and takes multiple lives, leftists demand an end to gun ownership. They have no interest in conceding that the overwhelming majority of legal gun owners are responsible and law-abiding citizens; the few acts of violence cancel out this truth. They imply that every citizen who owns a gun is a potential danger to everyone else and must be disarmed.
So it is with the riots. The fact that many of the recent protests have been peaceful is no longer relevant. The destruction, the murders, the violent attacks on both police officers and members of the public have rendered the term “peaceful protest” meaningless.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) probably fears the violence in her state will benefit President Trump in November. Baldwin, who, like most Democrats, has for months remained silent about the mayhem, now says the recent shootings and other unlawful activities in Kenosha “are not advancing the cause of racial justice.”
In reality, of course, the organized unrest that has spread across Democrat-run cities was never about advancing the cause of racial justice. Racial tension is far too valuable as a political weapon for anyone on the left to want to see it dissipate. The problem now, though, is that it has all gone too far. Democrat politicians thought they could use it to their advantage, but, obviously, they have lost control, and the rest of America, tired of the chaos, is turning away from them.
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Read more from Graham J. Noble.
