From Profanity to Domestic Terrorism?

With a burst of public profanity failing to persuade everyday Americans, are Democrats turning a blind eye toward, if not fomenting, domestic terrorism? How does that help their "cause?"

Earlier this week, I wrote about a burst of profanity by Democratic politicians, including US Senators. It ranges from a viral NPC-like (non-player character) set of identical viral videos (“Sh*t Ain’t Real”) to US Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) calling one of the world’s most successful and wealthiest entrepreneurs, Elon Musk, a “dick” for his work to make government more efficient and reduce spending.

In recent days, that splurge has taken a dark turn to what many are now calling “domestic violence.” Examples:

I’m sure the lawyers signed off on that one, since lawyers don’t/can’t clear “expressions” that convey something different than the spoken word. Expect more of this.

To be sure, this isn’t new. And while Democrats focus almost exclusively on the violence of January 6, 2021, at the US Capitol, the fact is there are many more acts of violence from the left of the political spectrum over the past decade since and including the downtown DC riots on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017. And that doesn’t even include the recent spate of mass shootings since that’s more attributable to mental illness than partisan intent.

The best examples are the “fiery but mostly peaceful” destructive protests and many more resulting in actual police deaths and billions of dollars in damage during the post-George Floyd death of May 25, 2020, and tragic law enforcement shootings in places like Kenosha, Wisconsin.

As RealClearInvestigations.com has expertly documented, over 500 violent riots occurred in over 200 US cities during the summer of 2020, despite the offending police officer in question, Derek Chavin, being found guilty and going to jail, never mind that toxicology reports on George Floyd showed he had lethal levels of fentanyl in his system. A topic for another day.

Some may question whether keying or damaging someone’s vehicle should be classified as violence. I’m okay with that debate as someone who had his car keyed at a 2008 McCain-Palin rally outside the county courthouse in Media, Pennsylvania. Attacking, damaging, and destroying someone else’s private property qualifies as violence where I come from.

And then there were the two assassination attempts against President Donald Trump during the summer of 2024, one of which came perilously close to changing history.

For most of the Biden years, if not before, we’ve been feted to claims, many supported and echoed by the FBI, that our biggest domestic violence threat comes from “white supremacy,” or as the FBI’s office in Richmond, Virginia, once noted in a now-withdrawn memo, Latin-mass attending “Rad-Trad” Catholics. I’m still waiting for evidence of that.

It makes you yearn for the good old days of profanity. At least you could turn that off without fear of losing a car or your livelihood.

Of equal concern to me is not just the acts of violence against Tesla dealers and people’s cars, not even the Rick-Wilson-like calls to put a bullet into Donald Trump. It’s the complete failure of any Democratic officials, especially in Congress, to condemn the violence.

Silence equals complicity and also qualifies as cowardice. Democrats are failing their newest “Sister Soulja” moment, just as they did when Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh narrowly avoided an assassination attempt and other harassment of fellow justices likely incited by actions like this:

Except now, Democrats are suddenly worried about US District Judges who appear to be exceeding their authority to stymie Trump Administration actions, drawing strong rebukes but nothing more “violent” than calls for impeachment.

One of my favorite bosses was a former general counsel at my most recent employer. We could not have been more different, at least politically. She was a liberal and loyally Democratic New York Jew, while I was (and remain) a politically conservative Republican evangelical Christian from rural Oklahoma. We got along famously, and I look back very fondly at our frequent conversations. She was tough and demanding, but always fair and a wonderful advocate. For example, not long after the 2008 elections, a second consecutive electoral shellacking of the GOP, she expressed concerns about the future of the Republican party. We bonded over love of country, respect for history, and fealty to the rule of law.

And with good reason. Aside from following the disastrous 2008 financial crisis, Republicans lost the White House to Barack Obama and solid Democratic control of the House and filibuster-proof Senate, albeit briefly. Democratic excesses, symbolized by Obamacare, helped return Republicans to power in Congress during the 2010 elections.

I cannot quote her precisely, but she said something that has stayed with me all these years: America needed a strong two-party system. The competition of ideas was good for the country, reinforcing our system of checks and balances and essential for our political vitality.

I agreed with her then and more so now, even as political roles are reversed. I feel about the Democratic Party today how she felt about Republicans in 2009.

Democrats are foundering about and breaching dangerous territory by trembling in fear at its increasingly radicalized and violent base. Their recent dumpster dive into profanity seems quaint given the latest and darker twists and turns.

It’s perfectly fine to oppose anything, even everything, coming from Elon Musk’s D.O.G.E. team. Challenging their legality is okay, even as some US district judges soil themselves with excessive use of national restraining orders and evidence of judicial arrogance and overreach. The appellate system and Supreme Court will sort them out, and Congress can intervene, too.

Sure, Republicans have problems of their own and are often accused of failing to stand up to its Trumpian “MAGA” base as well. Worse, too many social media grifters on the right (maybe the left, too, but I don’t see it) tailor their content with clickbait and the latest outrages to build and monetize their “brands.” But it’s not MAGA Republicans who are torching cars and trying to assassinate presidential candidates and Supreme Court Justices. They also didn’t defy the Constitution’s First Amendment with creation of a government-sanctioned censorship-misinformation complex, as the Twitter Files helped expose. And they sure didn’t hijack and politicize the legal system and law enforcement and intelligence communities to lie about the contents of a laptop computer owned by a presidential candidate’s grifting and decadent son, spy on their opponents, or manufacture hoaxes from phony foreign dossiers.

If Republicans are guilty of anything, it’s incorporating much of the left’s playbook, from incivility to cancel culture. The victimhood embracing “woke right” even seems to be a thing, even though I don’t fully understand it. Some on the right have embraced Alinskite tactics as much as The Left™ has for decades.

Over the past twenty years, I’ve become involved in the “civility” movement, from serving as a founding board member of the Convergence Center for Policy Resolution to co-chairing the Stubblefield Institute for Civil Political Communications. We have our hands full, at least at the national level. There seems to be much more civility the more “local” one gets. Perhaps because we’re dealing with neighbors and people we see and talk with frequently at Little League games and neighborhood grocery stores.

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless.
Not to speak is to speak.
Not to act is to act.”

―Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I’m not one to advise Democrats, but I highly recommend they follow the very advice they love to dispense to MAGA Republicans - reject the extreme elements of your party and coalition. Call them out, marginalize them, and reject and repudiate their strategies and tactics. Develop and embrace a relatable, forward-looking agenda that gives people something to be for. Stop insulting our intelligence. Green shoots of that are emerging among the more thoughtful Democrats, from the New York Times’ Ezra Klein to my favorite writers at Substack’s “The Liberal Patriot,” led by Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin.

I fear the hour is late. The Left’s long march through America’s institutions over the past 50 years, starting with public education (including law schools), has taken its toll. The cancer has spread to other institutions, from the military to federal law enforcement and churches. Those institutions must be reclaimed and trust rebuilt. But the quest for power (for its own sake) and a proclivity to embrace intimidation and violence to silence opponents won’t be given up without a fight. They seem to be doubling down. I fear it will get worse before it gets better. I. Must. Remain. Hopeful.

Most conservatives cannot be accused of trying to impose ideological conformity, as The Left has insisted on doing with increasing ferocity. That’s because the vast majority of Republicans embrace a philosophy, not a rigid ideology that demands Soviet-style acquiescence, as we’ve seen with the so-called woke “anti-racist” agenda. What’s that conservative philosophy? For starters, freedom, equal rights and opportunity, and fiscal and personal responsibility. And most reject the politicization of everything. Ideologues seek to impose dogmas and behaviors and force conformity and outcomes. Conservative philosophy does just the opposite, but you wouldn’t know it from the name calling.

What’s it going to take to curb this trend? I don’t know, but please, Democrats, figure it out. Reject and condemn violence and rediscover the art of persuasion that doesn’t include intimidation and violence. As for the rest of us, we also need to enforce a rule of our own: that which gets rewarded gets repeated. And we must stop rewarding and condoning violence and its incitement wherever we see it and whoever perpetrates or encourages it, regardless of partisanship.