During the afternoon of Friday October 26th, a disturbed middle aged man, Cesar Sayoc, was arrested for sending bombs to prominent Democrats and supporters. It shouldn’t need saying but; the crimes he’s been alleged to have committed are obviously very, very wrong.
As was the case when Illinois resident James Hodgkinson traveling to Washington to shoot up Republicans. The result Hodgkinson’s actions? A security officer and Representative Steve Scalise were seriously injured.
Equivalency?
If you were to ask liberal think tank Think Progress, the answer is no. Noted by writer Josh Israel, “Sanders and Democrats in Congress have urged their supporters to be vocal in their opposition to the Trump agenda, but have consistently opposed violent rhetoric and actions.”
Wait? What? I’ll have to introduce him the Maxine Waters.
Let’s get to the point, crazy is crazy. Political affiliation is secondary, if even that, to a motivated sociopath bent on violence. It’s a vehicle, an excuse, for an underlying issue.
Nonetheless, you now hear talking heads from sea-to-liberal-shining-sea decrying Trump’s so-called violent speech as a predicate for this potential bombing. What’s a little shocking is a complete lack of self awareness on the left regarding the issue of political violence. Still you hear from said talking heads that Trump recently joked about a ‘body slam’ or further had joked about punching opponents a full two years ago.
I’m not much of a fan of Trump’s stream-of-consciousness rants but if words are violence, that’s a pretty skimpy record. Not awesome, but I can’t imagine that any of that sticks too deeply in the mind of any normal person as reason to rampage. The seeming incendiary Trump rhetoric is claimed to have pushed a failed bomber to the edge.
Clearly Trump does not hold the market on violent political rhetoric. The left has a long, long and intimate relationship with violent rhetoric and action.
One need only look to Bill Ayers. If you didn’t know Ayer’s history, much of what the left tells of Bill’s history is him as an anti-war activist. He sure was that. His time as an American terrorist is often a key fact forsaken. As a member of the Weather Underground throughout the 1970’s, he and his fellow travelers made bombs and planned violent, terroristic plots.
Much of that is known. Also known is President Barack Obama’s political career was launched in 1995 from within Ayer’s tony Hyde Park Il living room.
Ayer’s and cohorts made bombs. To use. Successfully. Throughout their decade plus existence, the Underground laid claim to 25 bombings and two deaths (as a result of a failed Brinks robbery in the early 80’s).
But, you know, it’s Obama. It’s cool. Bombs are o.k. if politics are progressive. On the same day as Sayoc’s arrest, Obama tells us, “What’s happened? We got to get back to that basic stuff. We can have disagreements, but there has to be a certain code, certain rules to how we treat each other in the public sphere. That’s what Americans do. That’s who we are.” With the subtext that Obama’s long ago buddy was complicit in bombings. Like Sayoc.
Yet, the left is guilty of en masse rhetorical murder.
In June of 2017, socialist septuagenarian Bernie Sanders stated regarding the Republican Health Care bill, “Nobody can predict exactly how many people will die if they lose their coverage. Nobody can make that prediction…Up to 28,000 Americans every single year could die…That is nine times more than the tragic losses we suffered on 9/11”
Terrorism. A congressional bill is terrorism. Sigh.
On the same bill, Senator Elizabeth Warren shot the rhetorical flare in the air, “Senate Republicans had to make a choice. How to pay for all these juicy tax cuts for their rich buddies? I’ll tell you how: blood money. Senate Republicans wrung some extra dollars out of kicking people off tax credits that help them afford health insurance.” For good measure, she throws in that Republicans were, “…sitting around a conference room table, dreaming up even meaner ways to kick dirt in the face of the American people and take away their health insurance.”
Rhetorical flourishes you say? Well, yes it is. Bad flourishes, to be sure. Just like Trump. There’s no difference. Except that in Trump’s world, where one or two folks theoretically get hurt, in Progressiveland, bodies are strewn about the countryside.
In order to hide their long history of political violence, leftists refer to the Trump era as a ‘new and dangerous’ era in politics. True? Not really. It goes all the way back to our founders where once they were ‘droppin’ Hamilton’s like Aaron Burr‘.
The left, because the only tool at hand is alarmism (see Climate Change for reference), they now need to ring said alarm bell that our politics has changed in the era of Trump.
Thomas Jefferson said of Patrick Henry, “…what we have to do, I think, is devoutly to pray for his death.”
Pretty harsh to wish the death of a former friend. But leave it to Jefferson to pen the ultimate dis when he said of John Adams, “…a blind, bald, crippled, toothless man who is a hideous hermaphroditic character with neither the force and fitness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”
Snap! With an extra serving of ‘diggity’.
The only difference between the founding and modern day politics is the skill of the dig. And we ain’t got nothin’ on Jefferson.
Still, here we are on the heals of what could have been a catastrophe at the hands of Sayoc. We are not. We’re lucky that he failed spectacularly.
The left still wishes to blame Trump and his counterpunching ways. Look at Sayoc’s van festooned with all manner of Trump, anti-left and anti-CNN propaganda. It’s clearly not normal.
But the leftist media still want to tag Trump with the attempted bombing. The Daily Beast’s Rick Wilson mustering a failed attempt at Jeffersonian wordsmithing, “Introspection isn’t exactly one of this president’s strong suits, and the discovery that the MAGA Bomber was one of the millions of creatures he created, inspired, and motivated to wage war against those he describes as Enemies of the People will never trouble the placid waters of his stunningly shallow intellect.”
Did you catch that Trump ‘inspired’ this stuff. Then again, it is a Trump supporter so obviously the slobberdogs of his base are willing political zombies doing his evil bidding.
Remember Scalise? What of the left on a middle-aged Bernie Bro firing on a vulnerable congressional outing? According the the left’s Vox, “But to accuse others of “political rhetorical terrorism”, is nothing more than a political ploy itself — an attempt to use a tragedy to silence opponents.” Stating further, “And that is exactly what right-wing media outlets have done since Wednesday’s (Scalise) shooting, taking it as an opportunity to dredge up the worst examples of liberal speech.”
If you want to know the truth, according to a University of Michigan study done a few years back, politically motivated violent tendencies were equally present in Republicans and Democrats.
I’d also imagine that the tendency to violence would be the same for lovers of the left side of Twix (bathed in chocolate) versus the right Twix (cloaked in chocolate). The politics is immaterial. It’s an instrument used to perpetrate a horrific crime. Remember that crazy is crazy.
The duplicity of the finger pointers is dazzling. Humanity be damned to the political class, there’s campaign donations to be raised and faux rage to be propagated.
And Trump to blame.
