Liberal Illiberalism
American conservatives view liberals as political opponents. Liberals regard conservatives as “domestic enemies.”
In fact, that’s exactly what one prominent liberal Democrat, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, called Republicans.
By exploiting a manufactured “state of emergency” to de-platform, silence, fence off, even purge legitimate opposition, election-emboldened Democrats, Big Tech and media allies have made it clear they’re unwilling to share the nation with anyone who merely disagrees with them.
Unprecedented in American history, their behavior is driven by ambitions to accumulate power and control, “justified” by a shared “liberal” mindset.
Nowhere is there greater uniformity of thought than inside the left’s insular, ideological bubble, where critical thinking is replaced by commonly-held political/social assumptions based on context-free feelings that go unchallenged by peers or much of media.
Liberals preach “diversity” and “inclusion,” but, illiberally, demand conformity and obedience.
Indoctrinated in secular, socially-sanctioned “politically-correct” dogma, cocooned liberals assume they’ve cornered the markets on intelligence, compassion and morality, each assumption an essential political/social/cultural affectation that permits them to illiberally dismiss opposing points of view, and demonize anyone who holds them.
As examples, despite documented/scientific evidence, closed-minded il-liberals deny that gender is binary, abortions take lives, Black Lives Matter (BLM) founders are self-identified “trained Marxists,” and America prospered during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Because they cannot successfully argue those topics, among others, il-liberals distract, deflect, change the subject, intimidate, ostracize, dominate discussion, or, preferably, end it.
When challenged, il-liberals respond with gratuitous insults – “haters,” “racists,” “Nazis” – designed to delegitimize opposition and suppress free expression. After all, why engage in civil discussions when character assassination and shout downs require no facts, thought or effort?
Now, after tolerating, approving, even encouraging months of largely-unprosecuted radical Antifa/BLM urban insurrections that destroyed businesses, jobs, lives, and caused $billions of public and private property damage, il-liberal Democrats are using a January Capitol disturbance as an excuse to criminalize not only intruders, but former-President Donald Trump, his voters, and any others who dare oppose their social/political totalitarianism.
Natural extensions of the verbal aggression liberals have long substituted for persuasion, the radical urban rioting, looting and arson served to unmask the left’s ambition and reveal their governing “philosophy.”
Left-liberals have abandoned civility for open combat against individual freedom, America’s constitutional order, and free market capitalism.
Author/commentator Dr. James Lindsay calls the BLM, Antifa and other radical activists’ insurrection movements “Leninism 4.0.”
In a January interview, Dr. Lindsay explained that Leninism’s first three versions – Lenin, Stalin, and Mao – each tried to “fix the problems” of the previous version – “fixings” that, cumulatively, took more than 100 million innocent lives.
Lindsay takes little comfort in observing that, while Lenin, Stalin and Mao killed dissidents, “…they [version 4.0] are instead canceling dissidents here….”
Here – so far at least – dissenters are only stigmatized, demonized, accused of crimes they didn’t commit, isolated and silenced.
Democrats’ allied mainstream corporate and social media platforms are doing/amplifying most of the accusing, demonizing, isolating, and silencing, while slandering everyone who spent January 6 in Washington, even after federal officials announced that the level of coordination indicates that Capitol actions were preplanned by interests unrelated to rally-goers.
Lindsay imagined some rally-goers who entered the Capitol might have had thoughts of some kind of insurrection, but video footage showed most “wandering around…interviewed by journalists, [without] a plan of action.”
Granted, calling a Washington rally on that particular day was foolish, but fair observers would concede there was nothing in Mr. Trump’s speech that can reasonably be construed as “inciting insurrection.”
But, that’s not how Democrats see it. Democrats see an opportunity.
While America, generally, seems ready to move past four years of (mostly il-liberal) rancor, Democrats/media accomplices are embracing and exploiting it.
Forget bipartisan reconciliation. Democrats demand submission. The mendacity and cheap theatrics surrounding a second Trump impeachment clearly illustrate Democrats’ predilection for partisan revenge.
Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz called an out-of-office impeachment “unconstitutional,” warning that conducting another as “petty partisan warfare” has broader, far more sinister implications: “If you can impeach anyone who is not a sitting president, there are no limits to the power of the Congress to try ordinary citizens.”
Ironically, by prosecuting a former-officeholder-cum-private-citizen, Democrats set a precedent under which Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton – any Democrat – could be impeached, too.
All Republicans need is a 2023 House majority.
They’ll have one.
