Look, it's pretty obvious to me why leftists claim speech (specifically "right wing speech") is violence or continually cite the events of 1/6/2021 as the worst attack in the history of the republic or declare white supremacy (which is their code for anyone right of center) as the number one domestic terror threat. It's because, as my friend and NARN colleague Mitch Berg has stated ad nauseum, it's to draw attention away from their own misdeeds.
If progs are able to convince enough people that anyone with a conservative worldview is a grand threat to our democracy, then they can justify the violence in which they regularly engage. The things is, they no longer wanna go it alone. They're now demanding that Democrat elected officials enter the fray.
Axios spoke to several House Democrats who didn't want their names on the record.
The grassroots wants more. "Some of them have suggested ... what we really need to do is be willing to get shot" when visiting ICE facilities or federal agencies, a third House Democrat told Axios.
- "Our own base is telling us that what we're doing is not good enough ... [that] there needs to be blood to grab the attention of the press and the public," the lawmaker said.
- A fourth House Democrat said constituents have told them "civility isn't working" and to prepare for "violence ... to fight to protect our democracy."
- A fifth House Democrat told Axios that "people online have sent me crazy s*** ... told me to storm the White House and stuff like that," though they added that "there's always people on the internet saying crazy stuff."
I would gather the vast majority of the people calling for violence are avowed atheists (aka secular progressives). If so, folks who subscribe to that worldview have resigned themselves to believing that what we have in this world is all there is. And given there's literally a finite amount of time remaining in life, it's no secret why they're willing to die for something so temporal. I'm equal parts saddened and repulsed by such a mindset.
Here's a question I have for elected Democrats: have you considered the possibility that your hyperbolic rhetoric about President Trump's second term may have caused already mentally fragile individuals to call for a violent insurrection? Just go back to the 2024 campaign and listen to the speeches given by Dem candidates (including their POTUS and VPOTUS candidates) and how fatalistic they considered a potential second Trump term. Heck, even after Trump assumed office they were still accusing Republicans of being fascists. Now, if a mentally unstable person takes such verbiage to heart, they convince themselves there's no voting there way out of that. So these House Democrats who conveyed their shock in that Axios piece should really examine their potential role in radicalizing these people.
Again, I've consistently said that the only people culpable for violent acts are the perpetrators themselves. But it's analogous to someone getting mugged in a bad neighborhood while walking through it late at night. The muggers are the only bad guys in that situation, but it's clear the victim should have exercised discretion. It's not nearly as much of a stretch to say that Dem politicians may have triggered violent tendencies in their supporters as it is to suggest a former Republican VP candidate putting a crosshair symbol on the map of a U.S. House District resulted in a Congresswoman getting shot.
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