Sorry Liberals, A Violent Response To Trump Is As Logical As Any, by Jesse Been at the Huntington Post (very PC). The author begins by with a standard lauding of the moral superiority of the politically correct, by noting how evil the rest of us are:
The rise of Donald Trump has exposed the frightening underbelly of America’s foulest tendencies. Our racism, nativism, xenophobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, ableism, and propensity toward authoritarianism have been laid bare.
Then he makes the case that Trump is inciting violence, with a ludicrously one-sided recitation that positively shouts its lies of omission (such as not noting the rather salient but inconvenient fact that violence only occurs at Trump rallies, but not that the rallies of other politicians):
There are so many examples of Trump inciting violence the New York Times put together this video documenting some of them. A powerful video juxtaposing his longing for the violence against protestors from the “good ol’ days” with images from the Civil Rights Era recently went viral. There’s been an upswing in anti-Muslim hate crimes that correlates with his candidacy—including several offenders who cite him as their inspiration. Another of his supporters beat an unhoused Latino man. Yet another sucker punched a demonstrator at a rally and then, more alarmingly, went on to say, “The next time we see him, we might have to kill him.” Trump has not just flagrantly violated the typical boundaries of political discourse, his candidacy is linked to multiple instances of violence.
If PC people living in their PC information silos only get to read this sort of coverage, what are they to think? Well that brings us to the third and longest part of the article, justifications for using violence against Trump supporters.
The author claims Trump is beyond the pale, but offers only the usual examples of blaspheming against PC, so obviously Trump’s real crime in the author’s eyes is that he defies PC pieties. Mere political opposition is apparently insufficient when it comes to Trump:
These denunciations of violence from anti-Trump protestors rest on the misguided view that the divide Trump’s exposed is a typical political disagreement between partisans, and should be handled as such. This couldn’t be further from the truth. … Treating this like politics as usual allows it to become politics as usual, and those who do so risk complicity ushering in a new era of fascist politics in the United States. Violence that takes place at Trump rallies—in support or opposition—is a reaction to the tone he’s set, and the blame for it should land primarily on his shoulders.
Next, he want is to suppress the political yearning that Trump has given voice to:
My biggest issue with looking at the Trump problem as an exclusively political issue, though, is that if he loses this fall everyone will go back to ignoring the things that got us here in the first place. No matter who wins in November, the forces underpinning his rise will remain.
Finally, after all that groundwork, he plucks up the nerve to advocate violence against Trump and his supporters:
Violent resistance matters. Riots can lead to major change. It’s not liberal politicians or masses that historians identify as the spark underlying the modern movement for LGBTQ equality. Nor was it a think piece from some smarmy liberal writer. It was the people who took to the streets during the Stonewall Uprising. It was the Watts Rebellion, not the Watts Battle of Ideas, that exposed the enduring systemic neglect, poverty, inequality, and racism faced by that community. Similarly, it was the LA Uprising, not the LA Protests, that led to significant changes in the Los Angeles Police Department. More recently, the Ferguson and Baltimore Uprisings both helped prompt the Justice Department to investigate their corrupt police forces. And since we’re talking about fascism, it’s worth remembering that it wasn’t the election of a moderate centrist (hello, Hillary) or a sanguine protest that stopped its ascent in Europe. It was, primarily, the Russian military, and to a lesser extent the US military; neither of which practiced nonviolence if memory serves.
Last, I want to briefly note the problematic nature of people with privilege condemning violent resistance to Trump as an absolute moral failing, or denying its logic. Whether you would personally engage in violent conduct matters little to your ability to understand where it comes from. Some people have the privilege to consider the implications of Trump’s rise in the abstract and negotiate which means are necessary. That’s not true for everyone. And when those who hold that privilege dismiss the potential validity or logic of violent resistance, it’s effectively an effort to dictate the rules under which oppressed peoples respond to existential threats, and to silence forms of resistance disagreeable to privileged sensibilities. Don’t be that liberal.
The politically correct — misinformed and consequently misguided, and damned proud of it.
UPDATE: Rod Dreher summarizes the article above thus:
Trump and what he stands for must be stopped by any means necessary. For another, violence sometimes makes good things happen.
Then notes:
Remember this when President Trump gets elected on a law and order platform, positioning himself as the only thing standing between law-abiding Americans and these violent left-wing hysterics.
What’s going to happen to these Social Justice Warriors when they find that the general public is not as spineless as college administrators?
