Getting a Little Rough out There

Many people are paying a lot of attention to attempts by members of  the traditional media  to run Trump out of office or at least ruin him politically over his or his associates’ supposed contacts with the Russian government.  While these efforts annoy Republicans  (and probably Trump), they are insignificant  except as illustrating again very vividly the fact  of most of those in the traditional media being  hacks and partisans of the Democrats and  left.  If some of Trump’s operatives spoke with people in Russia before the election about getting  some unpleasant facts about Hillary Clinton made public,  that was not a crime – just the sort of hardball politics the Democrats play all the time while expecting Republicans to stick to the Romney/Bush nerf stuff.  If some of Trump’s people began unofficial discussions with people in the Russian government after the election, that too was not a crime – just unofficial diplomacy as it has been done with various foreign nations by many administrations.

While all this is being reported and broadcast daily,  most people in the media are missing an  important story. Things such as the blatant attempts by leftists to suppress free speech especially at colleges,  the use of violence by disgruntled leftists and the condoning  of it by Democratic politicians, the talk (and sometimes action)  of “resistance” as opposed to normal opposition to Trump and his government,  the  undisguised hostility to traditionally minded white people,  and the declarations of disobedience to federal law by Democratic officials are  leading some conservatives  to conclude that the leftists are now  blood enemies who have rejected the norms of a civil republic under the Constitution  and  must be met and defeated -  if necessary by the same  jungle law and tactics  they have embraced. People are getting angry.  It is not the 1850’s yet or even the 1970’s, but something is going on on the left and the right that is not good.

There have already been brawls between mobs  of leftist hoodlums and Trump supporters.  A few days ago some  conservatives laughed  about a candidate for congress roughing up a leftist reporter. Yesterday members of the Texas legislature were threatening each other with violence on the floor over a representative’s attempt to  report a group of self-identified illegal aliens in the capitol to the federal authorities.  

The leftists need to tone things down and step back  out of simple decency and respect for the law  and Constitution.  If unmoved by that they should do so for purely pragmatic reasons , since  they would  be in a particularly bad spot if  things got really bad.  After all  leftists  really shouldn’t want things to be settled in the streets.  For if it ever came to it, a great majority  of the people who own and are skilled with firearms would be on the other side. Also there is the fact that while people such as the assorted activists, bureaucrats,  trial lawyers, angry social sciences professors, and welfare recipients who make up much of the left’s base need the self-supporting, taxpaying  people to survive, the self-supporting,  taxpaying people really do not need them for much of  anything. It would not be a good thing for much of the left if enough people realized that (or if some future Trump helped  them to do so) at the same time. Various well established games might suddenly  be up.  Pushing people too far is  rarely a good idea. Pushing people you need and depend on too far never is.