Civic responsibility starts with telling the truth–the whole truth–about political violence
To the editor:
Recently, the Island Reporter featured a Guest Commentary (“Civic Responsibility in the Face of Mounting Political Violence”) deploring political violence, which the author linked with too many guns and inflammatory language coming from one end of the political spectrum. To support that conclusion, the author offered a number of examples of political violence, carefully selected to avoid acknowledging both the real reason for spiking gun violence and the involvement of those on the political left.
Although he was also careful to avoid the Progressive slur that Republican leaders are Nazis, he could not resist implying that they are, suggesting that they have tolerated behavior that, to him, resembles the 1938 Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) rioting in which Nazi Brownshirts incited violence against (Jewish-owned) shops and businesses in German cities. One has to appreciate the irony, considering that the closest America has come to that phenomenon was the Democrat Party’s own indulgence of the 2020 rioting in which Antifa blackshirts incited weeks of violence against (primarily white-owned) shops and businesses in U.S. cities.
The author insists, nevertheless, that we push back against the “rhetoric of violence” and air our differences with mutual respect “rather than the language of war against an enemy who is an existential threat.” Then he concludes, oblivious to the irony again, that we should join “the fight to save our democracy” from the “forces” of actual and threatened violence-which sounds awfully close to words of war against an enemy that presents an existential threat.
Apart from the political bias and hypocrisy, there are two more substantive points. First, all decent people deplore gun violence-no one more than law-abiding gun owners who enjoy hunting and shooting sports and who increasingly (thanks to Progressive policies) sense the need to provide protection for themselves and their families. We all know that those people are not driving gun violence, although they are driving gun and ammunition sales through the roof from fear of escalating crime rates. Those fears are well founded, since recent news reports reveal that at least a dozen major cities have experienced all-time-high murder rates.
And that is not a product of right-wing rhetoric. No, the rates of murder and gun violence are almost exclusively an urban phenomenon driven by gang violence, drug use, and related criminal behaviors like theft and robbery. If one wanted to politicize the problem, one could note that, without exception, those urban areas are controlled by Progressives whose agenda includes “defunding” police departments, refusing to prosecute “property” crimes, and emptying jails of dangerous criminals. The resulting rates of gun violence and murder are entirely predictable.
Second, the political narrative promoted by Progressives argues that the source of political violence can be traced to right-wing activists, especially Republicans linked with former President Trump. But there is a problem with this narrative because everyone, including the author, knows that political violence is hardly limited to those on the far right. What everyone may not know, although the author certainly does, is that Progressives in politics, media, and other sectors of society are engaged in a concerted effort to shape our consciousness by ignoring, suppressing, and rationalizing left-wing political violence while highlighting, exaggerating, and even faking right-wing violence. A look at some recent high-profile events, which escaped the author’s notice, is illustrative.
– The Jussie Smollett hate-crime hoax: Because the supply of right-wing political violence could not meet the needs of Progressives in the Trump era, Smollett, like many others before him, simply invented an assault, this time perpetrated by MAGA-cap wearing bigots shouting crude slurs to confirm their motives. Despite the absurdity of the “facts” surrounding the alleged attack, Progressive politicians, pundits, and celebrities instantly used the hoax to hype the narrative of pervasive right-wing violence, now featuring a “modern-day lynching.” If you’re thinking that those Progressive folks are chastened in light of the collapse of the hoax and Smollett’s recent conviction for lying, you’d be wrong. As in similar cases, they just deflect any questions and move on, confident that their contribution to the narrative will endure.
– The Kyle Rittenhouse smear: A 17-year-old boy traveled to a town 20 minutes from his home, a town where he had worked as a lifeguard, his best friend lived, and he had often visited his father, grandmother, and other family. He went there to help clean up and deter some of the extensive property damage resulting from political protests that were supported by Progressives and that plagued cities across the country in the summer of 2020. While there, he retrieved and lawfully carried a firearm to protect himself from the violence routinely inflicted by leftwing protesters on innocent civilians and law enforcement officials. In retrospect, that was foolish, primarily because left-wing mobs have learned not to expect serious deterrence or accountability (private or official), so they were not likely to deterred by Rittenhouse. In fact, he was seen as an obstruction to their “peaceful protests,” which apparently required the massive destruction of property to be effective. When some white protesters attempted to attack and disarm him, predictably unfortunate consequences followed. As his subsequent trial for murder and firearm violations established, he acted lawfully and in self-defense, but you would hardly know that from the reaction of Progressives, who continued to push the false narrative they had orchestrated before his trial and acquittal on all charges. In their view, Rittenhouse was still a white supremacist vigilante who was looking for trouble and went on an unprovoked shooting spree. Some even continued to insist that the men shot were black, that there was no justification for shooting the (white) attackers, and that weapon involved had been illegally transported across state lines.
– The “SUV” that killed six and injured dozens of others: When, in a clear case of political violence, a man with distinctly leftist views ploughed his SUV into a crowd of people at a Waukesha (Wisconsin) Christmas parade, the Progressive media scrambled to obscure the facts in a ridiculous attempt to avoid the reality of left-wing political violence. Their reporting attempted to obscure the responsible human actor with his welldocumented criminal history and leftist political beliefs, focusing instead on the behavior of the automobile! CNN said, “Waukesha will hold a moment of silence today, marking one week since a car drove through a city Christmas parade.” The Washington Post reported on “the Waukesha tragedy caused by an SUV.” MSNBC was puzzled that a “red SUV inexplicably sped into the parade route.” These are the same media outlets that wasted no time developing the false profile of Rittenhouse as a vigilante white supremacist who illegally crossed state lines with a gun to engage in a shooting spree, while subsequently ignoring the identity of the Waukesha defendant and his shocking criminal record and left-wing political views. Why the obfuscation? Well, the facts just did not fit the narrative (although there is a certain liberal logic in blaming both guns and SUVs for killing people).
And the recent examples of left-wing violence have precedents. In 2017, for instance, we witnessed a mass shooting by a left-wing activist and Bernie Sanders supporter who took aim (with semi-automatic weapons) at a Republican baseball practice and severely injured Congressman Steve Scalise.
Moreover, we need not strain, as Progressives do, to find “thinly veiled encouragement of mob violence” when the former president told his supporters to march to the Capitol to “stop the steal.” We have better, clearer examples of politicians encouraging mob violence. Take the comments of vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris on the 2020 riots: “They’re not gonna stop before election day in November and they’re not gonna stop after election day in November. Everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they are not going to let up-and they should not. And we should not.” Imagine if Trump said that to his supporters. Of course, her apologists were quick to insist that she was referring to the “mostly peaceful protests” (you know, the ones that resulted in $2 Billion in property damage, 19 lives lost, and over 900 police officer casualties). No such grace was extended to Trump even though he explicitly told his supporters, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
So, yes, we should welcome a plea for civic responsibility by rejecting threats and acts of violence, but to avoid the perception that the appeal is actually a disguised attack on your political opponents, you might want to start with the truth-the whole truth-about political violence in our county today.
Kelly Tyrell
Andrew Cline
Sanibel