One of the distinguishing features of the hard left over the years has been a tendency to reflexively attach virtue not to individuals, but to groups they deem to be oppressed. That has long been an effective talking point or rallying cry swallowed up by big media. But what happens when those judges of virtue turn truth on its head and label a group so defined by being oppressed over the long march of history as oppressors?
That is the most polite way of pointing out the preposterous narrative on the left that a people who suffered the worst slaughter in recorded history within the last century, not to mention persistent bigotry over several millennia, are to be viewed as oppressors. Take a moment to consider the absurdity of that position on the hard left regarding the Jewish people. And here it is important to emphasize that the radical protests this week which shut down bridges and thoroughfares throughout the country are not merely anti-Israeli, as elite media has largely positioned the movement. They have made clear that they hate the Jewish people even more than the Jewish state. They are driven by palpable envy of how Israel has turned a small strip of sand into a functioning and prosperous democracy, while so much of the Arab world wallows in misery.
You need only listen to the cries of these protesters to understand that the ultimate goal of the “I am Hamas” protesters is the indiscriminate slaughter of Jews throughout the world. It is entirely lost on the empty-headed, indoctrinated radicals that all the things they support – the right of free speech, assembly, a free press, women’s rights, gay rights – are grounds for imprisonment or death in their beloved Gaza, Iran, and beyond.
Those who lived through the Holocaust, or liberated the concentration camps, or have simply read the accounts of survivors and witnesses, should be utterly sickened by the return of something that we were assured never could or would be allowed to happen again. And this anti-semitism is rearing its ugly head not just in the US, but across the world.
Democrats on Notice From Tireless Radicals
Ordinarily, as in the case of the George Floyd riots, radicals tire of their own rage and go home to prepare for their next assignment, the next mission of wokeness they are compelled to support loudly and proudly. Even the upheaval in the summer of 2020 had a limited run of two or three months before the rioters were satiated. We might have hoped the same thing would happen with this latest fashionable grievance, but no such luck. It has been six and a half months since Hamas murdered hundreds of innocents, and the protests are becoming, if anything, more forceful.
Again, the absurdity of it is almost beyond comprehension. But then, these are the same people who have openly called for the destruction of people and property, defunding the police, silencing non-compliant speech, gender fluidity, adolescent transgenderism, and anything else requiring “equity,” otherwise known as enforced quotas or guaranteed outcomes based exclusively on race and gender, and devoid of individual merit.
This is what the Democratic Party has wrought through its unquestioning embrace of wokeness in its many forms. And they will soon pay the price. Plans to disrupt the Democratic National Convention in Chicago are well underway from a coalition of no less than 75 organizations, the type calling for a permanent ceasefire the day after Israel was attacked. Referring to the bloody anti-war riots during the infamous Democratic National Convention 56 years ago that led to 600 arrests, they have adopted the rallying cry, “We’ve got to give them a 1968 kind of welcome.”
Indeed, as reported in The Free Press about a recent meeting of 450 far-left activists who plan to march on the DNC Convention – with or without permits – to protest ‘Genocide Joe’ Biden: “Speakers told the crowd how to flood the streets without getting arrested, how to spot members of the Secret Service, and how to say ‘Death to America’ in Farsi. At one point, when news of Iran’s attack on Israel spread throughout the room, the crowd erupted in cheers.”
Just as in the summer of 2020, these radicals know that playing by the rules will not produce the desired impact. As one organizer said, “I’m not here to tell you what the law is, I’m here to tell you what you can get away with.” A member of the Chicago City Council, Byron Sigcho-Lopez, addressed his fellow travelers as “comrades” and “freedom fighters.” At the same time, Chicago Democratic Alderman Gilbert Villegas noted, in a deliciously ironic twist, that these anti-DNC groups are “like January 6th in their mission to obstruct a key part of the American political process.”
On top of black, Hispanic, and young voters turning away from Joe Biden and the Democrats in head-spinning numbers, the willingness of leftists to disrupt the convention of the party that is supposed to represent their views sends a powerful signal to the American people. Just like in 1968, the Democratic coalition that landed Joe Biden in the White House is disintegrating before our very eyes.
