Political Violence Is Unacceptable, Left-wing Hypocrisy

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer: Political Violence Is Unacceptable
Two months ago, 74 million people voted for Donald Trump. Most polls (here, here and here) indicate that approximately 75% of Republicans believe he and they were cheated. I agree. Whether the "main stream" media want to discuss it or not, it's a huge problem for the country when 55 million people believe an election was illegitimate.

Hundreds of thousands of those Americans came to Washington yesterday to exercise their First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. It's not a new phenomenon in Washington. Citizens gather dozens of times every year to demonstrate.

They marched to Capitol Hill, which they have a right to do. But then a portion of that crowd broke windows and doors in the Capitol Building. They pushed past police officers and entered the building.

I condemn that violence. Such actions were not lawful. And they set back our cause. Legitimate concerns about election irregularities were totally dismissed after yesterday's chaos on Capitol Hill.
True conservatives don't attack police officers. True conservatives do not vandalize property and disrespect just laws. Yesterday's violence undercut the high moral ground we hold and must continue to hold on the rule of law.

Left-wing Hypocrisy
While I condemn yesterday's violence on Capitol Hill, I am struck by the rank hypocrisy of the media and political left.

The last two years have been a particularly tumultuous time in American politics. The images out of Washington yesterday were only one example of the political violence that has been happening with increasing frequency – almost all of it from the political left.

That left-wing violence was seldom condemned by anyone other than Donald Trump, conservatives and his supporters.

• Let's start with the Kavanaugh hearings. The left ran rampant through the streets of Washington, D.C. They disrupted Senate hearings. They occupied Senate office buildings and multiple Senate offices. They accosted senators in elevators. They attempted to break down doors of the Supreme Court. They physically attacked Kavanaugh supporters, including Christian women who were praying.
• Over the summer, demonstrations that began with calls for police reform regularly ended in violence. The media went to great lengths to convince us that the protests were "mostly peaceful." Night after night we watched as small businesses and stores were looted and burned down, destroying people's livelihoods. Police officers were shot. Innocent people were killed. And Democrat mayors and governors did virtually nothing.
• We witnessed the utter destruction of a Minneapolis police station. The symbol of justice, the federal courthouse in Portland, was repeatedly attacked for weeks. When the president finally sent federal law enforcement officers to protect the courthouse, Trump was condemned and the troops were compared to Nazis.
• Left-wing demonstrators occupied blocks of entire cities and declared them "autonomous zones," liberated from law enforcement. Did Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer say anything about that?
• This past summer, demonstrators rioted in Washington, D.C., for days, and laid siege to the White House. At least 60 Secret Service agents were injured beating back repeated efforts to pierce the White House perimeter. The big media controversy at the time, however, wasn't the left's assault on the White House. No, the left was livid because President Trump and the attorney general walked across the street to visit a historic church which leftists had attempted to set on fire.
• I attended the closing day of the 2020 Republican National Convention to hear the president's acceptance speech at the White House. The White House fence had to be lined with armed troops with face shields, gas masks and batons to prevent the mob from breaching the White House grounds. When the event was over and attendees walked to their cars and hotels, we were accosted by left-wing protestors. Some people were beaten, many were threatened and harassed. The media, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were silent.
• In recent years, monuments to America's heroes and other symbols of our nation were attacked, vandalized and destroyed. Most of the media shrugged off the attacks as uprisings against the evil roots of America. Mayor after mayor refused to protect the federal property and historic monuments in their cities. Only the Trump/Pence Administration took action to stop it.

And I'm not even getting into the number of times that Trump supporters, exercising their First Amendment rights, were assaulted and beaten while police were ordered not to intervene.

Again, I condemn political violence. The people who rioted in the Capitol Building yesterday, whoever they are, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

If I thought there was now a consensus against political violence, I might conclude that there is a "silver lining" to what happened yesterday.

But I have no confidence there is any such consensus against what the left has been increasingly engaged in, including on our university campuses.

Most of the left-wing media and the progressive politicians screaming the loudest now have been silent over the past two years. Worse, they often defended political violence or justified it, and never more so than the past 18 to 24 months. (Here, here, here and here.)

Remember how the media reacted when Tom Cotton called for a quick and aggressive response to end the rioting this summer? Well, yesterday Democrats couldn't call out the National Guard fast enough. Are their offices more important than your business?

Think about this: What if news broke today that the NRA was bailing out the 52 people arrested during yesterday's riot on Capitol Hill. I think we all know how the media and political left would react to that.

But how did they react when staffers for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris bailed out rioters, looters and worse this summer? Not a word. As Rush Limbaugh noted, rioting for the correct progressive causes is okay.

If the Biden Administration is serious about confronting political violence, it should start in Portland, where the progressive mayor finally admitted that he can't control Antifa.

And here's another idea for all those concerned about the divisions in the country today: Election Day should be on one day, and every voter should be required to display a photo ID.

That would go a long way toward convincing everyone that no one is being cheated on Election Day. But I predict that every Democrat in Congress and many in the states would oppose even that simple reform.

Where Are You?
Sometimes I ask for your feedback. Today, I'm pleading for it.

I am trying to get a sense of where you are as a conservative as we are about to enter a very difficult time resisting the Biden/Harris agenda.

Are you demoralized and giving up? Or are you determined to fight back?
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Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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