The Counter Attack

Hugh Hewitt has begun the pushback against the reality of the links between the rhetoric of Donald Trump and Fox News and the acts of violence that we have seen across the country.  He has, naturally, reached for "both sides."  There was, indeed, a man who shot up the GOP Congressional softball practice, nearly killing Steve Scalise. 

Outside of that, Hewitt has to stretch his moral relativity pretty thin.  Yes, GOP politicians have been yelled at in public places.  They have not been attacked, they had their dinner ruined.  How in the holy hell is that equivalent to the attacks in Kentucky and Pittsburgh?  How is that the same as mailing pipe bombs to people?

Secondly, and most importantly, when Hewitt reaches for groups like Antifa, he should note that every single Democratic politician has decried their tactics.  Whatever sympathy might exist for the use of force to protect counterprotestors from actual Nazis, no one supports pre-emptive violence by Antifa, aside from fringe figures on the far Left.

Meanwhile, the two biggest official mouthpieces of the Republican Party - the President and Fox News - routinely churn out hate speech that demonizes and de-humanizes those "others" along racial and religious grounds.  The Pittsburgh shooter explicitly referenced that "migrant caravan" that is 1,000 miles away and full of "Middle Easterns" and "funded by Jews."  I wonder where he got that idea?

When people complain about PC culture, they usually are complaining about speech codes.  "You can't say that" rubs people the wrong way in a country that prides itself on its civil liberties.  What we are seeing, though, is what happens when you hand the world's biggest pulpit to a hatemonger.

I've been writing about my worries for democracy should Democrats win the national popular vote by 7% and still not flip the House.  I worry, because the GOP will not have paid a price for their trampling of governing norms, and I worry because it will be harder to keep the groups on the Left that are willing to embrace violence from making their case that violence is the only road out of this faliure of democracy.  The argument that democracy has failed, therefore we must take to the barricades will be harder to countermand.

But what we are seeing is the use of Rightist terrorism even before the votes are counted.  What happens should Democrats win in 10 days?  What happens should/when Democrats regain the White House in 2020?  Trump has already shown himself incapable of repeating the fantasies and fictions of Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson.  What happens when the subpeonas pile up and the indictments come flying? 

What does the minority do, when the majority regains control of this country?  I think last week was a taste.