America from the founding
The essence of our republic has been self-restraint toward fellow citizens. “My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins…” was an Abraham Lincoln quote. We have respected each other as equals. The U.S. Constitution was our philosophical and theoretical framework. Under its words and by its laws, Americans have enjoyed safety, predictability and prosperity. Today strife only seems to mount and why is that?
We reached the fork in the road and we took it
Progressives’ subordination of the U.S. Constitution, our laws, and institutions to their purposes; for their primacy, has ended our society’s safety, predictability and prosperity. The rest of America is increasingly coming to believe it is only possible to fight this fire with fire. Do a majority of Americans now no longer share basic sympathies and trust? Do we no longer regard each other as worthy of equal consideration? Are the public and private practices which once made our Republic successful now beyond hope of restoration? Can a new equilibrium be found or will we split?
A Democrat approach
The Democrat Party has refused to accept 2016’s election results. Its members in government, elected and unelected, have used their positions, governmental and societal, to prevent the normal exercise of the power earned by election. That is a step toward revolution. They have declared in vehement and often profane words; with violent deeds and action, that persons and ideas contrary to theirs are unacceptable. Their intolerance is heard daily in shrill claims of illegitimacy, that we are a diseased state and even assertions of criminality.
Up to a point our political divisions had been of the run of the mill economic kind. More recently, our government has not been functioning in an ordinary manner, at least since we quit budgeting at the federal level. The losers of the 2016 vote are refusing to accept political defeat. They have resorted to judicial activism to create obstruction and chaos. They have advanced to the point of bringing charges against their opponents’ leader. That too is a step toward revolution. By criminalizing differences over public policy, by using political power to hurt their opponents, they took another step toward more than verbal conflict.
This “resistance” has strengthened and accelerated what may be a revolutionary spiral. The logic of mutual hate drives revolutionary spirals. Revolutions have consequences. So again, were the 2016 elections our entry into a revolutionary spiral? What happens when Trump is impeached in the House but not convicted in the Senate? The spiral might stop when the accused is acquitted… or maybe not.
Think about what happened during the Kavanagh confirmation hearing. Facts were insufficient to prove the allegations. It did not matter to the behavior of the participants. All the accusers needed was the presumption of guilt based on an accusation for the Democrat base to convict. Will Trump let bygones be bygones? This does not bode well for peace or the nation.
How does this deescalate?
What if Trump retaliates against those who had brought the charges? Don’t they have to be taught not to do such things again? Isn’t that the same tactic the prior administration used? The prior administration provably delivered discriminatory discipline to their political opponents administratively through the use of weaponized executive branch agencies. Will such an overt act, the use of political power to hurt opponents give the nation the push it needs to irretrievably enter the revolutionary spiral?
What if this happens and the Democrats are outraged? Will that be the necessary additional push to complete the entry into the revolutionary spiral? That push might be a targeted act of violence such as an assassination or large scale act of violence. Perhaps something under the guise of civil disobedience… at least at inception. Think Portland on steroids… or was Portland really the dry run… or was it an unsuccessful or too early attempt?
Civil war is a spiral into mutual destruction. No one can know where it may end. How revolutionary logic manifests itself in personal behavior is in seeking revenge. Humans take it upon themselves to do away with the laws which are our salvation in adversity and maintain civil society. The freer we are to harm our enemies, the more precarious our society’s position. When words change their ordinary meaning, when they take on new meaning given them by users it is destructive change, they become code. Talking in code brings us closer to incivility by corroding direct meaningful communication.
Party uber alles
What we are watching from Democrats is intentional behavior. For them reckless audacity has become the courage of a loyal ally. Prudent hesitation has become specious cowardice. Moderation has become unacceptable. The ability to see all sides of a question is rejected as inability to act. Frantic violence is becoming the attribute of virtue. The advocacy of extreme measures is always trustworthy. All opposition, regardless how slight is to be suspected. Blood is required to be a weaker bond than Party. How liberal is that?
