"Dancing In The Streets" (opens in separate window)

vote biden or get the riots again

friday, october 2nd, 2020

The quiet part is becoming very loud.

Threats of left-wing political violence if President Trump is reelected have gone from subtext to the plain text. Writing at The Atlantic, Shadi Hamid warns of “mass unrest and political violence across American cities” if Trump wins. The Democrats are embracing their inner movie villain: It votes for Biden, or it gets the riots again.

[Full Title: "It Votes Biden Or It Gets The Riots Again".]

Not that the rioting and related violence have stopped—from the attempted assassination of cops in Los Angeles to “mostly peaceful” protests in New York, the mayhem continues—but it is less intense than it was earlier in the summer. Now, prominent outlets of establishment liberalism are warning that the destruction can, and will, be turned up if the nation votes “incorrectly.”

The past is not dead. It is not even past.

The political extortion is not even hidden, with The Atlantic’s Hamid writing that a Trump win is “the outcome most likely to undermine faith in democracy, resulting in more of the social unrest and street battles that cities including Portland, Oregon, and Seattle have seen in recent months. For this reason, strictly law-and-order Republicans who have responded in dismay to scenes of rioting and looting have an interest in Biden winning.” A stereotypical mob line such as “Nice place you got here, shame if anything were to happen to it” is subtle in comparison.

Even if we accept that Hamid is “truly worried” about his predictions, and we absolve him of threatening the nation with riots if we vote the wrong way, the menace of his article is unmistakable. Whether Hamid is personally culpable in his role as messenger is irrelevant. Even in decline, The Atlantic represents establishment liberalism; if it is publishing predictions of mass political violence from the left, then the Democratic mainstream is willing to countenance political violence if it does not get its way.

For the threat of political violence to be credible, the Democrats have to seem likely to resort to it if they lose. This is an ugly look for a political party, and Hamid’s article, therefore, provides an extensive indictment of Democrats. Whether intentionally or not, Hamid has laid out why Democrats should be kept far from political power.

They appear detached from reality, unwilling to accept election results, let alone engage in self-examination about why they lost. Hamid writes that “Liberals had enough trouble accepting the results of the 2016 election. In some sense, they never really came to terms with it…This time, it would be worse.” A second surprise Trump victory might push them over the edge.

As he notes, they never really accepted the result in 2016. Shocked by Trump’s victory, Democrats embraced conspiracy theories to explain it. The Russian obsession was not just an effort to kneecap Trump’s administration, it also gave Democrats a palatable reason for why he had won. Many on the left found it easier to believe that Trump had cheated his way into the White House than to accept that he had beaten them.

This collective denial also obviated the need to understand Trump voters, let alone try to appeal to them. They could be dismissed as a bunch of suckers and bigots, rather than addressed as rational actors with legitimate reasons to support Trump.

Likewise, viewing Trump’s 2016 victory as an illegitimate fluke encouraged Democrats to complain about, rather than effectively compete within, the Electoral College. Hamid appears to join this condemnation of America’s presidential electoral system as an anti-democratic anomaly.

But as Charles C. Cooke recently pointed out in National Review, “Many other countries eschew direct popular votes when choosing their executives — and a good number of those do so explicitly in favor of systems that aggregate the results of local elections when staffing the national government.”

In nations with parliamentary systems, both the executive and legislative branches may be controlled by a party that received fewer overall votes than its rival, as recently happened in Canada. In the United States, as in many other nations, localities matter and are treated as more than interchangeable administrative units, including on election day.

The framers of our Constitution rightly feared mob rule, and the Electoral College was designed to preclude it in the selection of our presidents. That Democrats are threatening mob violence over the Electoral College shows that it is working as intended by keeping power away from the mob and forcing candidates to appeal to voters of various regions and factions.

In truth, Democrats’ complaints are less about principled constitutional theory and more about political opportunism. They were quite pleased with the Electoral College back when they thought they had a “blue wall” that would favor them forever in states like Pennsylvania.

Likewise, the threats of mob violence that The Atlantic is publishing may be little more than a desperate attempt at political jujutsu. The riots have become a problem for Democrats, who, along with their media allies, spent months downplaying and excusing the violence and conflating rioters with genuinely peaceful protestors.

But the damage is impossible to deny, and Trump is cudgeling Democrats with it. As he points out, the unrest, destruction, and violence are overwhelmingly caused by left-wing radicals and the worst of it is concentrated in cities and states controlled by Democrats, many of whom have ostentatiously rejected offers of federal help.

Perhaps the Democrats have decided that when your voters give you riots, make the riots into a political threat. Of course, the threat only works if voters believe that Democrats really are crazy enough to burn it down if Biden loses. That itself is a problem for Democrats: why would voters want to give more power to people who are that crazy?

Fortunately, Democrats’s threats of political violence may be empty, even if they mean them. Some may riot, but how far will they get? After all, if President Trump is reelected, he will have a mandate to use federal power to restore order, despite the objections of local Democratic officials who allow and encourage riots.

Democrats are trying to take America hostage, but even if they are willing to pull the trigger, the gun they are holding to the nation’s head may not be loaded.

© September 15, 2020 by Nathanael Blake, "The Federalist".

A Day In The Life.

Up at 7:30a on Friday, it was 52°, cloudy and looked like rain, outside – had a couple smokes in the garage while the coffee brewed, did my DR (Type 1 Diabetic Routine - Blood Sugar Level Test and Sliding-Scale Insulin Shot), applied the CBD Pro-Level 5 Hemp Ointment to my lower back, neck and shoulder, had simple oatmeal & red raspberries for breakfast, and checked the weather and news.

My back/hips were hurting, so I re-applied the CBD Ointment, and took a 2hr rest on the couch until 12:30p, and had lunch. The lawn mower company was ripping-out shrubs I'd tagged months ago, so I went out to watch – I quit the CHCA Board weeks ago, so I wasn't there to supervise, but got a lot of questions from them – and came home after 30mins. Neighbor Carl and his friend, Buck, stopped-by to tour my 2017/2018-rehabbed condo, and were amazed.

Life is hard, but at least it's short.

After lunch, and a short visit from Becky, I drove south to the cleaners to drop-off and p/u shirts, picked-up a couple bottles of "Butter" Chardonnay, and headed home. I skipped the New Eastern Farmer's Market; just too crowded. I watched "American Pickers" reruns, had dinner and the watched "Tucker", "Hannity" and "Laura", and shut down at 11:15p.

Sleeping-in until 10a on Saturday, I had nowhere to go and nothing critical to do, and it was still raining. Finally up at 10:30, I had a late breakfast and busied my self with a gro2wing pile of paperwork and filing/shredding. About halfway done4 by 6p, I took a break, did the evening DR and had dinner. I watched Discovery's "Expedition Unknown" until 11p, and unplugged for the night.

I overslept on Sunday, missing the 7-9a Russian F-1 GP race, did the dr, had coffee and oatmeal w/ blueberries, as the rain continued. After starting some loads of laundry, I tuned into Fox News to check on what happened overnight to the Louisville and Portland riots. Yup, still the same old Black Live Don't Matter & White Trash Shit, who ought to be shot-on-sight. I watched 2hrs of the "Greg Gumfield Show", until 10:30p, and bagged it for the night.

Up at 8:45a on Monday, just in time to post the weekly "CP Show" thread and graphics, and get some coffee and breakfast. My back/hips were hurting, even though I'm still using the CBD Pro-Level-5 Ointment and now, a heating pad at night. I spent much of the day inside, on the sofa, with the heating pad, while a tree service company was pruning the remaining 8 wrongly-placed 30yrs ago, large trees, and which I tried unsuccessfully to get removed, when I was on the CHCA Board, for 6mos.

After dinner, I watched the usual Fox Fare: "Tucker", "Hannity" and "Laura", and shut down at 11:15p.

Awake at 7a on Tuesday, I had a couple smokes in the garage, made the usual Kona Hawaiian Coffee and had breakfast. I checked the news and weather, and all that was on, was "The Debate" shit. I spent a lot of the day on the couch, with the heating pad, CBD Pro-Level-5 Ointment and just sleeping. I did watch The First Debate, and it was a disappointment, IMO. 1/3 said Trump won. 1/3 said Biden won. And 1/3 said they want to leave the country. I packed it in at 11:30p.

Up at 8:15a on Wednesday, my back/hips were hurting more than usual. I got the CBD Pro-Level-5 Ointment applied quickly, and then a second coating, 10 minutes later. I did the morning DR, had coffee and oatmeal w/ blueberries, and laid down on the couch with the heating pad. And after posting the morning "CP Show" daily graphics, fell asleep until 11:30a.

I managed to get the "Rush Show" graphics post, had lunch and dinner, with DRs, watched some TV of "Tucker", "Hannity" and "Laura", and with my lower back hurting so bad, crashed around 11p.

The alarm went-off at 6:30a on Thursday, as the cleaning ladies were to arrive at 8:30a, and I needed to take my now every other day shower, do the DR, have oatmeal and blueberries and get a food shopping list together. It was a balmy 56° outside, forecast to hit only 71° today. I opened-up the condo's windows and screen/storm doors, because the fresh air just was too hard to let go, after such a hot and humid Summer. It's Fall!

I took a 10mg Valium to weaken the back pain, went food shopping, came home and unloaded. After a very small lunch, I would-up on the couch with more CBD Ointment and the heating pad, for most of the afternoon. Rite Aid was calling and leaving messages about waiting Rx refills, so I drove over around 4p to get them. I need to find a new barber soon, as my usual guy, Walt of 25+yrs in Red Lion, went out-of-business due to the Red Death CCP Chinese Flu Virus.

I slept most of the rest of the afternoon, skipping the "American Pickers" Matathon until after dinner, until FN's "Tucker", "Hannity" and "Laura" came on at 8p. I had to skip "Laura" and get to bed, with the back pain, rvern yjough I'd applied another application of CBD and had the heating pad cranked-up. I don't my massssage therapist until the 15th, so I soldier-on until then.

The Left’s Communist Revolution Doesn’t Care About Elections.

Kenosha, Wisconsin has been trashed. Minneapolis has been burned. Portland is still being ravaged. Black Lives Matter and Antifa continue to tear the heart out of once-great cities like Portland. A siege of the White House is being planned. Nationwide, violence has moved into suburban areas and residential neighborhoods. Groups of extremists are specifically targeting the residences of mayors, chiefs of police and other political enemies.

The establishment press continues to peddle the notion that what we are seeing across the nation is nothing more than “peaceful protest” designed to achieve change within the existing system. No doubt, even many people in the streets believe this. They think they are marching for more “humane” police forces, or reduced incarceration, or a few new social programs. They believe that, when the protests and riots are over, they will still live in the United States that they knew before, but it will just be a slightly better nation.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

Of course, people harbored the same delusions in 1959 Cuba and 1917 Russia. Even the foot soldiers of those revolutions likely believed they would still have the countries they grew up in, just with a brighter, more democratic future. They discovered far too late that at the heart of the movement in which they were caught up were hard men with very different ideas about the future.

We cannot afford to repeat this naivety.

We are not experiencing a wave of social unrest generated by injustice or police brutality. We are watching an insurrection in progress, one which uses police violence as a pretext, but which has as its goal the destruction of the existing social, economic and political order in the United States.

Refuse Fascism is one of the primary umbrella organizations supporting Antifa demonstrations nationwide. Refuse Fascism is a creation of the Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States. If you watch footage of the chaos in our streets, you will quickly see signs linked to both groups.

The leader of the so-called RevComs is Bob Avakian. Avakian is a lifelong revoutionary, who spent his youth with Students for a Democratic Society, a domestic extremist group active in the 1960’s and 1970’s. In 2016 Avakian’s RevComs and other leftist groups formed Refuse Fascism. Avakian is remarkably direct about about the goals of this movement.

“Let’s get down to basics. We need a revolution. Anything else, in the final analysis, is bullshit,” he said recently.

Avakian’s party is no less direct. It has published a proposed constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, which it hopes to establish. Some excerpts from it read as follows:

“The New Socialist Republic in North America is…a form of dictatorship – the dictatorship of the proletariat…”

“In accordance with this, the governing bodies and processes of this socialist state, at all levels, must be vehicles for the furtherance of the communist revolution…”

“The armed forces, militia and other organs of public defense and security shall be under a system of overall leadership combining the central Executive Council and the Revolutionary Communist Party, with the Party having the ultimate leadership responsibility and role.”

“The responsibility for the enforcement of the laws and the defense of the Constitution by the organs of public security resides with the Executive Council, with the overall and ultimate leadership of the Revolutionary Communist Party.” [RevCom.us]

Behind the RevComs, Refuse Fascism and their allied organizations is a fundraising and financing apparatus that has been building inside this nation for decades.

For instance, Refuse Fascism is partially funded by an organization called the Alliance for Global Justice. The Alliance for Global Justice originated in an organization called the Nicaragua Network, a group created to support the Marxist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. The founders of the Alliance are both veterans of that effort and have strong ties to the Sandinistas. One of them, Chuck Kaufman, was also one of the founders of a group called A.N.S.W.E.R., an organization focused on ending U.S. “threats” against North Korea, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba and an end to the “colonial-style occupation in Palestine and in Haiti”.

The Alliance for Global Justice, in turn, receives funding from a wide range of organizations. One of them is the Tides Foundation. You may have never heard the group, but its power is vast: It annual spending is measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Tides is generally credited with having pioneered anonymous “Dark Money” transactions for leftist organizations. “Structural racism” is a common theme in many Tides Foundation projects, as is the concept of “white privilege”.

Other financiers of The Alliance for Global Justice include George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, the Arca Foundation (which also backs the Communist regime in Cuba), the New World Foundation (which sponsors radical leftists movements in El Salvador), and the Foundation for Deep Ecology, an extreme environmental group that sees humans as a plague on the Earth’s surface.

More connections could easily be drawn, but the point is not the individual links. What matters is the big picture: The mobs wrecking our cities and terrorizing the public are not spontaneously organizing or self-funding. They are the manifestation of years of preparation, organization, and sponsorship from a vast network of foundations and front organizations.

The groups sponsoring the 2020 rioters are hostile to the United States of America as it currently exists. They have long since made common cause with some of our most dangerous enemies. Now, what they want is not reform. Phrases like “Black Lives Matter” are a deliberate obfuscation, a time-honored tactic of radical left groups, used to make themselves and their goals seem less threatening.

What these extremist groups really want is something much more profound. It is, as one leftist speaker recently put it, the “abolition” of the United States as we know it and its replacement with a Marxist state.

That is why it is profoundly delusional to believe the riots of the past three months will end with the November election. They will not. Should President Trump win, his victory will immediately be declared invalid and illegitimate by the mob, and the level of violence will explode. If Biden wins, the people and groups tearing this nation apart will consider him their puppet and will accelerate their efforts at revolution. If Biden proves unwilling or unable to accommodate them, he will suffer the same fate as Portland mayor Ted Wheeler, who endures antifa harassment of his home as the price of failing to submit.

This is not about reform. It is about revolution, and revolutions don’t care about elections.