Mike Gonzalez, BLM

At Amazon, Mike Gonzalez, BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution.

Barack Obama's Book Recommendations

He's very well read.

As we wind down 2019, I wanted to share with you my annual list of favorites that made the last year a little brighter. We’ll start with books today — movies and music coming soon. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did. pic.twitter.com/l5qTGkAPok

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 28, 2019

Trump Ties Obama as Most Admired Man in 2019 — Leftist Heads Explode Everywhere

Heh.

How could this be possible? Trump as admired as Obama? No way!

So says Gallup, to exploding leftist heads everywhere.

Via Memeorandum:

Barack Obama and Donald Trump tie as the most admired man this year. https://t.co/4bM4XVDNm1 pic.twitter.com/V10ArtL2bL

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) December 30, 2019

Dana Perino on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' (VIDEO)

She's really smart, and this is a great discussion.

Obama disses Bernie and Joe.

Barack Obama Bent Over Backwards to Advance Islamic Totalitarianism in Iran

This is a must-read.

From Sohrab Ahmari, at Commentary, "Anything for the Ayatollah":

My column on Obama bending over backward to help the mullahs cash in on the Iran deal made @RealClearNews this morning. Read it here. https://t.co/aHdMaE1c6n

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) June 7, 2018

The full history of the Obama administration’s nuclear dealings with Iran has yet to be written, not least because many of the details remain shrouded in secrecy. The bits of the story that do seep out into the public sphere invariably reinforce a single theme: that of Barack Obama’s utter abjection and pusillanimity before Tehran, and his corresponding contempt for the American people and their elected representatives.

Wednesday’s bombshell Associated Press scoop detailing the Obama administration’s secret effort to help Tehran gain access to the American financial system was a case study. In the months after Iran and the great powers led by the U.S. agreed on the nuclear deal, the Obama Treasury Department issued a special license that would have permitted the Tehran regime to convert some $6 billion in assets held in Omani rials into U.S. dollars before eventually trading them for euros. That middle step—the conversion from Omani to American currency—would have violated sanctions that remained in place even after the nuclear accord.

That’s according to the AP’s Josh Lederman and Matthew Lee, citing a newly released report from the GOP-led Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Lederman and Lee write: “The effort was unsuccessful because American banks—themselves afraid of running afoul of U.S. sanctions—declined to participate. The Obama administration approached two U.S. banks to facilitate the conversion . . . but both refused, citing the reputational risk of doing business with or for Iran.”

Put another way: The Obama administration pressed American banks to sidestep rules barring Iran from the U.S. financial system, and the only reason the transaction didn’t take place was because the banks had better legal and moral sense than the Obama Treasury.

This was far from the first instance in which the Obama administration bent over backward, going far beyond the requirements of the deal, to help the Iranian regime cash in on the deal...

Still more.

Democrats' Counterintelligence Operation Against Donald Trump's Presidential Campaign

It's Sharyl Attkisson, at the Hill, "8 signs pointing to a counterintelligence operation deployed against Trump's campaign":

My latest in The Hill: 8 signs pointing to a counterintelligence operation deployed against Trump's campaign https://t.co/CHyDoeHDpb

— Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) May 23, 2018

It may be true that President Trump illegally conspired with Russia and was so good at covering it up he’s managed to outwit our best intel and media minds who've searched for irrefutable evidence for two years. (We still await special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings.)

But there’s a growing appearance of alleged wrongdoing equally as insidious, if not more so, because it implies widespread misuse of America’s intelligence and law enforcement apparatus.

Here are eight signs pointing to a counterintelligence operation deployed against Trump for political reasons...

Keep reading.

Obama Trump Swing Voters

At the New York Times, "They Voted for Obama, Then Went for Trump. Can Democrats Win Them Back?":

I interviewed 38 Obama-Trump voters. Takeaway: Most Americans are not thinking very much about politics. They have busy lives. They don't have time for Twitter. https://t.co/KAFHZqVKTB

— Sabrina Tavernise (@stavernise) May 4, 2018

RITTMAN, Ohio — In the daily race that is her life, Sharla Baker does not think about politics very much.

She rises early, drives to the gas station to buy coffee, feeds her baby, dresses her two other children, ages 3 and 2, and hustles them all off to day care. By 9:30 a.m. she pulls into a hair salon 45 minutes away, where she is training to be a cosmetologist. She waxes and cuts all day long, making only the money she earns in tips, which on a recent day last month was $8.41.

But Ms. Baker does vote. She picked Barack Obama for president in 2008 and 2012. He seemed sincere and looked like a happy family man. But most important, he was a Democrat. Her great-grandmother, who grew up poor in Pennsylvania, always said that Democrats look out for the poor people.

In 2016, though, she voted for Donald J. Trump. Yes, he was rich and seemed mean on his TV show, “The Apprentice.” But she liked how he talked about jobs and wages and people being left out of the economy.

Now, more than a year later, she is wavering.

“I voted for Trump because I wanted some change going on,” said Ms. Baker, 28. “But then again, maybe he’s going to do the wrong change.”

The swing of Obama voters to Mr. Trump proved a decisive factor in the 2016 presidential election. Of the more than 650 counties that chose Mr. Obama twice, about a third flipped to Mr. Trump. Many were in states critical to Mr. Trump’s win, like Iowa, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.

John Sides, a political-science professor at George Washington University, has estimated that 9 percent of voters who cast ballots for Mr. Obama ended up voting for Mr. Trump. Among white voters who had never been to college, it was 22 percent.

Now, as the country lurches into another election season — this time the prize is control of Congress — a crucial question for Democrats is whether the party will be able to lure these voters back. Democrats have had some early successes. Wins in Alabama, Pennsylvania and Virginia have given Democrats hope that voters might be souring on Mr. Trump — to the point that the party might flip control of the House and possibly even the Senate. Next week’s primary races in Ohio and West Virginia, both states that went for Mr. Trump in 2016, will also serve as tests of voter enthusiasm for Democrats.

We recently asked people who cast ballots for both Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump to describe how they felt about the president and the Democratic Party ahead of the midterms. In interviews with 38 voters in 14 states across four months, a clear pattern emerged. Voters said they did not like Mr. Trump as a person and did not consider themselves die-hard supporters. Some were even embarrassed by him.

But many were basically satisfied with his policies. The tax bill was mildly positive, they said. Several had a bit of extra money in their paycheck. They liked that he was trying to address illegal immigration. Only a few regretted their vote...

More.

The Rotting Soulless Moral Abomination That is Ben Rhodes

Ben Rhodes was Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser.

Seth Mandel excoriates him:

HOLY CRAP. Obama officials hijacked the freaking Holocaust Museum and wrote a "study" absolving Obama for Syria https://t.co/qJm8KjKB93

— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) September 6, 2017

There are no words to aptly describe the rotting soulless moral abomination that is Ben Rhodes https://t.co/qJm8KjKB93

— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) September 6, 2017

Roots of the Current Campus Madness

At great piece, from an unexpected source, Scientific American, "The Unfortunate Fallout of Campus Postmodernism":

Students are being taught by these postmodern professors that there is no truth, that science and empirical facts are tools of oppression by the white patriarchy, and that nearly everyone in America is racist and bigoted, including their own professors, most of whom are liberals or progressives devoted to fighting these social ills. Of the 58 Evergreen faculty members who signed a statement “in solidarity with students” calling for disciplinary action against Weinstein for “endangering” the community by granting interviews in the national media, I tallied only seven from the sciences. Most specialize in English, literature, the arts, humanities, cultural studies, women's studies, media studies, and “quotidian imperialisms, intermetropolitan geography [and] detournement.” A course called “Fantastic Resistances” was described as a “training dojo for aspiring ‘social justice warriors’” that focuses on “power asymmetries.”

If you teach students to be warriors against all power asymmetries, don't be surprised when they turn on their professors and administrators. This is what happens when you separate facts from values, empiricism from morality, science from the humanities.

RTWT.

Donald Trump's Boy Scout Speech (VIDEO)

Yawn.

This is an organization that's caved to the leftist homosexual agenda, even after winning at the Supreme Court way back in 2000 (Boy Scouts v. Dale).

Their advocates criticizing the president can suck it.

The full speech is here, "Trump speaks at Boy Scouts gathering (full remarks)."

And at U.S. News, "Former Boy Scouts Condemn Trump Jamboree Speech: Some want a formal apology after the president delivered a politically tinged speech to the Boy Scouts":

A number of former Boy Scouts are blasting President Donald Trump following his speech to nearly 40,000 young members of the organization on Monday, branding the address as classless and nauseating.

President Donald Trump spoke to the 2017 National Scout Jamboree in Glen Jean, West Virginia, and while he opened with a pledge to avoid partisan Washington politics, Trump delivered the crowd a healthy dose.

"By the way, just a question. Did President Obama ever come to a jamboree?" Trump asked of his predecessor at one point.

Former President Barack Obama was not a Boy Scout, but was reportedly a member of the Indonesian Scout Association. He recorded a video message for the jamboree in 2010.

Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were Boy Scouts, joining a number of other commanders in chief. Trump was not a member of the organization.

Trump's speech went on to echo his 2016 presidential campaign, criticizing Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton and boasting of his victory.

The Boy Scouts of America released a statement late Monday to a BuzzFeed News reporter asking about the political nature of Trump's speech. The organization, leadership said, is "wholly non-partisan and does not promote any one position, product, service, political candidate or philosophy."

"The sitting U.S. president serves as the BSA's honorary president. It is our long-standing custom to invite the U.S. President to the National Jamboree," the group said.

But Trump's speech broke from a long-standing presidential tradition of delivering remarks tailored to themes of citizenship and service. The teen boys gathered to hear the president, though, did not seem to mind. The group reportedly met Trump with chants and cheers, and the president drew supportive boos from the crowd at his mention of the "fake media" and Obama.

The president's comments, however, did offend some. Current and former Boy Scouts – ranging from lawmakers to concerned parents – condemned Trump's speech on social media, and some went as far as to criticize the organization itself...

More.

Also, at the Hill, via Memeorandum, "Boos for Obama as Trump speaks at Boy Scout jamboree." And at the BBC, "Trump boy scout Jamboree speech angers parents."

Still more, at New York Magazine, "The 14 Most Inappropriate Moments From Trump’s Speech at the Boy Scout Jamboree":

“Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts?” President Trump asked the 40,000 people gathered in Glen Jean, West Virginia, on Monday for the Boy Scout Jamboree.

The answer is President Trump. The event, which occurs every four years, was attended by about 24,000 boys, ages 12 to 18, but Trump treated it like a raucous campaign rally. During a rambling, 35-minute speech, he playfully threatened a member of his cabinet about getting the votes to repeal Obamacare, recounted his election win in great detail, and attacked President Obama...

I can dig it, lol.

Remembering JournoList and the Leftist Media's Bag of Tricks

From John Sexton, at Hot Air, "Remembering JournoList and Progressive Media’s Bag of Tricks":

A couple weeks ago I came across an old article about Journolist which I found striking. In particular, I was struck by the ways in which some of the debates taking place among left-leaning journalists back in 2008 still seem to encompass the ways the left-wing media operates today.

For those who don’t remember it, Journolist was just a listserv created by Ezra Klein. The list was invitation only and was mostly made up of progressive journalists. In theory, the list was a kind of digital water cooler where like-minded people could talk to others in the field. That may have been all it was much of the time, but when candidate Obama got in trouble in 2008, it also became a place for partisans to discuss a coordinated media strategy.

Author Jonathan Strong wrote this particular piece about the Journolist response to a crisis in the 2008 campaign. Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as you probably remember, was the pastor of the church Obama attended. He was the pastor who married Barack and Michelle and the person who inspired the title of Obama’s book: The Audacity of Hope. Wright was also a far-left crank who regularly denounced America. From ABC News, March 2008:

[VIDEO]

Obama would eventually denounce Wright and quit the church in June, but in the interim, it seemed possible the issue could seriously damage his campaign. Journolist members discussed various ways to respond to the Rev. Wright story. Michael Tomasky (now at the Daily Beast) wanted members of the list to “kill ABC” and thereby kill the story:

Michael Tomasky, a writer for the Guardian, also tried to rally his fellow members of Journolist: “Listen folks–in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people.”

“Richard Kim got this right above: ‘a horrible glimpse of general election press strategy.’ He’s dead on,” Tomasky continued. “We need to throw chairs now, try as hard as we can to get the call next time. Otherwise the questions in October will be exactly like this. This is just a disease.”

Chris Hayes, then at the Nation and now an MSNBC host, gave an impassioned plea (which sounded a bit like Rev. Wright) suggesting people in the mainstream media simply refuse to cover the story at all...

Keep reading.

Heh. Good times, good times.

America First Policies Pulls Spot Attacking Sen. Dean Heller (VIDEO)

Following-up from the other day, "Senator Dean Heller, Republican of Nevada, Target of America First Policies PAC."

At Politico:

Pro-Trump group pulls ads criticizing Heller over Obamacare https://t.co/LgDvwVcI4A pic.twitter.com/agT4rB3et7

— POLITICO (@politico) June 27, 2017

Trump Derangement Syndrome Has Become the New Plague

From Roger Simon, at Pajamas:

JUST PUBLISHED> Trump Derangement Syndrome Has Become the New Plague https://t.co/OMicxcqa6C #RogerLSimon via @pjmedia_com

— Roger Simon (@rogerlsimon) June 24, 2017

To what can we ascribe the continuing metastasis of Trump Derangement Syndrome, which has come to infect America, and indeed the world, almost to the level of a true plague?

The most recent of the seemingly endless incidents/outbreaks range from the ridiculous (hapless movie star Johnny Depp making a joke about assassinating the president and then recanting it...his agent must have called) to the genuinely creepy (a Democratic Party official declaring he was glad Steve Scalise was shot).

Yes, this last one was about a congressman, not the president. But we know the atmosphere that condoned it — the same atmosphere that enabled thirty GOP congressmen either to have been violently attacked or to have had their lives threatened since the beginning of May. (Such things did not happen BT/Before Trump.)

In the case of Depp, it was not so much his pathetic remarks that horrified — the actor is in the midst of a public nervous breakdown — but the raucous approval of his comments by the Glastonbury Festival audience, as if he had just given a shout-out to the local football team.

This automatic reaction by the rabble is just another example of the reach of Trump Derangement Syndrome, where assassination talk is de rigueur and Trump is regarded as a combination of Daddy Warbucks and Caligula with a little of The Joker thrown in. (Just the other day, author Michael Chabon told an Israel Radio interviewer that he wakes up every morning with the hope that Trump "is going to have a massive stroke, and, you know, be carted out of the White House on a gurney." The surprised Israeli interviewer told Breitbart he naturally thought Chabon was just joking, but then realized he wasn't. )

Of course the Congress, with its astoundingly tedious and extraordinarily phony Russia investigations, has congressmen and senators competing on an infinite loop to see who... mirror, mirror, on the wall... can be the most hypocritical of all. (Winner so far: Senator Mark Warner. Runner-up: Rep. Adam Schiff). They help spread the infection, scratching scabs that were, at best, of the most tangential interest months ago, until they gush blood all over again, keeping the Russia controversy alive and kicking, at least until  Jon Ossoff makes his presidential run of 2032. (Not sure I'm joking.)

And speaking of competitions, the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN are no longer actual news organizations but contestants locked in a non-stop gladiatorial to dethrone Donald Trump via ceaseless leaks, most of which are either disinformation or absurdly trivial, and virtually all of which are illegal in the first place. But they don't care. It doesn't even seem to bother them that their journalistic reputations may be affected. They are infected. By this New Plague.

So they carry the infection on, spewing the bacterium, spreading the TDS Plague as assiduously as did the rats of the Middle Ages, the hated Yersinia pestis, no antidotes allowed, not on their pages anyway. At Blue State cocktail parties from Manhattan to Brentwood, people dare not open their mouths to say a tiny thing in favor of Trump, even to old friends, for fear of eternal ostracism. In our schools, conservatives are not allowed to speak. Patriotic films are only made if Clint Eastwood agrees, or maybe now Mark Wahlberg, on a nice day...

America First Policies PAC: 'Shaken' (VIDEO)

Following-up from previously, "Senator Dean Heller, Republican of Nevada, Target of America First Policies PAC."

The group's not out with its attack on Senator Heller yet, although I like this one below.

At at A.P, from January, "Trump advisers start ‘America First Policies’ nonprofit":

WASHINGTON (AP) — Six of President Donald Trump’s top campaign aides have banded together to start a nonprofit called “America First Policies” to back the White House agenda.

The group includes Trump’s digital and data director Brad Parscale, onetime deputy campaign manager Rick Gates and two campaign advisers to Vice President Mike Pence, Nick Ayers and Marty Obst.

David Bossie, another Trump deputy campaign manager, and Katrina Pierson, a senior adviser on the campaign communications team, also will be involved, according to a statement announcing the group.

“Some of the same like-minded individuals who put their energy into getting Mr. Trump elected are now going to be part of a grassroots group to go out there and help with the agenda, help the White House be successful,” Parscale said....

*****

America First Policies will conduct research into public policies and promote Trump’s favored causes, such as dismantling and replacing President Barack Obama’s health care law and changing immigration policies.

One of its first tasks is likely to be advocacy for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, whom the president said he would announce Tuesday night. The group doesn’t have yet have a public website, but its founders said to expect digital and television advertising around issues.

“This goes beyond Trump supporters,” Gates said. “We’re trying to capture all people who believe in the Trump agenda.”

Obama also started a nonprofit group, called Organizing for Action, to back his policies. Some Democrats say that group undercut the Democratic Party by siphoning away donors and keeping separate Obama’s contact list for millions of his supporters.

Many of the details of the new Trump-themed initiative have yet to be finalized.

Senator Dean Heller, Republican of Nevada, Target of America First Policies PAC

I don't even know this Dean Heller dude. He was the junior senator from Nevada, until Harry Reid retired. Now he's up for reelection in 2018, and extremely vulnerable. A Republican, he's afraid to vote for ObamaCare repeal, as apparently the state's poor have been helped by the law.

Of course, the new Senate-bill is expected to improve healthcare outcomes for lower-income Americans, helping more people afford insurance and get off the decrepit government Medicaid dole. But all the Democrats can do is scream, "PEOPLE WILL FUCKING DIE!"

In any case, at NYT, "Health Law Repeal Leaves Nevada Republican Torn Between Lawmakers" (via Memeorandum):

AMERICA FIRST POLICIES, the pro-Trump/Pence outside group that Pence has been raising for, is preparing a seven-figure ad buy against HELLER

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 23, 2017

WASHINGTON — Senator Dean Heller, Republican of Nevada, is the man everyone wants. This has not been a good thing for him.

Brian Sandoval, the governor of Mr. Heller’s home state, is a Republican, but he is counting on Mr. Heller to provide what could be a crucial vote to maintain President Barack Obama’s health care law, which has been a boon for the working poor in Nevada. Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader who this week will be rounding up votes to fulfill his party’s biggest promise of the last decade — repealing the Affordable Care Act — is trying to prevent Mr. Heller from undermining that goal.

Democrats also want Mr. Heller, but in the form of an unemployed senator. As the only Republican who is up for re-election next year in a state that Hillary Clinton won, he may be their only shot at picking up a seat. Democrats and health care interest groups have been unloading on Mr. Heller all spring with no end in sight.

Far-right Republicans in his state — who strongly support President Trump — also have their eyes on Mr. Heller to see if he will abandon the president. Already a group that Vice President Mike Pence has supported is preparing a seven-figure ad campaign against the senator.

On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Trump posted on Twitter, venting about Mr. Heller and other Republicans who are not supporting the Senate bill.

On Friday, Mr. Sandoval acknowledged the obvious. “He’s in the eye of the storm here,” Mr. Sandoval said at a news conference in Nevada as Mr. Heller stood next to him, looking vaguely miserable as Mr. Sandoval announced his opposition to the Senate bill. The legislation could affect 210,000 Nevada residents insured through the health care law’s expansion of Medicaid.

On Friday Mr. Heller said that he, too, was against the bill as it is currently drafted, leaving himself just enough wiggle room to continue his longstanding practice of being the senator in the middle, the man who wants to see the Medicaid program phased out, except when he decides he doesn’t. (Mr. Heller has taken both positions publicly.) He has also voted to take away money from Planned Parenthood, but tells some select audiences that “I have no problems with federal funding for Planned Parenthood.”

Mr. Heller, whose spokeswoman said he was not available for an interview, said at the news conference Friday that “this bill that’s currently in front of the United States Senate is not the answer — it’s simply not the answer.” He said, “It’s going to be very difficult to get me to a yes.”

More.

Obama Warns Against Income Inequality While Delivering $7,700-a-Minute Speech

At Breitbart, via Instapundit, "OUR RULING CLASS IN A NUTSHELL."

Killing C.I.A. Informants, China Crippled U.S. Spying Operations

This is really shocking piece, considering how nonchalant everybody is about spying and intelligence these days. All this hacking and leaking and political payback can get you killed. A lot of people are getting killed.

At NYT, with the response at Zero Hedge:

Killing @CIA Informants, China Crippled U.S. Spying Operations, rivaling if not worse than Ames/Hanssen betrayals https://t.co/U22mdiTTvt

— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) May 20, 2017

CIA Incompetence Allowed China To Murder A Dozen CIA Assets: NYT https://t.co/tYmMeSI5NS

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 20, 2017

Our System of Checks and Balances is Under Assault' (VIDEO)

It's James Crapper, er, Clapper, from CNN yesterday.

And no, our system's not under assault --- not by President Trump at least. If there's an assault going on, it's seen in the left's war on our legitimately-elected government. It's seen in the left's revolutionary all-out war on our republic.

Watch, FWIW:

Democrats Know Why Clinton Lost

Democrats know why they lost. Even Bill Clinton was warning of impending disaster, and thus he was all the more pissed once the results came it. It was the ultimate I told you so moment.

But autopsies continue to pour in, and if they've got some supreme pedigree, some establishment authority and gloss, the updated spin sort of excuses base Democrats of their stupidity. If they'd only known this before the election!

At McClatchy, "Democrats say they now know exactly why Clinton lost" (via Memeorandum):

A select group of top Dem strategists know why Clinton lost. Will the rest of the party listen to them? https://t.co/QnHAeYwdnw

— Alex Roarty (@Alex_Roarty) May 1, 2017

A select group of top Democratic Party strategists have used new data about last year’s presidential election to reach a startling conclusion about why Hillary Clinton lost. Now they just need to persuade the rest of the party they’re right.

Many Democrats have a shorthand explanation for Clinton’s defeat: Her base didn’t turn out, Donald Trump’s did and the difference was too much to overcome.

But new information shows that Clinton had a much bigger problem with voters who had supported President Barack Obama in 2012 but backed Trump four years later.

Those Obama-Trump voters, in fact, effectively accounted for more than two-thirds of the reason Clinton lost, according to Matt Canter, a senior vice president of the Democratic political firm Global Strategy Group. In his group’s analysis, about 70 percent of Clinton’s failure to reach Obama’s vote total in 2012 was because she lost these voters.

In recent months, Canter and other members of Global Strategy Group have delivered a detailed report of their findings to senators, congressmen, fellow operatives and think tank wonks – all part of an ongoing effort to educate party leaders about what the data says really happened in last year’s election.

“We have to make sure we learn the right lesson from 2016, that we don’t just draw the lesson that makes us feel good at night, make us sleep well at night,” Canter said.

His firm’s conclusion is shared broadly by other Democrats who have examined the data, including senior members of Clinton’s campaign and officials at the Democratic data and analytics firm Catalist. (The New York Times, doing its own analysis, reached a similar conclusion.)

More.

The Radical Left's Massive Resistance

The radical left has declared war on the Trump administration, and by extension, all decent Americans.

At FrontPage Magazine, "The 'Resistance' Democrats are a Terrorist Party":

The Democrats have committed to overthrowing our government.

What does #Resistance really mean? It means the overthrow of our government.

In this century, Democrats rejected the outcomes of two presidential elections won by Republicans. After Bush won, they settled for accusing him of being a thief, an idiot, a liar, a draft dodger and a mass murderer. They fantasized about his assassination and there was talk of impeachment. But elected officials gritted their teeth and tried to get things done.

This time around it’s “radically” different.

The official position, from the Senate to the streets, is “Resistance.” Leftist media outlets are feeding the faithful a fantasy that President Trump will be brought down. There is fevered speculation about the 25th Amendment, a coup or impeachment due to whatever scandal has been manufactured last.

This fantasy is part clickbait. Leftist media outlets are feeding the worst impulses of their readers. But there is a bigger and more disturbing radical endgame.

The left can be roughly divided into moderates and radicals. The distinction doesn’t refer to outcome; both want very similar totalitarian societies with very little personal freedom and a great deal of government control. Instead it’s about the tactics that they use to get to that totalitarian system.

 The “moderates” believe in working from within the system to transform the country into a leftist tyranny. The “radicals” believe that the system is so bad that it cannot even be employed for progressive ends. Instead it needs to be discredited and overthrown by radicalizing a revolutionary base.

Radicals radicalize moderates by discrediting the system they want to be a part of. Where moderates seek to impose a false consensus from within the system, radicals attack the system through violent protests and terrorism. Their goal is to set off a chain of confrontations that make it impossible to maintain civil society and polarize the backlash and chaos into consolidating the left for total war.

That is what “Resistance” actually means.

A similar program implemented in Europe, with a covert alliance between Communists and Nazis, led to the deaths of millions, the destruction of much of Europe and the temporary triumph of the left.

The radical left’s efforts in America caused death and destruction but, despite the sympathy of many liberals for terrorist groups such as the Weathermen and the Black Panthers, failed to escalate because the majority of Democrats and even liberals did not accept the premise that our system was illegitimate.

That began to change this century.

64% of Democrats insisted that President Bush had not been legitimately elected. 49% declared that he was not a legitimate president. 22% vowed never to accept him no matter what he might do.

After 9/11, over half of Democrats believed that Bush had known about or been involved in the attacks.

Anywhere from two-thirds to a quarter of the Democrats rejected the results of a presidential election, rejected the president and suspected him of conspiring to murder thousands of Americans.

The left was winning. Much of its natural “moderate” base viewed our government as illegitimate.

The left has declared that President Trump’s victory is illegitimate. The response is “Resistance.” That covers violent anti-government protesters, states declaring that they are no longer bound to follow Federal immigration law and Senators obstructing for the sake of obstruction.

It’s easy to get lost in the partisan turmoil of the moment, but it’s important to understand the implications. If two presidential elections were illegitimate, then our entire system of elections might be illegitimate. And indeed the left made exactly that case with its attack on the Electoral College.

The left pressed Dems to oppose President Trump for the sake of opposition. The goal wasn’t just spite. It was to break the government. When the left forced Senate Dems to filibuster President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, the filibuster became the first casualty of the fight. The goal of the radicals was to make bipartisan legislative activity impossible. Senate Democrats adopted the position of the radical left that their mission was wrecking institutions to deny them to Republicans rather than governing.

Once that was done, the radical left could unveil arguments such as, “The United States Senate is a Failed Institution”. Much like our system of elections and every other part of our government.

The radical left’s goal is to convince its natural base that our system of government is illegitimate. It knows that this can’t be limited to the theoretical level of ideology. Instead it must radicalize by demonstrating it. It does not seriously believe that President Trump will be removed from office by the 25th Amendment or any other aspect of the system. Instead it is feeding these fantasies so that when they fall through those on the left who believed in them will be further radicalized by their failure.

And Democrats have become complicit in the radical left’s program to bring down the government.

They have normalized the radical leftist position that our system is illegitimate. They have moved into the second phase of the left’s program of demonstrating that illegitimacy through confrontation. The final phase is to overthrow the system through actions ranging from protests to terrorism.

This is Cloward-Piven institutional sabotage on a whole other scale. The goal is to collapse our entire system of government. And the Democrats have climbed on board with it using President Trump as a pretext. But regardless of which Republican had won, the end result would have been the same.

The left makes its opposition to the Constitution, the election process and the rule of law into a crisis. And then it uses that crisis to demand a new system. It has pursued this approach successfully in local areas and in narrower causes. This is not the first time that it has embarked on such a project on the national level. But this is the first time that it has the full support of a major national political party.

And that is the true crisis that we face.

The left’s endgame is a totalitarian state. Its “moderates” pursue one by peaceful means only so long as they are allowed to hijack the system. When an election fails to go their way, the radicals brandish it as proof that the system has failed and that violent revolution is the only answer.

But what was once the obscure behavior of a deranged political fringe has become the mainstream politics of the Democrats. The Resistance theme shows that the radicals have won. The Democrats haven’t just fallen to the left. They have fallen to the radical left which believes in overthrowing our system of government through conflict and confrontation rather than covertly engineering change.

The Democrats have become a terrorist party. And their commitment to a radical revolution has plunged our political system into chaos. The left is now exactly where it wanted to be.

And a civil war has begun...

Still more.