Insurrection and Violence Threaten America’s Very Survival

Published July 24, 2020

The United States is under attack. This is not an exaggeration. It is a real and very frightening fact.

An army—which, at the moment, is small but extremely bold in its tactics—is attempting to take down the U.S. government. Violent leftist radicals attaching themselves to legitimate protests are hijacking the protests. These leftist radicals are threatening Americans’ most basic freedoms and their goal is to destroy the very existence of our democratic republic.

Peaceful public protests and demonstrations are important means of airing grievances. Rioting, looting, toppling statues of national heroes, destroying storefronts, torching buildings, and beating innocent bystanders are not. These tactics are being utilized as part of a deliberate attack on the most sacred foundations of the United States, its citizens’ rights, and our democratic institutions.

The great majority of Americans are morally outraged at the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, and they have rightly spoken with conviction in the wake of Floyd’s death to demand justice and reform. Unfortunately, radical leftists hope for, live for, and plan for just such a moment.

When Americans poured into the streets to peacefully protest the killing, radical leftist insurrectionists were ready with pre-formulated and well-financed plans meant to intimidate and cause violence. Using protesters as cover and shields, violent radicals have co-opted peaceful demonstrations into what they clearly hope will be a violent leftist revolution.

They have succeeded in intimidating political leaders across the country, a very dangerous development. Many of our political leaders and government officials have told police officers to stand down and not protect people or property from mob violence. And when police officers have deployed to shield people and property, agitators have attempted to incite the police into committing more acts of violence, by screaming threats and obscenities at the police, spitting on them, striking their body shields, and throwing rocks and other dangerous objects, inflicting serious injuries. Other police officers have been ambushed, attacked, and killed.

The leftist establishment media refuses to show the most damning videos of these violent acts. Instead, they continually classify these outrageous attacks as “primarily peaceful protests.” But there is nothing peaceful about demonstrations that incite and inflict violence.

Committing acts of violence or advocating insurrection while masquerading behind a sympathetic-sounding label should not excuse a group’s violent, insurrectionist goals. Antifa, for example, hides behind a false “anti-fascism” name to cloak its violent, anti-democratic agenda. The leftist media fatuously ask, “What is wrong with being anti-fascist?” Sen. Joe McCarthy’s apologists would reply, “What is wrong with opposing un-American activities?”

The endgame for these violent radicals is not a purified extension of the American Revolution, as some claim. Their endgame is the destruction of freedom, the end of capitalism, and the elimination of many of our civil and human rights. These are the same goals that turned the expression of legitimate grievances in France, Russia, and Cuba into violent, repressive, murderous regimes that waged war on culture, erased history, trampled basic human rights, and perpetrated mass genocide on millions of innocent people.

This is a very dangerous moment in U.S. history. The destruction of America and its sacred ideals—freedom and democracy—is not far away if politicians and other public figures keep enabling violent insurrectionists. History and the actions of today’s mobs show that those who are trying to violently eradicate our system will replace it with nothing short of Marxist oppression, destruction, chaos, and horror.

All those who believe in liberty and hold a desire to preserve Americans’ inheritance of the freedom and prosperity that was bought by blood spilled by patriots for more than 200 years must find the courage to stand up to the forces of chaos now running rampant on our streets.

America’s political class does not seem to fully understand this moment, and as a result, it is allowing these attacks to occur without meaningful resistance. It fails to see that the same minority of revolutionary leftists who violently grabbed power and terrorized the populace in France, Russia, Cuba, and elsewhere can do the same here in America. It only requires the nation’s political class to allow it to happen, whether by design or cowardice.

Let us not become the generation remembered for allowing the greatest human experiment in self-government and individual liberty slip through its fingers.

First published at Townhall.