A peculiar assortment of radicals descended on Washington, D.C. to disrupt the inauguration of President-Elect Donald Trump. His platform of “America First” reforms appeals to a large segment of Americans forgotten over the last eight years: those who believe in free markets, meritocracy, the rule of law, American exceptionalism, a strong national defense, a foreign policy that advances American interests, and border security. In short, those who love their country and wish to restore its constitutional limits on power and protections for individual freedom of choice are increasingly a minority, a minority embraced by Donald Trump.
Those anathema to America’s patriots form a diverse array of protestors who aim to tear down business and government or seek government ownership of and control over all things private, silence all with whom they disagree favoring censorship over freedom of speech, and obtain special privileges and government handouts at the expense of those who earn a living. Those protestors were well represented at the inauguration but well contained to minimize their propensity for violence and destruction.
In the end, the protests staged by the radicals have a greater effect on their opponents than on those who sympathize with their cause. For the forgotten Americans remembered by Trump, the radical protestors are proof of the necessity of the President’s reforms, of the unwise deviation of the Obama years which gave license to these radicals and increased their number and influence. For others, they are a stern reminder of how low American can devolve into an abyss of mediocrity when it departs from its constitutional moorings and embraces European style governments, administrative rule, and managed economies. Very few thinking Americans find inarticulate rants and random acts of violence laudable or persuasive.
Among the groups protesting President Trump were anarchists who aim to destroy private property, bring down government, and create mayhem for no apparent reason beyond mindless discontent. Then there are Nihilists who eschew all morality and religion, apparently believing that loud complaints and tantrums from a spoiled generation can beget the same response from government that came from their doting parents: acquisition of property without the need to pay for it, misbehavior without the need to take responsibility for it. Then there are the new racists, the Black Lives Matter protestors and those of like ilk, who believe racism exists in everyone, even in Blacks who pledge allegiance to the United States, and who think everyone and every institution in our society a product of racism and irredeemable.
Unlike Martin Luther King who had a dream of interracial harmony, they have a dream of racial separatism, much like the early Malcom X, wherein they endorse attacks on public and private institutions, from the police to retail establishments. Communists and socialists also partake in the protests.
Unlike the anarchists, nihilists, and racists, they seek to use government to gain ever greater control over markets and to redistribute the wealth of the successful to those who are not, thus establishing universal mediocrity.
They, like Obama, are apologists for America, who believe the nation an oppressor, who believe America’s enemies and those who wish to do the nation harm need to be embraced, trusted, and invited to live among us, and who shed far more tears for those they mistakenly think America has “oppressed” than they do for the brave men and women who serve our country and defend it against evil every day: law enforcement, the military, and the intelligence services.
The anarchists, nihilists, racists, communists, and fellow travelers harbor a perennial pessimism that has failed throughout history to win out against the positivism and uplifting power of freedom and free enterprise. They are here to condemn but offer no workable alternatives. They are here to protest what they do not like about America, not to celebrate American achievements.
They repulse even those with whom they more closely associate because negativity and contempt are the elements of defeatism, not the building blocks of success and persuasion. They drive away; they do not attract. And yet it is these losers in society who cannot lead that the present Democratic Party has embraced and reflects. Consequently, during the confirmation hearings liberal Democrats who reflect this discontent and lack the ability to articulate a competing vision of success relied on all manner of scurrilous attacks, innuendo, and insinuations to call into question people of great talent, achievement, and intelligence—but to no avail.
In a narrow escape from the corruption and decline into the trash heap of history that Hillary Clinton would have brought with her to the White House, less than a majority of voters nationwide but a majority of the electoral college rose to save the nation for one more day, rejecting continuation of the failed Obama presidency.
President Trump is fast making good on his pledges to bring back American greatness by restoring a vibrant free enterprise economy, reducing individual and corporate taxes, revitalizing America’s military, re-establishing strong ties with Israel and our allies, abrogating Obama’s unilateral ties to, fawning over, and cowing to Iran and our enemies, attacking Radical Islamic terrorism around the world, building new defenses against invasion of America by Radical Islamists, and restoring respect for law enforcement. We are indeed fortunate. Those of us who love our country should be very grateful but on our guard with an eye toward achieving even greater gains in the 2018 mid-term elections.
© 2017 Jonathan W. Emord – All Rights Reserved
