Biden Or We Burn The Country?
Democrats are going to keep pointing to the BLM/Antifa riots as evidence that Trump cannot keep law and order. That's not Trump's doing by a mile...
In 2012, the Obama administration embarked on a series of “Arab Spring” revolutions in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Qatar, and elsewhere in a movement that eventually spiraled out of control to places such as Jordan the Ukraine.
One of those targets was al-Assad controlled Syria.
For eight years, the Syrian Civil War raged on, displacing 6.5 million people and kicking off a refugee crisis across Europe and the Middle East.
Yet unlike Mubarak in Egypt, the Assad regime did not go quietly. Backed by Russian air assets and a government invested in protect what at the time was the Russian government’s only warm water naval facility at Tartus (Sevastopol was leased from a friendly Yanukyovich-led Ukrainian government at the time), Assad eventually overpowered both ISIL along the eastern border of Iraq and the Turkish-backed “moderates” such as Al-Qaeda in the northwest of the country.
Their slogan? ASSAD or we BURN THE COUNTRY.
It worked.
Contrast this with the open threats issued at the DNC Convention earlier this year from none other than former First Lady Michelle Obama promising more violence if Trump was re-elected:
“So if you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this: if you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can; and they will if we don't make a change in this election. If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.”
I’d consider myself a reasonable person.
I’m not a lunatic, my political opinions tend to reflect my Catholic values, and I don’t particularly enjoy wild conspiracy theories. I am not spending my free time polishing up an arsenal of firearms waiting for the “boogaloo” or the zombie apocalypse. I have little patience for either NFAC types or FAFO types. My government consists of 10 acres in the middle of nowhere and at present, it is more anarchy than discipline (ask the weeds).
But when Michelle Obama said that? The nation’s heart collectively skipped a beat.
There is no other way to interpret that line other than a threat. Liberal friends might disagree, but again — I’m not a lunatic. If my ears heard this as a threat, then who else on the right heard what was communicated loud and clear? Certainly Michelle Obama did not mince words. After all, this was the one thing we were supposed to take away from her speech to the country.
Biden. Or we burn the country?
It can’t get worse, right? “Trust me, it can.”
Is this about justice or Trump? “If we don’t make a change…”
So we have to vote Biden? “If we have any chance of ending this chaos…”
What’s at stake? “…our very lives…”
Maybe I am being too extreme here. Perhaps the riots might stop and perhaps this warning of “Biden or we burn the country” isn’t something we should be wary of too much — maybe?
…and then you have Democratic VP nominee Kamala Harris telling folks to beware, promising that these riots will not be letting up.
Biden or we burn the country.
The media narrative this week has consisted of a challenge to President Trump’s ability to keep the peace. Things are worse than ever, the talking heads cry out. BLM and Antifa are destroying our cities and Trump is doing nothing to allow “cooler heads” to prevail — nevermind that ActBlue and the DNC are actively fundraising on behalf of the rioters.
Yet it is the progressive left who has burned our cities, looted our small businesses, even to the point of demanding people throw their fists up in solidarity with BLM or be humiliated by the mob.
The Nazis did this sort of thing, folks.
Perhaps — rather than fobbing off the rhetoric — we should take Obama and Harris (and the media) at their word. If we want even a chance that the violence to stop, Joe Biden must become president.
Problem is that the violence (to date) has been remarkably effective at destroying our history, tearing down our monuments, demolishing storefronts and shaming anyone with a voice willing to stand up to the neo-Jacobin terror — and it is terror.
Our task is to recognize the threat for what it is and force Democrats — whether they are progressive fellow travelers with BLM/Antifa or liberal apologists for so-called “peaceful protesters” — to explain themselves.
Is this truly the America they want? Are these truly the rules of the game?
Should NFAC (adjusting for sensibilities, the BLM-led Not Fecking Around Coalition) is met with FAFO sentiment (the citizen militia response Feck Around and Find Out) is there even room for politics?
One worries.
But let’s make this clear: it isn’t Donald Trump that is bringing violence into American politics.
Just as the Democrats in the Obama administration knew how to kickstart uprisings in other parts of the world using soft power, those same players are using the same tools are being brought to bear here in the United States, with Democratic governors and Democratic mayors providing the latitude for the violence to become normalized.
This is most of the media objection to the “law and order” emphasis of the RNC Convention over the course of the last week. Biden’s numbers are in free fall after the Kenosha riots. Trump knows that the “silent majority” opposes the riots and wants order restored; the Democrats are slowly realizing that their short-term options for violence are now moving poll numbers — and costing them any presupposed moral high ground.
Even CNN’s Don Lemon remarked too late that the violence was threatening Biden’s chances of winning the election (and when you’ve lost Don Lemon, you’ve lost).
Yet the political left knows instinctively that they cannot reel this one back in of their own accord. Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, history tells us that the Jacobins tend to overwhelm the Girondists before order is restored.
As for the rest of us, we would be wise to see the game for what it is. The open threats from Harris that the violence will continue until political conditions improve is an open threat. Michelle Obama’s reinforcement that the worst is yet to come should make the conditions on the ground (and the objectives) quite clear.
Biden or we burn the country is an intolerable proposition. Any party with that sort of lust for power should offend the sensibilities of anyone claiming the title of liberal to describe their political values. Conservatives likewise should be shocked and see the landscape with clear eyes.
Far be it from me to offer advice, but Biden could — could — deliver a speech openly condemning the violence and riots and beg them to stop, as RFK did in 1968. Biden could speak of the difference between violence and justice, could remind us that injustice does not rectify injustice.
Biden could explain why the nation was united behind BLM in the hours following George Floyd’s murder, and why violence destroyed that unity in a matter of days.
Yet we know that Biden will not be allowed to deliver such a speech. We instinctively know it, precisely because his handlers politically cannot afford to do so.
Thus the Democrats are giving the nation a choice. Biden… or they will burn the country.
If it sounds familiar, there’s a reason why. That alone should scare folks.
Those with eyes clear enough to see it and any sort of moral grounding need to stand up to it regardless of political party — and soon.
This is not the way to win elections by any standard that resembles the left’s vaunted ideas of a democracy. Beyond that, I’ll remain content with my 10 acres of anarchy and wait for the barbarians. After all, they are a kind of solution (which is what the left is hoping for; that decent people will grow tired of any prolonged resistance).
Provided they don’t burn the country first.
Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.