From the beginning of his 2015-16 campaign, Donald Trump has emphasized the mass rally as an enthusiasm-generator. It suited his showman’s style. And, obviously, it won him the presidency. But it did something else, too: something his adversaries were quick to capitalize on.
It gave them a point of attack, against which they could unleash their most vicious tactics.
You’ve probably seen the videos from that campaign season, featuring venomous insects such as Robert Creamer, boasting to Project Veritas’s undercover investigators about those tactics. The aftermath of the October 10 rally in Minneapolis made it clear that the Left has not abandoned those tactics for something more effective. I would surmise that they expect them to become more effective as the forces engaged in them press the limits of what the “forces of order” will permit without acting. And as I ponder the matter over my daily eight ounces of yogurt with orange marmalade added – hey, you have your rituals; I have mine – it occurs to me that the Minneapolis rally has told us something about the direction this evolution will take.
There are videos of the chaos and violence that followed the Minneapolis rally, generously provided by John Hinderaker’s Center of the American Experiment. They make certain aspects of the event quite clear:
- There were a great many AntiFa and AntiFa-aligned “protestors” outside the Target Center, awaiting the opportunity to harass and attack the rallygoers. At least one estimate numbered them in the thousands.
- The police cordon provided for crowd control was far smaller than that mass of Leftists.
- When the rally ended and the rallygoers emerged, Leftist attacks on them began almost at once. They included snatchings, vandalism, and violence against persons and property.
- The police failed to control the mass of Leftist attackers.
- The Leftists attacked those police who attempted to restrain them, in many cases without consequences.
Whether the planners and agitators of that “protest” regard it as a “success” by some metric, I cannot say. It’s unlikely to have reversed the intended 2020 votes of the rallygoers. It may have dissuaded some Trump allegiants from going to future rallies in Minneapolis or other left-dominated cities. I doubt it had much of an effect on President Trump or his plans for future events of that kind. But it did illustrate a painful truth: When those who intend violence and disorder exceed a certain size, which is determined in part by the size of the local police force, the police will fail to restrain them. Traditional – i.e., non-lethal – crowd control techniques will be inadequate. Indeed, the police might be under orders to go no further regardless of developments...if they’re allowed to take any action at all.
The Left’s tacticians are evil, but they’re neither unobservant nor stupid. They can evaluate the events of October 10 quite as easily as you and I. The coverage practically screams for them to increase the resources they’re pouring into such “protests.” They’ll strain to add more people, more weapons, more money, more community and street-level agitation, and more pressure on local officials not to dare to interfere. Whether there’s any countermeasure available to the Right, I have no idea.
It’s all made possible by the concentration point provided by a mass in-the-flesh rally. President Trump enjoys those rallies. He clearly believes them politically worthwhile. So he’s unlikely to discontinue them. But what could he do to make them safer for the attendees who must eventually leave the site of the event and travel public streets to their homes?
No, I have no answer for that, either.
Any sort of mass gathering is a potential locus of attack by persons who, for whatever reason, hope to inflict harm on those who attend it. The owners of sporting arenas know this. So do the owners of large office towers. (The owners of shopping centers will soon follow their lead.) The old Robert Shaw / Bruce Dern / Marthe Keller movie Black Sunday depicted a possible terrorist assault on such a gathering. The atrocities of September 11, 2001 made it plain that the lesson was not lost on those who hate the United States.
The domestic enemies of order are inadequately counterbalanced by the “official” forces of order: the police. There have been calls to employ National Guard units as security when events such as those that followed the Minneapolis rally can be confidently anticipated. However, state governors have been reluctant to use them, and federalizing such a unit for the protection of political rallygoers would raise unpleasant questions.
Who remains? The Oath Keepers? The Bikers for Trump? What unofficial force is available, under whatever conditions, that could protect peaceable Americans from the street thugs determined to suppress their right to assemble? Are the rallies, as productive as they’ve been to the Trump movement, doomed by their popularity and the ease of assaulting them? And what about other gatherings at which Leftists are likely to aim, such as campaign appearances by Republican candidates and talks by conservative speakers? Those have already known their quota of disruption, and no antidote has yet been found.
There are plenty of smart people in the Right. I hope some of them are thinking about this, rather than leaving it to well-meaning but fundamentally useless windbags such as myself.
This is a dread flash point. There will be blood shed, and lives taken, eventually. There cannot NOT be.
ReplyDeleteWill that be the spark that launches "spicy time" or a moment so shocking that the TDS scales drop from a majority of the Left?
The Chinese curse of "interesting times" is here. Pray.
I think one solution to the problem is to take a cue from the Left.They recognized a long time ago that if you take away the money from opposing organizations they will founder. The "Southern Poverty Law Center" was their weapon to accomplish such. The Right needs a like organization that sues and sues drying up the funds that make the Left's "Brown Shirts" possible.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid the "mainstream right" possesses no such collective aspirations. I think it's essential to understand this fact. If this harassment continues...and it surely will, the natural progression of anger will lead to a similar gathering of "right" fringe protesters who will ultimately engage the communists with firearms. This, in my opinion, is exactly why the harassment is occurring, to draw this very response. This would justify vicious demonization, acts of violence and intense calls for disarmament of "domestic terrorists". Modern communists will always use laws and societal standards against their enemies. See Islam. One must always remember that communists will also use their fellow pseudo-loyalists in any way possible to gain power. Also see Islam. One must study the past to understand the current day. The one thing present today that was missing from history is an acute sense of death by the perpetrators. They feel immune at this point, unlike their former brothers who saw death as duty. The current crop for the most part, do not. When, not if, the tipping point comes....and firearms are used, I believe you will see them scurry like cockroaches into the shadows. Fear is what drives them, not loyalty. This is when it will not be safe to walk the streets. Vicious ambushes will begin. The media rhetoric will ratchet up 1000%. They will attempt to create a general distrust of any and all people to disrupt any attempts at organization. You will be greatly troubled and life will become acutely focused. God will prevail for each day has been foretold, but you may not. Or, is there another way? One must study it carefully.
ReplyDeleteOne tactic would be to not get overly concerned about it. What percentage of rally-goers was physically harmed to any significant extent? It must be a tiny fraction. Antifa wins if they shut the rallies down, so we shouldn't let that happen. Don't be cowed.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, these thuggish events, are they really a plus for Antifa? Seems to me that they must be driving the muddled middle to us, not to them.
People should keep coming, but just bring some bear spray, and some gloves for punching assholes, if needed. Eye protection...
"Don't be cowed" is roughly akin to telling Christians fed to the lions in the Coliseum to "resolve to taste bad".
ReplyDeleteIt only works out well for the lions.
Antifa, and the Leftards in general, will continue until the game starts costing them their lives or liberty. Any response less than that is a win for them, and encourages further and more widespread predations on order and public discourse, as surely as feeding pigeons leads to guano-whitened statues.
The police and TPTB control enforcing a restriction on Antifa's liberty. They decline to participate.
The common citizenry will therefore be left with no recourse but resolving to taste bad, until they're willing to start shooting people in self defense, without hesitation.
At that point, TPTB either come to their senses and enforce the law equally, or become more draconian on free speech.
Look at the last generation of responsiveness by TPTB, and tell me which is the more likely direction of kneejerk.
The right should (and likely, will) start targeting the Left's leadership in these outbreaks. Or they'll surrender the public arena, and at that point, the game is already half over.
As A-10 pilots in Germany at the end of the Cold War were wont to say:
"Go ugly early."
There are and will be no Marquess of Queensbury Rules in the coming adventure, and the first side to play the game under that understanding, all in, will likely be the one that prevails.
The final game in the original movie of Rollerball is illustrative, at that point: There can only be one winner, and one way to that outcome.
When does "Rooftop Korean" meet "Pink Mist Club"?
ReplyDeleteNotice that TPTB have ramped up the 'white supremacists are domestic terrorists' meme.
N.B. You don't get to vote your way ou the of this one.
Spicy time is coming. Avoid crowds.