The shock of Donald Trump’s election produced an opportunity for the hard left to display its true colors, an opportunity they seized without hesitation. In so doing they displayed their intellectual and moral bankruptcy. The New York Times, in its coverage of ongoing anti-Trump protests, provided the evidence.
Times reporters waded into crowds of protesters to interview people about why they were out in the streets demonstrating. Here is how the Times described leaders of the protest in New York:
“Many protest leaders had supported Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the Democratic primary race and either did not vote or chose a third-party candidate in the general election, said Ben Becker, an organizer with the Answer Coalition, an antiwar and antiracism activist group based in New York. Their anger, he said, had been exacerbated by the conciliatory tone shown to Mr. Trump by President Obama and Hillary Clinton after Mrs. Clinton’s defeat.”
Let’s unpack this. According to the Times many of the leaders (and I presume, followers) either did not vote or voted for a third party candidate. (Emphasis added). So people who didn’t vote, or who backed the wrong horse have now taken to the streets. And they are angered by the conciliatory tone adopted by President Obama and Secretary Clinton. So this is how the protesters mean to preserve and defend democracy? I don’t think so.
Let’s call this what it is. The protest leaders are the brown shirts of the left. Their followers are simply pawns in the game who don’t know any better.
Perhaps when the hysteria subsides Bernie Sanders fans (in particular) ought to cast a glance toward Venezuela where real socialist policies have been implemented. The economy has simply collapsed. According to the latest data, 2015 per capita GDP (expressed in US dollars) is about 7% lower than 2014, and 3.5% lower than it was in 2006. (See the chart below).
source: tradingeconomics.com
This past July The Huffington Post, hardly an organ of the right, published a story about food and medicine shortages in Venezuela. (Socialism always produces shortages; it is simply a matter of time). Accompanying the article is a photo (linked below) of thousands of Venezuelans streaming across the border to Columbia in order to buy food and medicine not available in Venezuela’s imploding economy.
When the leaders of the anti-Trump protests in the United States take a rest from their moral preening, they should answer two simple questions. First, how do their preferred policies differ from those imposed on Venezuela by Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro? Second, why would they produce a different outcome than the one we see in Venezuela?
Leaders of the anti-Trump protesters acting in concert with an established left-wing political infrastructure will go into the usual efforts at mobilization, consciousness raising, building awareness, days of rage and all the rest of it. People who deserve to be taken seriously will go back to their jobs.
JFB
