RUTHFULLY YOURS

The good news for Democrats is that the apathy of many of their voters — which contributed to Hillary Clinton’s losing in November — is gone now that Donald Trump is president.

“We have never in living memory seen an electorate as fired up and angry and engaged as they are right now, Ben Wikler, Washington director of the left-wing group Moveon.org, told RealClearPolitics.

The bad news for Democrats is that the fires of protest could burn so brightly that they alienate moderate voters and threaten any Democrats who decline to throw gasoline on the fires.

The anger of the liberal base is such that “a firestorm of criticism . . . awaits [Democratic lawmakers] when they don’t stand up to Trump,” Wikler says. As for primary challenges for Democrats who won’t confront Trump at every turn: “Everything is on the table.”

It certainly has been when it comes to the ceaseless efforts to delegitimize Trump. As soon as the election was over, state recounts were mounted, with the approval of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, angry demands were made that members of the Electoral College go against the results of their state votes and dump Trump, and wild charges were hurled that Russian hacking swung the election. FBI chief James Comey, an Obama appointee, was accused of tilting the election against Clinton, and blue-collar voters in the Midwest were smeared as “racists” who were easily manipulated by Trump.

Of course, missing in the progressive reaction to Trump’s victory was anything more than cursory mention of why the Left, during Obama’s eight years, had failed to fulfill promises of “hope and change,” address rising income inequality and middle-class stagnation, or win the respect of either America’s friends or adversaries.

A few Democrats have recently begun to question the party’s relentless choice of a negative, obstructionist tone. “I’d leave [Trump] out of the message and appeal to his base with a meaningful jobs plan,” Craig Crawford, an adviser to former Democratic senator Jim Webb of Virginia, told U.S. News and World Report, adding:

Don’t take his bait. Braying donkeys only make noise. Democrats should present a shadow government agenda that gives working-class Americans jobs and hope. Democrats should learn something from their futile efforts of the Reagan years, attacking the man instead of winning back his voter base with a positive message.

Tolliver should have known from the outset that this would happen. It has long been established that in the hierarchy of politically correct causes, Islam trumps homosexuality. When AFDI ran ads highlighting the mistreatment of gays in Islamic law, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors issued a resolutioncondemning not that mistreatment, but our ads. Gay advocates such as Theresa Sparks and Chris Stedman attacked us for daring to call attention to the institutionalized mistreatment of gays under Islamic law.

Tolliver said of Ellison: “His being a Muslim is precisely why DNC voters should not vote for him. Muslims discriminate against gays. Islamic law is clear on the subject, and being gay is a direct violation of it. In some Muslim countries, being gay is a crime punishable by death.”

That is quite correct. But in response, instead of challenging Tolliver on the facts, which they couldn’t do in any case, the Democrats rallied around Ellison. Said interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile: “The Democratic Party welcomes all Americans from all backgrounds. What we do not welcome is people discriminating against others based on who they are or how they worship.”

So noting correctly that Islam discriminates against and persecutes gays is now “discriminating against others based on who they are or how they worship,” at least according to Donna Brazile (and, no doubt, many other enlightened Leftists). And Ellison’s spokesman, Brett Morrow, declared that it was “disappointing that a fellow DNC candidate would fan the flames of intolerance.” He didn’t say anything about Sharia states fanning the flames of intolerance against gays.

Morrow added: ““Keith has shown first-hand his commitment to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, organizing tirelessly against the Minnesota anti-marriage equality amendment in 2012.” That’s not the same thing as saying that he rejects Islam’s teaching that homosexuals should be put to death. Many Islamic groups supported same-sex marriage solely for tactical reasons: they knew it would open the door to the legalization of polygamy.

Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that The Hill, which is reporting here how the DNC has become Sharia-compliant and is prohibiting criticism of Islam, is itself also Sharia-compliant.

“DNC boots candidate from chairmanship race for criticizing Ellison’s Islamic faith,” by Jonathan Easley, The Hill, January 31, 2017:

The Democratic National Committee is kicking a candidate out of the chairmanship race after he told The Hill that Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) should not be the party’s next leader because he is a Muslim.

Ira Einhorn revelled in his role as a charismatic guru. Long-haired and white-robed, he was one of Earth Day’s original organisers and a fixture on university campuses, toasted for his wit and insight with copious cups of herbal tea. Oh, and he was a killer as well.
Ira Einhorn was a high priest of the hippy movement – rebellion, free love, drugs, anti-Vietnam war, the Age of Aquarius. He promoted these ideas with verve and was an organiser of the original Earth Day. That his German surname translated into Unicorn was perfect for the zeitgeist. He saw himself as an environmental activist and mixed with leading figures of the movement like Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg and Abby Hoffman.

Many thought Einhorn was a genius. There was no subject on which he could not discourse at length, all infused with his idiosyncratic ideas about environmentalism, UFOs, alien invasion, ESP, computer science and such esoterica. On close examination, his intellect was extremely broad, facilitated by his compulsive reading, but there was little depth. This hardly troubled his listeners. His compelling style drew in not just the young and impressionable, but environmentalists, corporation figures, businessmen and government officials, all taken in by his rodomontade.

Wearing the long hair of the time, his pudgy figure in a white robe, he paid no attention to hygiene or grooming. Yet this had little effect on his appeal. Women flocked to him and he made the most of the ensuing rewards. Einhorn was seriously into sex with as many women as possible and, in doing so, had a far from enlightened attitude to his lovers. He treated them like dirt and brutally dispensed with them as soon as he wanted to move on to another target. Rumours of his violence towards women did his love life no harm.

But the Sixties moved on, the Vietnam war ended and the hippy generation had to face the mundane facts of settling down and earning a living. Based in Philadelphia, Einhorn’s activities were constricted but he still displayed an amazing capacity to find wealthy sponsors and university positions. Barbara Bronfman, a Canadian Seagram heir, was to play an important part in his life. During a lecture, he lit up a marijuana spiff and undressed till he was naked and danced around. It was all a game to entrance those around him.

In 1972 Einhorn started going out with Holly Maddux, a beautiful young women from Texas. The relationship was predictably tumultuous. By 1977 she had enough and ended it. On September 9, she went to his apartment and was never seen alive again. Questioned, Einhorn claimed that she had gone out to buy food and never returned.

In the absence of any leads, let alone a body, there was nothing the authorities could do. Two years after complaints from neighbours about a bad smell, the police came to Einhorn’s apartment. Inside a closet they found a large trunk. When they opened it, it contained the mummified body of Holly Maddux. The cause of death was evident – her skull had been brutally smashed.

“You found what you found,” was Einhorn’s enigmatic response.

Bailed by his wealthy sponsors, the trial was scheduled for 1981. Many who knew him refused to believe that he could have committed such a violent crime and supported his appeal for bail. By the time of the trial, Einhorn had gone on the lam, disappearing without trace. The trial went ahead anyway, he was found guilty and sentenced to death.

From time to time over the years, the eminent historian Daniel Pipes has lamented that treason, not just as a crime but as a concept, appears defunct in the West. The question of bringing treason charges against jihadists has been raised from time to time. Often its very asking proves Dr. Pipes’s point: Most radical Islamic terrorists are not American citizens; as to them, treason is not a cognizable offense because traitorous conduct is central to the crime.

Even against American jihadists, a treason charge is of dubious usefulness. The 1996 overhaul of federal counterterrorism law codified crimes tailored to terrorism that are easier to prove than treason. The aim of an indictment in a national-security case should be the surest route to the severest sentence. The point is not to teach a civics lesson, regrettable as our education system’s default has been in that regard.

Yet what is true of treason is not true of sedition. There are charges to bring against those who would destroy our society. They should be brought. Case in point: the University of California at Berkeley.

As our National Review editorial observed in the aftermath of this week’s Berkeley rioting, “there is within the American Left an increasingly active element that is not only deeply illiberal — fundamentally opposed to free speech — but also openly violent.”

I’d further contend that the problem is not confined to this increasingly active element, the Left’s “progressives in a hurry.” Whether it is Berkeley or Benghazi, it is standard operating procedure among the most influential, most allegedly mainstream Democratic politicians to rationalize rioting as mere “protest.” In their alternative reality, violence in the name of sedition is “free speech” — a passionate expression of political dissent — while the actual political speech they so savagely suppress is the atrocity.

There is no mystery about how we got to this dark place. Violent rampaging was the coming-of-age rite of the New Left. That would be the Sixties Left that eventually won the battle for control of the Democratic party and, in its extremism, has estranged that party from its traditional working-class base, and thus from much of the country. The New Left rioted against racism, capitalism, colonialism, and the Vietnam War. They gleefully announced their hatred for AmeriKKKa. They bombed and killed. And in large measure, they got away with it. In fact, they got rewarded for it.

One of the worst legacies of those Days of Rage was the failure of will to prosecute violent leaders of the radical Left to the full extent of the law — particularly the likes of Bill Ayers and