The Politics of Protest and How a McAuliffe Photo Op Cost Two VSP Officers Their Lives
McAuliffe just couldn’t waste a crisis in Charlottesville 2017. It cost the lives of two Virginia State Police officers.
Enough with the hypocrisy of Defend The Police Democrats — yes?
First things first, congratulations to Spotsylvania County for asking Lesgo Brandon to speak before the Spotsylvania County School Board this Monday.
For those who are not in on the joke, the trend of telling Joe Biden to perform an anatomically impossible act at sporting events has picked up steam in a manner that cannot be censored by either social or legacy media.
Sportscasters are doing their best to cloak the FJB sentiment — to the point of insisting a crowd was chanting “Let’s Go Brandon!” after NASCAR’s Brandon Brown won his first Xfinity Series.
Why Democrats Are Total Brandoning Hypocrites (And We All Need To Take A Step Back)
Of course, today’s pearl-clutching comes in the wake of a Trump rally in Henrico County where a flag that was present at the J6 Rally in front of the White House — not at the J6 riot that ensued afterwards — was in attendance. Still smarting from McAuliffe’s gaffe during the second debate about parents not having a role in their children’s education, Democrats are attempting to seize upon the event by blaming a guy who wasn’t even there.
That’s right — they’re blaming Glenn Youngkin.
Absurd.
Yet just in case you are wondering where Democrats stand on storming government buildings, this happened yesterday:
Climate protesters are pushing police, trying to force their way into the Department of the Interior where other activists have made it inside in an attempt to occupy the building. pic.twitter.com/IVhvPdTAYu
— Ellie Silverman (@esilverman11) October 14, 2021
Not the first time they’ve done this sort of thing, by the way.
Everyone remember when pro-abortion Democrats stormed the US Capitol during the Kavanaugh hearings? Maybe not — we don’t talk about that sort of thing anymore. But it happens with alarming regularity in local government, state government (remember Austin in 2013?) and yes — even peaceful transferences of power in the judiciary at the federal level.
Yet we don’t talk about the S24 insurrection, do we?
"We believe the women!"
Kavanaugh protesters take over the Russell rotunda on Capitol Hill and some arrests by U.S. Capitol Police are underway https://t.co/1jnNCdVZcG pic.twitter.com/NlJ1D1bn5F
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 24, 2018
120 arrests were made. Not one single apology was issued by NARAL, Planned Parenthood or NOW. Nor were any of these organizations singled out as domestic terrorists despite the fact they kill as many Americans in one day as Al-Qaeda killed on 9/11.
I raise all of this not to make apologies for the January 6th riots. The distinction between the rally in front on the White House and the riot that ensued afterwards is arguably thin. Yet what I do raise is the following question:
Have the Democrats given any thought as to whether Republicans are simply imitating their bad behavior? After all, it wasn’t Republicans who burned cities for five long months during the summer of 2020. Nor was it Republicans who gathered in Washington in November 2020 threatening violence. Nor is it Republicans who storm state capitols or flush local governments with the SEIU playbook on how to exert pressure in concert with local media.
Of course, these political spectacles imagined in cubicles have direct and real consequences paid out by Virginia’s law enforcement community.
We saw it in Richmond and Charlottesville — and in 2017, we measured it in lives and broken families.
In Virginia, McAuliffe is to blame for that.
McAuliffe Doesn’t Actually Care About Violence; Merely What He Gains By Violence
Two things have always bothered me about Charlottesville 2017.
First, that the political left never mentions that three people died that day. Yes, we all know the name of Heather Heyer.
But you never see the left or the media mention Jay Cullen and Berke Bates.
Why?
They don’t mention Cullen or Bates because they were Virginia State Police officers who died in the line of duty.
That leads me to the second thing that has bothered me ever since.
It is whispered among the men and women in blue, but as in most things, you have to find someone who actually gives a damn to read about it.
You Know Why These Two VSP Troopers Died?
Simple — McAuliffe wanted his photo op:
For a press conference, folks.
This from the same Terry McAuliffe backed by leftists who seek to Defund The Police while intentionally placing them in the way of harm.
For a press conference.
Tell me how any reasonable observer doesn’t come to the direct conclusion that Terry McAuliffe — in pursuit of a photo opportunity — didn’t put those men’s lives on the line in a helicopter with maintenance issues so profound the company involved was finally dismissed in 2020.
Defund the police — eh?
The widows of the two slain VSP officers are suing the Commonwealth of Virginia for $50 million thanks to Terry McAuliffe’s rush to treat every crisis as a press opportunity — and another leftist bar tab stapled to the backs of Virginia taxpayers.
No Law Enforcement Officer Should Be Asked To Risk Their Lives In The Execution of Our Laws
What bothers me about all of this — J6, S24, C’ville ‘17 or today — is that too many people seem willing to take law into their own hands as if every issue were exceptional and an existential crisis.
Of course, you have to love the hypocrisy of Democrats who simultaneously seek to defund the police while bemoaning our heroes with US Capitol Police — who then turn around and spit on them whenever the mood suits them.
That’s why you pick up the tab and say thank you when you see LEOs at the restaurant, folks.
Yet it also strikes me that Republicans — when we cheer the riots of January 6th — are putting ourselves at odds with two concepts.
First and foremost, that LEOs are in service to the law — our laws. Like politicians and lawyers, not all LEOs are good. Yet the vast majority go into the profession out of a duty to serve their communities and protect those who cannot protect themselves. It is a boring job, but precisely because we do not take laws into our own hands, this fragile little thing we civilization requires the enforcement of good laws.
Second and perhaps more sublime? Good citizens do not require laws — bad citizens will never be constrained by them.
“Laws are made to instruct the good, and in the hope that there may be no need of them; also to control the bad, whose hardness of heart will not be hindered from crime.”
— Plato, The Laws (Book IX)
I would submit that the reason why we live with so many laws isn’t because we have so many lawyers, but rather because we simply don’t know how to live with one another anymore — or better still, we can’t live and let live. Don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff seems like the basis of any good society, but we can’t even do that anymore.
So here is my parting thought on all of this.
January 6th was not a high water mark for the Republic. We don’t have to imitate the bad guys in order to beat the bad guys. Yet in saying this, the Democrats need to come to grips quickly on the fact that they have been and remain complete and total hypocrites when they slam Republicans on election integrity and stolen elections (Bush won; you lost), violence in politics (BLM/Antifa; any VEA protest), and when and where they choose to set aside process to work around the law (Democrats in the General Assembly and US Senate).
The angrier we are about that the sooner we will be to making the generational leap forward to change the culture that will change our politics. But the ball is entirely in the court of the political left in this country. What they cannot win by force of argument they attempt to coerce through the argument of force — cancel culture, peer pressure and public shaming.
Enough.
The Fight Won’t Be Over In November…
Yet assume for a moment that Youngkin and Sears and Miyares sweep the board and Republicans take back the House of Delegates.
The Democrats will still control not only the Virginia Senate, but they will have the entire fourth branch of government — the deep state bureaucracy — as well as the legacy media, colleges and universities in academia, government-run education, non-profit agencies, as well as the power of a federal bureaucracy under the Biden administration all too willing to wait four years until they take back power.
That’s the basic damn truth of the matter, ladies and gentlemen. Until we get serious about that? We are going to lose.
Now it is easy to take the path Steve Bannon wants us to take. You simply replace Heather Heyer with Ashli Bennett, create your own heroes and mythology, and meet violence with overwhelming violence.
It is far harder to take all the energy we waste on politics and build local communities, go back to church on Sunday, participate in a club that helps communities, pick up trash along the side of a road, or just go bowling.
This assumption of victory is no foregone conclusion.
FOX: McAuliffe +5; Obama Coming To Virginia
FOX News is out with a poll showing McAuliffe +5 while the RCP and 538 averages continue to show McAuliffe on the right side of the margin of error (MoE).
Since August 1st, Biden has seen a dramatic 15 point drop in his nationwide approval ratings.
By contrast, Youngkin has only seen a 5-9 point lift — a sign not every Republican is falling in line or in love with this campaign. Bookies continue to put the Democrats as favorites to win the governor’s mansion.
One raises this point not to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm. Remember that most of these polls are reflecting events that are 7-10 days out.
Yet it is to say that the race isn’t going to be won by air attack alone. Relationships matter in this effort, and there are sizeable networks of Republicans — pro-lifers and 2A defenders in particular — who simply haven’t been convinced.
Meanwhile the Democrats have their own problems with a progressive base that sees Biden and McAuliffe as neoliberal weenies. Bringing out Obama and Abrams is just a part of the play.
Which means that voter enthusiasm is the only metric of success. Which also means that the next few weeks are going to be nasty, brutish and (mercifully) short.
Let’s Go Brandon.
