Erick-Woods Erickson
First, today is my birthday. Thanks for the well wishes. Every year for my birthday, I ask that, instead of gifts, you consider a donation to a charity. Now, if one of you wants to buy me a beach house in Hilton Head, I’m happy to be your charity. But for everyone else, Help The Persecuted rescues Christians from persecution in the Middle East. They provide jobs, teach skills for employment, and have a series of safe houses for Christians who would otherwise face execution for conversion. Every penny you donate goes to save or improve the life of a new convert to Christ in a country where such conversions often come with the death penalty.
Please consider helping them help our brothers and sisters in Christ.
One other ask for my birthday: please follow me on YouTube and consider calling your local talk station to put me on in your area.
Now, on with the writing.
“Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.” — Pulitizer Prize winning New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones
As much as January 6, 2021, was bad and included planted and, thankfully, unexploded pipe bombs of still unknown origin, the American left has a storied history of violence. Jonah Goldberg, in the Dispatch, noted
These were the days when the militant left wasn’t dedicated merely to blowing up binary gender categories with tweeted “truth bombs,” but to blowing up buildings, and occasionally people, with real bombs. During the summer of 1970 alone, there were 20 bombings a week in California. “It’s a wonderful feeling to hit a pig,” Mark Rudd of the Weather Underground mused. “It must be a really wonderful feeling to kill a pig or blow up a building.” Jane Fonda held “F*** the Army” rallies and in 1972 let herself be used by the enemy as a propaganda tool, even posing behind the trigger of a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. The Black Panthers—lionized even by many liberals—made Black Lives Matter seem like a debating society. And as bad as the BLM and Antifa riots of 2020 were—and they were very bad—they pale in comparison to many riots in our past.
[Emphasis added]
In 1971, the Weather Underground bombed the United States Capitol. In 1972, the Weather Underground bombed the Pentagon. In 1975, the Weather Underground bombed the State Department. The members plotted the assassination of a California State Senator in 1978.
That was only one violent leftwing group. There were others. In the last few decades, the leftwing Earth Liberation Front (“ELF”) has engaged in numerous terrorist attacks in the United States. The group has burned down research facilities, destroyed property, and engaged in other violence.
According to a 2001 report, “Leftist extremists were responsible for three-fourths of the officially designated acts of terrorism in America in the 1980s.” They tend to be younger and better educated than right-wing extremists and they tend to live in urban areas thereby making high-population centers more target-rich. (Source)
Just yesterday, Unity of Fields, which has helped organize the anti-Israel protests on Columbia University’s campus, tweeted a call to violence and hope that people will start killing American citizens and, in particular, police officers. Unity of Fields cheered on Elias Rodriguez, who murdered two Israeli Embassy staffers last week. That group was joined by the “Liberation Caucus” of the Democratic Socialists of America, which designated Rodriguez as a “political prisoner.” The Liberation Caucus of the DSA wrote online, “It is right to rebel against the enemy. This is a Maoist law.” The United Liberation Front for Palestine in California put on social media, after the murders, “May all Zionists burn.”
Most importantly, progressives have now internalized several propositions that make it very likely they are about to re-embrace their historic violence.
First, progressives believe they are now the majority in the United States. Progressives, bolstered by media, cultural, and academic institutions present themselves as the dominant actors, voices, and policymakers in the United States. As much as the right, in the Bush and Obama era, sought to run hardcore conservatives in moderate areas convinced they could win, now progressives are routinely rallying around progressives in moderate areas convinced their victories are inevitable.
Second, progressives view the GOP as a threat to democracy. As they internalize both the false belief that the GOP is suppressing the vote and that the GOP is a threat to democracy led by an authoritarian President intent on staying past his term limits, we should expect the left to mobilize more aggressively to stop those they view as a threat to democracy.
Third, progressives have internalized both that we have only a decade to stop the irreversible destruction of the planet and that non-progressive forces are blocking solutions with the help of corporate interests. They truly believe we’re headed towards the end of humanity as we know it unless extreme measures are taken yesterday. They fundamentally, truly, and very literally believe the planet is at a tipping point and the United States must act immediately. But the United States will not act because of Republicans and corporations.
Fourth, progressives have moved into a self-reinforcing bubble. They evacuated Twitter as it moved more and more to ideological parity and went to BlueSky, which crowds out conservative voices and amplifies progressives. They turn to MSNBC, which promotes the ideas that Elon Musk is responsible for the deaths of 300.000 people through government cuts, Trump is a despot, and the GOP must be pulled by the root from power.
You may not know this, but there have already been a series of underreported attacks on rail lines across the country on lines that transport oil. A recent one happened in 2020 by leftwing activists.
When you have a group of people who believe they are the majority; their majority is being stymied by others and those others are both a threat to democracy and about to take power; and that if progressives cannot hold on to power we are all literally going to die, what do you think they will do?
Now, in just the past couple of years, we’ve had two assassination attempts against Donald Trump.
A progressive techie killed an insurance company CEO and much of the press tried to rationalize the execution.
A homegrown radical committed a terrorist act in New Orleans. A socialist tried to murder the Governor of Pennsylvania. An illegal alien firebombed holocaust survivors two days ago. A Muslim man in Michigan was arrested last week for trying to attack a military installation for ISIS. Jewish students have been assaulted on college campuses. Two young Israeli staffers were murdered leaving a museum in Washington last week.
“But January 6th,” the left screams. “But Charlottesville,” the left yells. There are certainly right-wingers who have engaged in violence. The media examines them all and demands we focus on the right-wing terror.
And it’s not just the left. People who really hate Trump, who hate he got elected, and who abhor his supporters, but do not consider themselves on the left, are equally likely to bring up January 6th as a way to deflect or “both sides” what is happening right now. They see January 6th as so uniquely bad, they just can’t muster comment on a growing wave of murders and attempted murders by leftwing partisans and the antisemites the left keeps covering for.
Unfortunately, too many on the left, too many turned off by Trump, and too many in the press are dismissing the very real threat growing on the left. Many are undoubtedly sympathetic to it as so many of the talking heads on television lament the “anti-democratic GOP.” As the left internalizes this and sees their climate agenda go down in flames, we have every historic reason to believe portions of the left will keep embracing violence.
Unlike in the past, we will also have major news organizations largely giving a pass to the violence. After all, the George Floyd protests were “fiery, but mostly peaceful” and “destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.”
The right is held to account for the sin of January 6th over and over and the left is told its sins are justified. They will kill more of us.