I’m not sure whether to be pleased or amused that we were so successful that the progressive left is now trying to recreate and manufacture a progressive version of our truly grassroots Tea Party movement.
One aspect of their inchoate “resist we much” campaign to recreate our powerful movement is the left’s new-found respect for all things related to the Constitution and their adoption of things like our use of “we the people.” I find this amusing. Less amusing is their own unique twist, one that includes being purposefully offensive and violent.
For example, watching the coverage of the inauguration yesterday, my jaw dropped when I saw the report about a limousine that was set on fire in DC . . . with the words “we the people” written on it. Talk about cognitive dissonance.
The problem for them is not only that they seem incapable of gathering in groups of more than three without throwing a brick through a window or setting something on fire; it’s that they have no rhyme or reason for being. The Tea Party, by contrast, had a very clear message and a very clear raison d’être.
We were horrified by the fiscal irresponsibility and vast expansion of government under President Bush (43), and when we saw what Obama had in mind, we just couldn’t take it. We wanted fewer and lower taxes (“Taxed Enough Already”), and we fought against ObamaCare. There were other issues that drew people in, many of which are off-shoots of these two: limited government, greater individual liberty, a freer free market, protection of our Second Amendment rights, etc.
What we did not do was conduct “women’s marches” or other random-sounding protests based in identity politics. We knew exactly what we were protesting and why. This isn’t to explain the left’s irredeemable behavior; after all, we never threw bricks, set things on fire, or in any other way required the police to break out the tear gas, smoke bombs, and full SWAT riot gear to keep us in line. What it does show is that we can expect a lot more cognitive dissonance from this lawless, rudderless, and embarrassing rabble.
A second glaring example is the wearing of the American flag as a hijab by many in the “Women’s March.” And no, it’s not because they ran out of pussy hats.
The artist who came up with the Obama “Hope” poster has come up with a “We the People” poster depicting a woman wearing the American flag as a hijab. He urges the protesters to carry a sign with his image on it during the march.
Fairey, a Los Angeles-based artist, won worldwide fame for creating a red, white, and blue portrait of former President Barack Obama, with the single word “hope” written beneath it, during the 2008 election.Using a similiar [sic] ink block print style, Fairey’s three new portraits have different slogans, each beginning with the phrase “We the people,” calling for Americans to reject fear, protect each other, and to “defend dignity.”
Some of the (men and) women are going one step further than carrying a sign and are actually donning the American flag as a hijab for the march.
Clearly, there is nothing wrong with wearing a hijab by choice in America, including by non-Muslim women seeking to score some incomprehensible point. The part that I found jarring was fashioning a hijab out of the American flag. Our flag—a symbol of light, of freedom, individual liberty, and unalienable rights—being used as one of the Muslim world’s darkest, most poignant symbols of oppression is unconscionable to me.
It’s particularly so given that western feminists have abandoned any attempt to help women living under crushing oppression and subjugation. Indeed, rather than object to laws requiring the wearing of the hijab and the repercussions for not doing so, today’s feminists contort themselves trying to explain how it’s really a symbol of freedom. Maybe it is in America, where one has a choice, but it certainly is not in Islamist nations.
For example, one woman in Saudi Arabia posted a photo of herself without a head covering and was arrested soon after for this crime.
In Iran, several models were arrested and forced to make public statements after posting photos of themselves without a head covering. In another Iran incident, a group of Iranian woman urged Western tourists to defy the compulsory head coverings, stating, “When compulsory hijab affects all women, then all women should raise their voice.”
The compulsory hijab is neither a joke nor a symbol of freedom to those women living under Islamist tyranny who do not want to wear a head covering at any time they—or their photographed images—leave the privacy of their homes.
For a group of people losing sleep about the “cultural appropriation” of Americans eating tacos or wearing “offensive” Halloween costumes, these progressive feminists are arrogantly, almost comically devoid of self-awareness as they don the American flag as a hijab to strut down Pennsylvania Ave.
It should be noted that wearing the American flag as a hijab is not the brainchild of Shepard Fairey. The first time I saw it was on Fox News . . . worn by a Republican Muslim woman who was trying (and failed) to make the case that this desecration of our flag was reasonable and meaningful; she claims it is “patriotic.”
Watch:
As outrageous as all of this is, I take heart in seeing that the radical left intends to stay the course. Americans just rejected them. Again. Yet they’ll keep being violent, disruptive, deeply offensive, and cartoonishly tin-eared.
Keep it up, Progressives! Resist you much! Don’t just replicate the failures of Occupy and Black Lives Matter; double-down on them. Break windows, set cars on fire, wipe your bum with the American flag, wear it as a hijab, poop on police cars . . . you reveal yourselves while simultaneously elevating (and yes, normalizing) every single Trump voter and alienating anyone who might be on the fence about supporting a Democrat for office in the near future.
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