While I’m enjoying the progressive meltdown as much as the next person, it may be time to think about countering the “resistance.” We would do well to think about the impact the pressure from the raging “resistance” is likely to have not on their own party but on Republicans in Congress and, perhaps to a lesser extent, on the Trump administration.
From the “women’s march” to airport protests to flooding into GOP town halls, the progressive left is making itself heard among the very Republicans President Trump will need to keep his agenda moving forward. These are the McCains, the Grahams, the Collins’, the Murkowskis, and others whose votes do matter (even if we close our eyes and wish really really hard that they don’t).
Republicans who loved the Gang of Eight amnesty plan, who are foreign policy hawks, and who want to keep ObamaCare and Common Core—i.e. those who believed that the only way to win elections was to become more like Democrats—are looking at all this, and what they see is not what we see.
We see violent, seemingly mindless radicals swarming around setting fires, breaking windows, chanting like zombie robots, shrieking about their bloody sheets, and generally behaving so outrageously, so atrociously that we are embarrassed for them. We cringe in distaste and recoil in disgust, confident that their inanity, incivility, and barbarism will be rejected by real Americans. And we’re not wrong. We know this to be true; we know that the more violent and repellent they are, the better it is for our side in terms of shoring up support among the American people.
Taking a page (or two) out of the Tea Party playbook, the “resistance” is essentially doing what they saw and understood to be effective. In just the past few days, the progressive “resistance” has swamped Congress with phone calls (sound familiar?), descended upon GOP town halls (sound familiar?), and pursued typically leftist attention-getting gimmicks.
CNN reports on the massive wave of phone calls flooding Congress.
President Donald Trump has promised to shake up Washington, but so far he’s produced gridlock — at least with the phone lines on Capitol Hill.Whether constituents are calling to request congressional flags, get help with a local issue — or, more likely, to register their support or displeasure with the latest move by President Donald Trump — these days they are more likely to get a busy signal or voice mail than a live human, at least if they’re calling their senator.It’s especially true for Republican senators responsible for ensuring confirmation of Trump’s Cabinet, including divisive picks like billionaire Betsy DeVos to lead the Education Department.Dropped calls mean angry voters, so lawmakers across the Capitol, from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to the most junior senator working out of a temporary basement office, are scrambling to handle the surge.When a local radio host asked McConnell about Trump’s controversial edict on refugees on Wednesday, the Senate’s top Republican first made sure his constituents knew he was taking care of business.”I appreciate many Kentuckians sharing their comments and for their patience with the jammed phone lines,” McConnell told WHAS AM radio host Terry Meiners. “I might suggest to people who’ve had that experience, the best way to contact me is online.”Senate officials won’t confirm just how many calls are flooding congressional offices, but it’s a lot, as people take to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to urge a tsunami of calls. A spokesman for Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer of New York, citing Senate officials, says calls have averaged 1.5 million a day this week.
Politico reports on two GOP town halls swarmed by angry ObamaCare supporters.
Two Republican lawmakers representing reliably conservative districts on opposite ends of the country on Saturday faced down heated questions from Obamacare supporters who flooded town hall events demanding that Congress not dismantle a health care law that has provided insurance for millions of people.Fervent backers of the health care law shouted down Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), blasting his views on the Obamacare repeal and President Donald Trump’s immigration ban. Hundreds of demonstrators showed up — some as early as 6:30 a.m. — to a theater in downtown Roseville, just northeast of Sacramento.. . . . Hundreds of protesters, some holding signs favoring the Affordable Care Act and demanding a town meeting, gathered outside a GOP gathering Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill) attended in his district early Saturday, the Chicago NBC affiliate reported.
The Hill reports on a “moon” Trump Tower gimmick in Chicago.
Hundreds have responded to a Facebook “Chicago moons Trump Tower” event, during which protesters plan to drop their trousers in front of Trump Tower Chicago.According to the Facebook page for the event titled “Operation “Kiss Our Asses, Release Your Taxes,” the goal of the protest is to get President Trump to release his tax returns.”In 2006, a Maryland state circuit court determined that mooning is a form of artistic expression protected by the First Amendment as a form of speech,” the event page says. “Donald Trump doesn’t think the American people want to see his tax returns, so let’s show him that we do in the classiest way possible!”Protestors will meet at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 12 at Trump Tower Chicago, and plan to moon the building for 10 seconds starting at 4 p.m. in what event organizers call “a powerful message to Washington elites.”More than 1,000 people on the event page say they’re interested in going. Just about 400 have RSVP’d saying they would attend the protest.The event is organized by a comedy group titled “S#!TSHOW.”
Charming. This is the kind of thing I hope they do often because it’s so crude and disgusting that it does them more harm than good in terms of alienating normal Americans.
That said, though, this “moon” event is not really for Congress or the president or the American public; it has Alinsky written all over it and is about keeping the troops interested, engaged, excited about the “resistance,” and nothing interests and engages the radical left more than showing their . . . bottoms.
While the “progressive tea party” in its current resist we much formulation is destined to crumble for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being the cognitive dissonance that defines much of their (lack of a clear) message, it’s also true that in the short term at least, all Congress hears is the radical progressives and their wild accusations and demands. We are being relatively silent, waiting to see what happens, and not getting involved.
I’m not worried about the riots, fires, flag burning, violent protests of free speech, or “moon” events, but the phone calls, the town halls . . . these things work, as we well know.
The “resistance” is being fed and fueled by the very media and Hollywood types who attacked and eventually succeeded in minimizing and demonizing the Tea Party movement. Who is pushing back against the progressive left and its apparently well-organized and well-funded nationwide “resistance” movement?
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