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Progressives Tag

Early in Obama's first term, completely peaceful Tea Party protests happened around the country. The liberal media routinely denounced the Tea Party as dangerous and hostile. Since the night of Trump's election, the left has been engaging in protests which often look more like riots. Windows have been smashed, people have been punched and the media sits by ignoring the whole thing. In 2010, Tea Party protesters showed up at town hall meetings to protest the passage of Obamacare. Again, the media called them racist and dangerous. Now leftists are showing up at town halls, but the media coverage is vastly different.

A new left wing group called "People's Action" invaded the office of the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday afternoon. Protesters carried signs that said they want a "budget for the people" and they clearly targeted Heritage for the trust President Trump has placed in the organization. Phillip Wegmann reports at the Washington Examiner:
Liberal protest mob storms Heritage Foundation Barack Obama broke his silence yesterday to speak about the importance of civic engagement. The former president talked about things like "listening to understand" and working "to create trust." Altogether it was a good primer on the importance of polite political activism.

Elizabeth Warren fancies herself a champion on the issue of equal pay for women but like many progressives, she doesn't hold herself to the same rules she wants for others. Brent Scher of the Washington Free Beacon did a little digging and found that the pay difference between men and women on Warren's staff is rather problematic:
Elizabeth Warren’s Female Staffers Made 71% of Male Staffers’ Salaries in 2016 The gender pay gap in Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D., Mass.) office is nearly 10 percent wider than the national average, meaning women in the Massachusetts Democrat's office will have to wait longer than most women across the country to recognize Equal Pay Day.

The latest big bold anti-Trump move from the resistance is going to be a worldwide screening of the 1984 film "1984" based on the George Orwell novel of the same name. The Hill reports:
Theaters to play ‘1984’ in global Trump protest Nearly 200 movie theaters worldwide reportedly plan to screen the film version of “1984” simultaneously Tuesday in protest against President Trump. The demonstration, called "National Screening Day," primarily involves cinemas in the U.S. but also includes venues in Canada, Croatia, Sweden and the United Kingdom, according to Monday reports.

It turns out the "March for Science" scheduled to happen later this month is nothing more than another progressive experiment in identity politics. It's like the Women's March, but with science! The event is scheduled for April 22nd and there's already a battle for dominance among leadership. Bill Nye is often held up by the left for his politics but he's being pushed aside for a leadership role in the march because after all, he's a white male. Heat Street reports:
March for Science Organizers Don’t Want Bill Nye as Leader Because He’s a ‘White Male’ The March for Science is having a tough time deciding whether the march should focus on “diversity and inclusion” or health and climate policy.

People on the left frequently mock conservatives for being people of faith and believing in God. Yet if you listen to leading voices from the Progressive community, you would think we're living in the end times. Trump recently rolled back some of Obama's policies on climate change and has also taken action to roll back regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency. In response, Van Jones wrote this for CNN:
Van Jones: Trump may have signed Earth's death warrant As usual, Donald Trump is completely upside down on the facts. In 2015, President Barack Obama created the Clean Power Plan to slow climate disruption. It was the first action ever taken by the US government to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants.

Democrats are still feeling the sting of defeat over the presidential election and many of them are hopeful for some form of victory in the 2018 midterms. They're going to face a tougher opponent than the Republicans however, and it's coming from inside their own party. The Progressive movement, which makes up a significant portion of the party's base, wants candidates who reflect their values and that doesn't bode well for victory. Alex Seitz-Wald writes at NBC News:
Democrats Beware: Sanders ‘Movement’ Turns to Midterms With Democrats facing tough prospects in the midterm elections, will they also have to worry about primary challenges from their left flank?

While the media obsesses over the Trump White House day after day, they are largely neglecting to report that a battle is still raging for the soul of the Democratic Party. Chelsea Clinton is gearing up for her turn at bat, but the progressive wing of the party isn't interested. The Washington Times reports:
‘Never Chelsea’ movement grows among liberal activists They weren’t ready for Hillary, and now they’re definitely not ready for her daughter, Chelsea Clinton.

The internal strife within the Democrat party is palpable.  The two warring sides are the moderate centrists who still believe in things like free speech, capitalism, and love for America and the radical progressive left who do not. In perhaps the most bizarre interview Tucker's conducted as yet on his new show, he spars with a graduate student over the student's claim that college Republicans should be kicked off the NYU campus for inviting Gavin McInnes to speak and (apparently) thus forcing the progressives on campus to become violent.

The people who claimed they were protesting the Dakota Pipeline to save the environment have a funny way of showing it. They left behind so much garbage that the site has become a potential environmental disaster. The Washington Times reports:
Massive cleanup underway after Dakota Access protesters leave behind environmental mess Clean-up crews are racing to clear acres of debris at the largest Dakota Access protest camp before the spring thaw turns the snowy, trash-covered plains into an environmental disaster area.

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.