The Left Must Dissemble to Avoid Resembling Who They Really Are
If Everyone’s Guilty, Then No One Is: The Left’s Favorite Lie
The Left must dissemble their dissimilarity with the Right when it comes to violence and extremism. The Left have long done this, but now, as their acceptance of violence and extremism grows, they must go to absurd lengths to hide their true face from America.
The deaths of George Floyd in 2020 and Charlie Kirk’s recent death offer stark contrasts. The difference in the circumstances and the individuals could hardly be more glaring. Yet more glaring still is the Left and Right’s reactions to each.
In October 2020, the Intelligence Commanders Group of the Major City Chiefs Association (”a professional organization of police executives representing the largest cities in the United States and Canada”) issued “Report on the 2020 Protests & Civil Unrest.” The report’s overview states:
“There were approximately 8,700 protests that took place in 68 major cities and counties between May 25th and July 31st, 2020. The largest numbers of protests in a single jurisdiction were reported in Los Angeles County and New York City, each with over a thousand events.”
Only a bare majority (51%) of the 8700 protests “were both peaceful and lawful.”
An overwhelming number (64 out of 68, or 94%) of the reporting agencies “experienced at least one protest that involved unlawful but non-violent acts of civil disobedience (e.g. illegal takeover of a public roadway).
Also, 79% of agencies (54 out of 68) experienced at least one protest that involved some level of violence.”
The “civil disobedience” was “unprecedented” and often far from benign:
“The level of civil disobedience that began in late May and continued for many months was significant and unprecedented for most major city law enforcement agencies.
These non-violent but illegal acts often involved the takeover of a freeway or roadway, blocking traffic, and refusing to cooperate with lawful orders. In some cities, protesters also disrupted outdoor dining and entertainment areas by trespassing onto private property, harassing patrons, and challenging the flow of commerce.
Although most of these non-violent acts of civil disobedience did not result in injury, many still posed a danger to innocent bystanders, as well as to the individuals engaged in the civil disobedience.”
According to the report, there were 574 protests that “involved violence.”
On average, there were nine “protests involving acts of violence in a single city.”
When violence occurred, “assaults on police officers, looting, and arson were the most common criminal activities.”
In Seattle, Washington, an autonomous zone was declared that covered several city blocks and was allowed to last for weeks.
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the city was allowed to burn for days; the Third Precinct police headquarters was burned.
All this occurred during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when people were being warned to wear masks and stay six feet apart.
Five years later, where is the Right’s civil unrest? Where are the Right’s riots? Where are the Right’s autonomous zones?
Unless we are to include the incidents where leftists have vandalized or harassed those holding vigils for Kirk, they do not exist.
Next, imagine the reaction if conservatives had said or posted negative things about Floyd in 2020? If a conservative Member of Congress had taken to the floor and denounced Floyd as AOC did Charlie Kirk? If 58 Republicans had voted against a resolution (and 38 voted “present”) honoring Floyd as House Democrats did against a resolution for Kirk?
What would have been the reaction if a celebrity had gone on national television and spoken about Floyd in the way Jimmy Kimmel spoke about Republicans and Kirk?
Oh, but this is just one example, you say?
Hardly.
When Elon Musk joined the Trump administration, the Left declared open season on Teslas, their owners, and Tesla dealerships.
There was rampant leftist vandalism.
There were leftist assaults.
There was leftist arson.
There were leftist attacks on dealerships.
Contrastingly, what happened when Musk resigned from the administration? When he attacked the One Big Beautiful Bill?
The Right did not riot.
The Right did not vandalize Teslas.
The Right did not assault.
The Right did not commit arson.
The Right did not attack Tesla dealerships.
When the Trump administration has enforced U.S. immigration law against those here illegally, the Left have gone berserk. They have stormed ICE facilities. They have attacked ICE agents.
When the Biden administration refused to enforce immigration laws for four years and let millions enter the country illegally, what did the Right do?
They did not riot, they did not storm ICE centers, they did not dox agents to get them to enforce immigration laws.
Where were the Right’s college encampments protesting the slaughter of Israeli civilians after Hamas’ genocidal attacks of October 7, 2023?
Where were the Right’s militant protests over the Biden administration’s actions to stop drilling and mining in the U.S., even though these actions cost all Americans more in higher energy prices and many Americans their jobs?
Episode after episode show the dissimilarities between the Left and Right when it comes to extremism and violence. In the face of these stark and growing differences, the Left must dissemble.
The Left will scrounge up incidents that they can attribute to the Right and then use these to attempt an argument that there exists a moral equivalence between the two sides of America’s political spectrum.
Of course, there is not, because there is a vast difference in the level of scale. The Right are not the Left, because isolated incidents are not concerted and coordinated action. There is an order of magnitude difference. What is abnormal for the Right is normal for the Left—and this divergence is getting more pronounced as the Left become more extreme and violent.
This quantitative difference between Left and Right is due to a qualitative difference: The Left are more extreme and more accepting of political violence. The qualitative causes the quantitative; the quantitative confirms the qualitative.
A recent YouGov poll found that almost one in five liberals (18%) said political violence can be justified. Only 7% of conservatives and 6% said the same.
A recent Gallup poll found that almost two-thirds of Democrats had a positive view of socialism, and “Democrats are the only partisan group of the three that views socialism more positively than capitalism — 66% to 42%.”
In 2019, a Gallup poll found a significant jump in the percentage of Democrats who would support a socialist as their party’s presidential nominee: “About three in four Democrats (74%) say they would support a self-identified socialist, up from 59% in 2015.”
These are all extreme positions in the context of American politics and society. None of the Left’s rationalizing or relativism can change this extremism. None of the Left’s rationalizing or relativism can change their growing attachment to violence. Nor can the Left’s rationalizing and relativism change Americans’ increasing awareness of—and disgust with—both facts.
The Left cannot allow America to see them as they really are, because that is not who America is. So, the Left must resort to their long-standing ploy of accusing others of the sins they themselves commit, then try justifying their sins by claiming everyone is committing them.
J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades’ experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, the Office of Management, and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.