By CHRISTOPHER MANION
The election hasn’t been decided yet, but the current state of uncertainty gives us time to indulge in ruminations of times past.
Ever since Donald Trump was elected in 2016, the Left has hectored him endlessly. One of their favorite taunts has been, “will he allow a peaceful transition when he is defeated in 2020, or will we have to send in the military to haul him out?” Of course, the Ministry of Truth has never accepted the fact that he won in the first place.
So it’s no surprise that the Left wants to shove Trump out to the curb before the election is decided. After all, they’re only being consistent. They’ve tried to destroy his presidency, along with tens of millions of Americans who support him, for four years. But right now we don’t know how the current constitutional process will play out. In fact, we won’t know until at least December 14, when the Electoral College members of each state cast their votes to elect the next president — or fail to do so.
So we find ourselves with a moment of reflection, having celebrated (we hope) a blessed Thanksgiving and faced with another fortnight of uncertainty.
Let’s consider one of our many possible futures. In this episode, let’s assume that “Catholic Joe” Biden is sworn in as president on January 21, 2021. Meanwhile, mountains of evidence have come to light in December and early January proving beyond any doubt that the election was stolen.
Now, the Establishment elites have hated Trump passionately for years. In light of these irrefutable revelations, will their hatred finally give way to compassion? Will they join an outraged public in a strident demand that justice be done?
For our answer, we turn to precedent — and it is not heartwarming.
Hate Has A Long History
The year is 1960. The most hated man in Establishment America is Richard Milhous Nixon. He has earned this status because of a mortal sin he committed long before. As a member of Congress from California, he had played a key role in exposing the Communist menace in our country, “the enemy within,” as it’s been called.
Nixon’s grit and determination had helped the world learn about the Soviet Union’s startling success in infesting the Roosevelt-Truman presidential administrations with Communist spies.
Now, in 1960, the already-hated Nixon is running against the Democrat ticket of John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. When the votes are counted on election night, the Kennedy-Johnson ticket has won with 303 electoral votes.
However, massive fraud was alleged to have occurred in Illinois, where Chicago Mayor Richard Daley had the ultimate say in the vote count, and Texas, where “Landslide Lyndon” had been famous for years for insisting that every tombstone in the cemetery be given its equal right to vote. And reversing the electoral votes of those two states alone would give Nixon the victory.
Outrage abounded, and Republicans in several states mounted objections and demanded investigations. Nixon ignored them. Three days after the election, he conceded.
And the question arises, what did the Establishment do then? Did the elites hail Nixon’s patriotism, his selfless refusal to throw the election, and the country, in turmoil?
Not quite. Instead, they hounded Nixon mercilessly, and hailed the dawn of the Kennedy Myth, with Camelot as its guiding star. In fact, their continuing campaign of contemptuous vituperation lasted through 1962, when they helped Pat Brown defeat Nixon in California’s gubernatorial election.
The day after the California loss, Nixon made no bones about the media’s hatred. It was his “last press conference,” he said. “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”
Well, actually, they’re still kicking him around, but that’s another story. Here we observe that in 1960, Nixon-haters didn’t change their tune in the face of simple civic virtue, nor were they interested in the possibility of heinous political heists.
After all, they were happy that their guy had won. (By the way, so were our Catholic bishops.)
Back to January 2021. In light of our scenario’s bombproof evidence, is it likely, or not so likely, that the haters will come to their senses and humbly acknowledge that Trump had really won in November?
Extra credit question: How about the bishops?
Revolution And Rewards:
A Primer
As we survey our rapidly changing scene, we notice other similarities with times past.
We’ve learned from Edmund Burke and Alexis de Tocqueville that the preamble to revolution percolates for a long while — until the “spark” (Lenin’s “iskra”) ignites the carefully laid kindling.
Then it all bursts into flame — and all Hell breaks loose.
In the revolutions of the twentieth century, chaos and terrorism played an indispensable role. Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne in March 1917, and the Russian Empire collapsed. Vladimir Lenin quickly moved in, using his terrorist shock troops — the Cheka — to intimidate his rivals and the public while he seized power.
“The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize,” Lenin famously observed — because it works.
The Sturmabteilung — the “Brownshirts” — performed the same role in the 1920s as Hitler consolidated his power. In 1922, Mussolini’s Squadre d’Azione — the “Blackshirts” — played a similar role. Perhaps because Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini had all been in prison early in their careers, their shock troops naturally comprised many criminals in their ranks (it’s no surprise that this is also true of Antifa today).
In the past year here in America, Marxist Black Lives Matter agitprop plays the “respectable” role while
Antifa wreaks chaos in cities throughout the country. Notably, the defeat of Russia, Germany, and Italy in the Great War gave the terrorist groups the disorder and discord necessary to be viable. Today’s America hasn’t lost a war, but many of its more rancid politicians — a significant number to be sure — have treated our citizens like a defeated population.
Disoriented, discouraged, and dismayed by power-lusting virus manipulators, millions of Americans are bereft of any means of response, much less resistance, to the assault on our freedoms. The fabric of our sense of community has been frayed to the shredding point. In many states, citizens are not free from the Kommissar’s jackboot even in their own homes.
And what do we know about the wannabe tyrants? They are more afraid of each other than they are of us. History provides irrefutable precedent: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Kim — once they attained total power, their first targets were not the people but the competition.
If America’s tyrants do consolidate their power — and we can’t rule out that prospect — all the Establishment elites will expect to be rewarded for their undying support of the new leader.
Instead, they will be the new enemy. Tyrants have no need of the pirouetting media, academic, cultural, or business big shots who helped them gain power. No longer needed, they will be tossed in the dustbin of history, while real criminals take over.
The revolution always devours its own.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress