Liberals at the Barricades

During the early nineteenth century, when the French were unhappy with their governments, they went to the barricades.  The Parisians would tear up their streets to use the cobblestones to construct barriers from which they could fight the authorities.  These served as a defense while they sought to defeat the army or police.

Today it is the liberals who are at the barricades.  They hate the Trump administration and hope to overthrow it.  As a consequence, they are using every weapon in their arsenal to prevent him from implementing his policies.

This should not be too surprising.  Although it is unprecedented in American history, it fits in with the socialist agenda.  Lest we forget, liberals are socialists.  As such, they are heirs to a tradition of revolution and unrest.  They see nothing wrong with toppling regimes with which they disagree.

And make no mistake about it; liberals want to depose Trump.  They boast about protesting, but that is not what they are doing.  They are seeking to sabotage and intimidate.  The goal is to wrest the government from Republican hands, so that it does their own bidding.

Liberals are not democrats.  They do not respect traditions of compromise and moderation.  For them, the laws and constitution are tools.  If these enable them to get want they want, they are followed.  If not, they are ignored.

Consider the many ways that liberals are attempting impose their will.  Because they regard themselves the “best and the brightest,” they have no scruples about dictating how others should behave.  As they see it, if they must force foul tasting medicines down our throats, it is for our own good.

This includes ignoring the plain words of the constitution.  One of America’s great strengths is that we are a nation of laws.  We defer to these rather than the whims of arrogant authorities.  Not so, for liberals.  If they conclude that the law might thwart their desires, the law is set aside.

Unelected judges did exactly this when they put a halt to Trump’s temporary pause on immigration from terrorist permeated states.  These magistrates did not apply the law as written.  They simply decided that they knew what was in the country’s interest and enforced it.

Democratic senators behaved in the same way.  Despite a long tradition of allowing presidents to appoint cabinet officers who share their views, they slow-walked the confirmation process.  Although they realized they would lose, they hoped to prevent a conservative administration from governing.

Washington’s entrenched bureaucracy followed suit.  Functionaries with matching socialist leanings refused to obey lawful administrative directives.  They even leaked sensitive information that might disrupt Trump’s foreign policy.  Anything that challenged their technocratic control was fair game.

Then there were the mobs.  They were everywhere.  They prevented speakers from appearing on college campuses.  They interrupted the townhall meetings of legislators.  They attempted to prevent a hated Secretary of Education from visiting a public school.

Next there were the journalists who put a target on the back of Trump and anyone associated with him.  Nothing the new government did met with their approval.  As a consequence, they said whatever was required to make him and his people look bad.  Truth and accuracy had little to do with their stories.

The central aim of socialists is to dominate the government.  They believe in achieving this by any means necessary.  It does not matter to them who won an election.  They don’t care whether this was by fair or foul means.  All that matters is whether they get to pull the strings.

Thus, when the governor the state of Washington did a gig about a court decision that stymied Trump, he was dancing on the grave of the constitution.  Likewise, when Elizabeth Warren got bent out of shape when stopped from violating Senate rules, she was thumbing her nose at institutional integrity.

This is what socialists do.  It is part of their revolutionary heritage.  If you hate America and all it stands for, this makes them heroes.  But if you love our nation and its history, it confirms that they are a threat to our values!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University