Rather than accept electoral defeat, the mainstream of the Democratic Party now believes in “resisting” -- resisting anything the party in power enacts into law, does, wants to do, or even wants to think.  Their new goal is to disrupt, obfuscate, destroy, and neuter their opposition.

They are doing it with revolting politicians who think their job is to say anything incendiary, nasty, boorish, off the wall, and destructive.  Ditto with their “journOlists.”  And, unfortunately, ditto with far too many of their voters.   None have a clue that they are beyond the bounds of what was once called civilized discourse.  None appear to have any idea of how destructive they have become.  By now, I would have expected some on the left, perhaps the occasional Democrat pol, media figure, or even a random group of their voters to get up and say. “Stop the world, I want to get off!”

But no.  Instead, they soldier on, oblivious to who they’ve become.

In the past, most of us have believed our left-leaning compatriots to be simply in error; wrong, foolish, incapable of clear thinking, stupid, moronic.  Somewhere in there is the right word.  I have used all of those words (plus a few more) during my time of political study.  When we consider those words, some think that “wrong” or “foolish” are too complimentary, others that “moron” or “stupid” are too harsh.   In the past that has sufficed.

No longer.  We are clearly beyond simple error.

Ever since the Civil War, civilized discourse has had rules.  Political differences have had rules.  Having different views was reality.  Unfortunately, the left has decided they no longer need to have rules, they no longer need to be bound by being civilized, and they have set themselves a scorched earth course.  If they can’t win, nobody can.  If they can’t prevail in discourse, nobody can.  The left has many descriptors.  I call them Jacobins.

Here are some examples of how out of bounds they have become:

1.  They decided to claim the election win of Donald Trump was illegitimate.  Not flawed, not the country changing direction, but illegitimate.  They’ve had plenty of claims as to why, from claiming the vote was somehow improper, to James Comey, to Trump colluding with the Russians, to Trump being Hitler.  Zero evidence, yet the claim is illegitimacy.  Recall that the right whined about Obama (with good reason), that we had elected someone because of his skin color, because he could read a teleprompter, that he was never vetted by the media, that he was a radical leftist, that he didn’t have any accomplishment that showed he should be President.  All true, yet no claims of illegitimacy, other than Hillary’s small birther movement, itself based on Obama’s birth documents being kept hidden.  The right fought back, but it always remained simply a “loyal opposition.”  This is not true of the left.   “Resisting” is not simply opposing.  It’s saying the winning side has no legitimate right to power.   They have sold this concept to their voters, and that cannot be continued without major consequence to us all.
2. There is a tradition in our politics of the “honeymoon” for the incoming President.  We set aside our differences, go on with our lives, and hope for the best.  Not that we don’t oppose; we don’t stop what we stand for.  But we allow someone new a peaceful transition of power.  Trump did not have one second of a honeymoon.  Not from any Democrat.  Not from any of the leftist media pundits.  And from what I can see, not from most so-called normal Democrat voters.  The vileness, the name calling, the hysteria, and the loud mouth proclamation of the leftist right to power was overwhelming.  They lost an election, yet acted as if they won.  They protested continuously; they said things that, had they been said during Obama’s “honeymoon” might have caused people to be arrested.   This was a despicable set of actions.  Because they lost an election.  They crossed from incivility, to a loss of all civility.  All aided and abetted by an out of control media.
3.  Chuck Schumer’s obstruction.  This was vile, mean-spirited, and unprecedented in our lifetime, maybe the worst ever.  This man, and his colleagues in the Democratic Party purposefully prevented Trump from having his full cabinet.  They slowed the confirmation process to a snail’s pace.  In doing so Schumer was prodded by his increasingly vile base, and the fully partisan mainstream media.  What this meant was there were fewer hands on deck to run the ship of state.  Less could be done, and frankly an election was being undermined.  Had there been a crisis, they would have had blood on their hands.  It had not been done like this before, and it was a dangerous game to play, and another sign that the left had crossed the line from being an opposition party to one of scorched earth destruction.
4. The leakers.  Left in place in the bureaucracies was a politicized group unlike any that we have never seen before.  Called the deep state by some, these people decided to rebel against the new administration.  They leaked things illegally.  They leaked them to try to embarrass the new administration.  They leaked them to maintain the power the left lost.  They spied on an incoming administration, to a degree that had never before occurred in the US.  We have never witnessed anything like this.  Yet the media soldiers on about the nonexistent Trump/Russia connection.   This shows a Democratic Party (including media) close to sedition, not simple opposition.
5. Judicial nullification of the election is another ugly, despicable, unprecedented tactic.  They have decided to use their toadies in the judicial system to stop the administration in every way they can, judge shopping in leftist venues to see who can gum up the works the most.   The long march of the left into the judiciary has borne fruit.  By striking down Trump’s terror nation travel ban, and now his Sanctuary City defunding plan, they are clearly usurping the enumerated power of the Executive branch in the Constitution.  Leftist judges can say the law is anything they want, bending our will,  slowing the administration to a crawl.  Taking away the clear, lawful rights of an administration is what they are doing.  Goading the media into goading the riled-up democrat voters to take the law any way they want is their goal.   Along with chaos.

There are more examples, but these clearly show the left has gone off the precipice of civilization.  For them, power is everything; it is their religion.  These are examples that are unprecedented in their destructiveness, things that have been considered by our culture as wrong, inappropriate, illegal, and/or immoral.   Hubie Brown, ex-NBA basketball coach used to tell his players that they were all three steps from the gutter.  It was a reminder of how fast you can fall from hero to goat, from riches to poverty, from sailing along to crashing on the shoals.   All of us.

We now have an entire party, most of their voters, and the majority of the mainstream media, who are far less than those three steps from that proverbial gutter.  Frankly, a lot of them are there already, and some don’t truly understand the consequences to their gutter politics.  They are the new Jacobins, the new Red Guard.   Violent, nasty, self-righteous, and incapable of civilization.  And the consequences have fallen on all of us.  

I know people similar to Madame Defarge from A Tale of Two Cities.  You can see them saying things at anti-Trump rallies and in our own neighborhoods.  I know people like the Paris mobs of old.  They are the anti-free speech thugs at Berkeley, who are ruling most college campuses today.  They just threatened the Heritage Foundation in broad daylight.  I know small-souled people like Robespierre, and they are akin to Chuck Schumer and his rotten obstructionists in their unwillingness to debate, compromise, or listen.   If given power again, would they choose the reign of terror as did their forerunners in France?   Think hard before you answer that.

More than anything, we as conservatives need to come to grips with this reality:  The left is unleashing a lawlessness, unleashing a disregard for any opinion but their own, and they are doing it with new, over the top, despicable tactics every day.  They will continue to do so until they are defeated and/or shamed.   For the sake of a better America, we need to defeat them, sending back their Jacobin extremism to the pit of Hell from which it emerged.