While I respect Carol Brown and value her insight, and even share her sense of frustration that the left seems to have taken the initiative when it comes to action, I disagree with her blog post today, "President Trump, it's time for a little less talk and a lot more action."

There are four principal reasons.

For law and order to be an effective response, convictions in a court of law must be the outcome.  The old saying that the wheels of justice grind slowly is founded on experience.  Evidence must be accumulated and properly inventoried (chain of custody issues result in many acquittals and reversals of convictions), and the right laws must be cited by the proper jurisdictions.

President Trump just this morning began laying the basis for federal prosecutions:

I have authorized the Federal Government to arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument, statue or other such Federal property in the U.S. with up to 10 years in prison, per the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act, or such other laws that may be pertinent.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020

.....This action is taken effective immediately, but may also be used retroactively for destruction or vandalism already caused. There will be no exceptions!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020

The insurrectionists desperately want Trump to act precipitously.  They would love for a Kent State–like massacre to take place, after which they can portray Trump as Hitler.

But it is the insurrectionists who are overplaying their hand.  The fanatic support of the media ensures that they are blissfully unaware of the revulsion from the general public to tearing down statues of George Washington, Christopher Columbus, Abraham Lincoln, and even abolitionists.  They do not get negative feedback, and are auto-intoxicating, as mobs always do.  They mistake the initial support for racial justice from the vast majority for long-term support for a racialist agenda that ends up persecuting white people for their race.

Graphic credit: Pixabay.

This is a drama, and we are only in act two, when the conflict elements of the story are revealed.  The conclusion of this drama will be on Election Day, when act three, where the conflict elements are resolved and the heroes and villains become clear.  (Another drama will begin then, and if Trump wins, it will be brutal beyond the dreams of Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe.)  As I have previously written, for most of the public, politics is a television show.  That's nothing that intellectuals, including journalists, want to admit, but it is still true.  And Donald Trump, the most successful reality TV producer in the history of the medium, understands the dramatic elements better than anyone else.

The visceral parts of my consciousness want action now.  But the strategic elements of my mind counsel that the enemy is self-destructing, if only we allow it the time to complete the task and reap the consequences.