There are a lot of seeming contradictions in the street violence widely employed by the left.  Rioters destroy their own neighborhoods.  Look at Detroit, where the riots that started in 1967 have now devastated what was once one of the richest cities in the United States.  Rioters in Portland attack the federal courthouse, the bailiwick of the Department of Justice, which has become a virtual tool of the left — keeping dozens of January 6 demonstrators in solitary confinements as hordes of left-wing rioters are not prosecuted or even cut free after being arrested.

This raises the question: why are they turning against their own?

Lee Smith, a brilliant political commentator, has a satisfying answer in Tablet.  It is short, so I recommend you read the whole thing, but here is the core of his explanation:

The Democratic Party has had a problem. It's a small, incoherent, and privileged clique funded by billionaire oligarchs to push policies that even mainstream Democratic voters oppose. How to bridge the gap? The solution they chose, which party officials made clear this week, was simple: the way third-world elites always do — by using street violence to keep their clients in line.

This week, pro-Palestinian demonstrators auditioned for the chance to join already established Democratic Party militias antifa and Black Lives Matter by attacking Jews in New York and Los Angeles. Apologists for the violence reason that the demonstrators are angry about the deaths of innocent Palestinian babies under Israeli fire in Gaza so they're taking their frustrations — admittedly misplaced! — out on American Jews.

YouTube screen grab.

We conservatives, the putative enemies of the left, are not the target.  The real targets are their wavering allies, who get the message that failure to support them will come at the cost of violence.

Smith also includes the concept of "intersectionality" in his analysis:

This is all "intersectionality" really is — a branding mechanism to unite the various sects the Democratic Party has gathered under a big and potentially bloody tent. The current-day Democratic Party is a top-down structure paid for by the corporate establishment, led by Big Tech and finance, that appeals to a small class of managers, technocrats, and educators who for a variety of reasons, from self-pity to psychopathy, really do back the party's most sinister policies—like open borders, designed to impoverish America's working middle class. The party has lots of money and owns virtually all of the country's major institutions, from the press to the Department of Justice. What it lacks, however, is voters. So they packed together interest groups and turned them into clients.

The trick is making them all fit.  From the outside, for instance, it makes no sense that activists from the LGBT wing show up in support of the pro-Palestinian terror wing.  But what might seem to you like hypocrisy actually illustrates the basic premise, which is that these seemingly disparate groups actually do share a goal: upholding the Democratic Party.  When LGBT activists are called to demonstrate on behalf of Islamic terrorists, they show up to fly the flag not for Hamas, but for the Democrats.

My only quibble with this analysis is that it under-emphasizes the role of hatred, which is the basest of political motives, but which is also a potent motivator.  Intersectionality targets the enemy, which includes various races and classes, all of which are identified as the source of all the unhappiness.  Some may see White males as the source of all evil, while others see capitalists as the responsible party.  Some still cling to Donald Trump, who is both categories of evil.  But what unites the intersectional people is their common hatred, not their common identity.  I actually don't think there is that much love for the Democrats among leftists.  The donkeys are at best allies in fighting the hated groups, at least for now.

Do take a few minutes to read Smith's argument and see if you agree.  I think alliances on the basis of hatred inevitably disintegrate the closer they get to power.  Hate, after all, divides, not unites.

There are more victims than beneficiaries of leftists' violence.  Right now, the Democrats are starting to figure out that "defund the police" has been an electoral disaster for them.  Support for Republicans is increasing among Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians.  Bullying builds resentment.

If and when the left seizes actual unfettered power, then bullying will work because there will be no option for resistance.  But as long as vote fraud is kept from full operation, there is the opportunity to fight back.  And with the Democrats' plan to federalize election law with H.R. 1 foundering (thank-you, Senators Manchin and Sinema), there is hope.

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