Last fall’s election was a rough one for America’s left. Their message was rejected by a majority of Latino men, an increasing share of the black vote, an astonishing percent of GenZ (some reports say that Trump drew a third of the vote at the deep-blue University of Minnesota), and even a near supermajority of Native Americans, to say nothing of the usual suspects, white men (especially blue collar men) and married women.
And the Democrats’ woes haven’t abated with the election – with their popularity hovering somewhere below “Serbian War Criminal” and above “Journalist“.
You might be wondering if the drubbing they took caused the radical wing of Big Left to get a little circumspect? To see if they might want to change their approach, especially to the parts of their late coalition that forsook them last November? To even say “maybe we oughtta dial back the culture war schtick”?
Well, not many of them.
This sign has been popping up in Minneapolis:
The signs are posted by a group, “Mpls for the Many“, which apparently seeks to move Minneapolis’s city government even further to the left, and appears intended to supplant some of those “In This House” signs standing in the front yards of so many white, middle-class “progressives”.
I put “progressives” in scare quotes because, well, if you read the responses to the tweet above, it just doesn’t seem very “progressive”. It’s got that whole “scarlet letter” vibe about it.
And it’s not a rare thing at all – as David (a Minneapolis inmate) points out, many on the left seem to think the social contract is, er, subject to terms and conditions (nearly a direct quote from many of the responses to the tweet above, in fact).
Tom Knighton (at our sister publication Bearing Arms) points out that the current round of “mostly peaceful” demonstrators are putting the gloves back on – so as not to get gasoline, explosive residue or any stray flames on their hands:
Now, Molotov cocktails are bad, but the nature of them tends to mean that people know good and well that there’s no one around when they use one–or, conversely, that someone is present. Using one is a violent act, but it’s still a thing that gives the user at least some control over who all is going to be hurt by the cocktail when it’s thrown.
After that, all bets are off, which is why we don’t really treat them as a nothingburger.
But bombs are an escalation. These are intended to go off at a later time. It doesn’t say if they were meant for remote detonation or on a timer, but what we know is that these aren’t necessarily controlled and can be much more destructive.
To those who believe in such things as social contracts, it appears that part of our society is conjuring up some escape clauses in the fine print.
