The Left's Resort to Violence

The arrest this week of an armed twenty six year-old man outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a man who claimed he wanted to kill Kavanaugh in order to give his life meaning, has raised fears that the left's resort to violence seems to be intensifying.

Not content to burn our cities, the left has, since the leak of the draft of the forthcoming Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case on May 2nd, directed its penchant for violence toward churches, crisis pregnancy centers and now even Supreme Court Justices and their families.

Throughout these malicious acts of vandalism and terror President Biden has been relatively silent, much more silent than he presumably would have been had the assailant been a right-winger out to kill a liberal Justice. His reticence is bad enough, but other Democrats have been worse than reticent.

For example, Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader, explicitly threatened two Supreme Court Justices by name on March 4, 2020 thus giving tacit encouragement for those who would resort to violence in protest of any move to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The Senator, speaking on the steps of the Supreme Court building fulminated:

I want to tell you [Justice] Gorsuch, I want to tell you [Justice] Kavanaugh, you have unleashed the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.

This rhetoric is surely much more inciteful than anything Donald Trump said on January 6th, 2021, but the left is defending it.

In any case, Schumer's hardly alone. The left has been creating a climate of hysteria and violence over the issue of abortion ever since it became clear that the Roe decision was in jeopardy.

A piece by Tristan Justice in The Federalist chronicles a few examples:

California Congressman Eric Swalwell told followers to “fight like your lives depend on it.” “Because they do,” he added.

Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush wrote on Twitter that Democrats needed to “protect abortion rights by any means necessary.” (Italics mine) “This is an emergency,” she said.

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand urged followers on Twitter to “fight like hell” to save abortion more than a year after she voted in favor of President Donald Trump’s impeachment conviction over [his use of] identical language.

Justice notes that,

Churches and pro-life pregnancy centers have already suffered multiple fire bombings by pro-abortion radicals since the draft opinion was leaked.

Authorities launched an arson investigation in New York after a Buffalo pregnancy center was set ablaze by individuals who graffitied “Jane Was Here.” The words refer to the abortion terrorist organization Jane’s Revenge.

In mid-May, Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson demanded federal law enforcement draft plans to protect pro-life groups from domestic threats after one such group was hit with a Molotov cocktail in Madison.

“In 2020, extremists exploited demonstrations across the country to incite riots that resulted in the loss of life, more than 2,000 injuries to law enforcement officers, and over $1 billion in property damage,” Johnson wrote in the May 13 letter as activists descended on Justices’ homes.

“There are currently mobs outside of the residences of the Supreme Court Justices appointed by Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump … and, once again, DOJ, FBI, and DHS have yet to condemn these activities.”

Johnson gave Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas until May 27 to respond.

Johnson Spokeswoman Alexa Henning told The Federalist on Wednesday, however, “we have not yet received a substantive response to our letter to DHS, FBI, or DOJ on designating Jane’s Revenge a domestic terrorism group, investigating the Madison attack, and protecting pro-life organizations.”

Meanwhile, a bill that would fund increased security for SCOTUS Justices and their families had been held up for in the House by Speaker Nancy Pelosi who finally got around to putting it up for a vote next week.

The bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent in May, but Ms. Pelosi, for whatever reason, stalled it in the House until the arrest of the would-be assassin outside Justice Kavanaugh's home made her dilatory tactics look irresponsible. Now she's allowing the legislation to move along.

The point, though, is that nihilistic violence is in the left's DNA. It's been part of their modus operandi ever since 1789 and the subsequent French Terror. Whenever they don't get their way, whenever they see an opportunity to destabilize society, they'll either resort to it or tacitly condone its use by others.