It’s not enough that this year’s rioting and looting have hurt innocent people, destroyed their businesses, and even taken some of their lives. Now pseudo-elite Democrats/leftists are calling for another violent response — if President Trump and the Senate exercise their constitutionally granted power and replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the election.
Ginsburg died Friday at age 87 of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer. Since then, a firestorm has arose, with Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell resolving to quickly fill the vacant Supreme Court seat and Democrats insisting that November 3rd’s winner be allowed to choose Ginsburg’s replacement.
The Street Rabble Are No Longer Just in the Street
“Elections have consequences,” said Barack Obama shortly after his 2009 inauguration. Yet prominent writers, a professor, and an ex-CNN host are among the leftists singing a different tune now that they’re out of power, essentially saying that the consequence of their losing elections will be destruction.
As the Daily Mail reports on the Ginsburg-oriented threats:
Reza Aslan, a religious scholar and former CNN host, tweeted to his 293,000 followers: ‘If they even TRY to replace RBG we burn the entire f****** thing down.’
… Beau Willimon, a screenwriter who produced the U.S. version of House of Cards and the president of the Writers Guild of America, East, told his 164,000 followers: We’re shutting this country down if Trump and McConnell try to ram through an appointment before the election.’
Another writer predicted riots.
‘If McConnell jams someone through, which he will, there will be riots,’ said Laura Bassett, a political journalist writing for GQ and the Washington Post.
Author Aaron Gouveia, whose latest book is about toxic masculinity, tweeted: ‘F*** no. Burn it all down.’
And a professor of political science repeated calls for arson attacks on Congress.
Emmett Macfarlane, who teaches at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, tweeted: ‘Burn Congress down before letting Trump try to appoint anyone to SCOTUS.’
A member of the Wisconsin Ethics Commission, responsible for administering state laws regarding campaign finance, ethics and lobbying, echoed the urging for violence.
When Ed Markey, senate candidate for Massachusetts, said that McConnell should not nominate a replacement in an election year, Scot Ross tweeted: ‘F****** A, Ed. If you can’t shut it down, burn it down.’
It’s truly striking. The United States had always been known for exhibiting what we’d previously taken for granted: The peaceful transfer of power — and respect for its lawful exercise. Now we’re starting to resemble a Third World nation, where violence and underhanded dealings elevate leaders as much as, if not more than, free and fair elections.
Speaking of which, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also gotten in on the act (and in many cases it is an “act”), as she “on Sunday refused to rule out pushing forward a privileged impeachment resolution that would have the effect of eating up Senate floor time and potentially stalling a Supreme Court nomination,” reported the Mail in a different article.
“We have our options,” said Pelosi. “We have arrows in our quiver.”
(The speaker certainly is perturbed. But I would recommend, Nancy, that you be more fatalistic and remember some counsel I once heard you give: “People will do what they do.”)
Returning to the approval of violence, it’s beginning to appear a pattern with pseudo-elites. Just about a week ago, in fact, some leftists essentially applauded the shooting of police officers.
As for the SCOTUS vacancy, both parties are fending off accusations of hypocrisy. For “Ginsburg’s death immediately recalled how Republicans resisted a vote on former President Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland while Democrats told the other side it was their job to confirm another justice,” writes TheSpectator.Info.
Moreover, the Spectator relates Barack Obama as saying that a “basic principle of the law — and of everyday fairness — is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what’s convenient or advantageous in the moment.”
Of course, this is the same man who said in 2010 “I am not king” when explaining why he couldn’t unilaterally alter immigration law, but then did so anyway in instituting DACA. In contrast, the only “law” involved in the SCOTUS vacancy’s filling is the constitutional provision stating that the president and Senate have the rightful power to fill it. The GOP’s 2016 rationale for not voting on Garland was just that — a rationale — not a “law.”
Moreover, some Republicans are saying the rationale is actually that a SCOTUS seat should not be filled during an election year when the White House and Senate are controlled by different parties. As McConnell put it Friday, “Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.”
Of course, here’s reality: The Democrats wouldn’t flinch from filling the seat were the roles reversed. Alluding to this, I tweeted the following yesterday:
A proposition for the Dems:
The GOP agrees to let whoever is elected Nov 3 choose the next SCOTUS nominee as long as the Democrats abandon mail-in vote plans and pass a bill removing Big Tech’s lawsuit exemption. They have a week to act on this.
(Don’t worry, they won’t bite.)
— Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) September 20, 2020
The point is that the Democrats are seeking power by any means necessary, including vote fraud and Big Tech manipulation (and violence) — and the application of socialist revolutionary Saul Alinsky’s RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
Then there’s guilt. That is, leftists insist we must respect Ginsburg’s “dying wish,” which allegedly was that she not be replaced until after the presidential election. Below is avowed socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) making this appeal, saying on video that McConnell is “a man who does not care about a dying woman’s final wish.”
We confirm justices to interpret the Constitution, not to dictate through “dying wishes” who their successors should be or when they should be nominated https://t.co/wJ9ExI9bda
— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) September 20, 2020
First, this “dying wish” claim could be a ploy — and one that puts Ginsburg in a bad light. For we’re to believe that in her final moments her thoughts weren’t about God or her ultimate destination, but about politics and power.
Regardless, there’s an irony here. Despite Democrats’ talk about “consistency” and abiding by laws, what they’ve consistently done is appoint “living Constitution” justices who violate the law, engaging in judicial activism and imposing their will from the bench.
Now they want a judge to be able to impose her will even after death.
And the consequence for defying this postmortem judicial activism, say some pseudo-elites, is violence in Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s name. Hey, nothing proves your devotion to the rule of law like threatening insurrection.
Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.
