Why the left, from normal Dems to Antifa, have lost their collective minds
The House minority leader and now self-styled tough guy, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, poses with a baseball bat to show how dangerous he is in opposing Trump's budget bill.
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Jeffries harangued Congress for eight hours; New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker went on for 25 — both to no effect.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit the rally trail in private jets to rail about oligarchs, omitting that the ultra-rich are not only mostly leftists but also the funders of the Democratic Party.
Sometimes the Democrats in Congress make bizarre videos, featuring profanity like f—k or s—t. On other occasions, they scream and interrupt Congress.
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Some representatives now confess that they're being pressured by their constituents to take a bullet for the cause.
The racialist Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett — sometimes playing the prep-school prima donna, sometimes modulating her accent to pass as the authentic inner-city activist — gains headlines for monotonously ranting about old white men.
On left-wing social media, the assassin Luigi Mangione remains a heartthrob for murdering a health-care executive, replacing the Tsarnaev brothers as the hot new left-wing killer.
He, too, might soon end up with a cover photo on Rolling Stone.
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The left-wing internet mob grotesquely claims children lost to the recent flash flood in Texas deserved their fate.
They advance three sick reasons for their ghoulishness. Texas Christians supported the MAGA agenda and thus met a just fate. Or, as red-state Texans, they were deservedly collateral damage to DOGE's bureaucratic reductions. Or, as climate denialists would say, the flash flood took righteous revenge on children for their supposed ignorance.
Add it all up, and there is a sizable leftist 'base' that is completely amoral.
Then there are the college campuses, where left-wing antisemitism, pro-Hamas terrorism and DEI-fueled racism risk costing elite universities their multibillion-dollar subsidies, which fund the indoctrination of young leftists.
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Cash-strapped universities can no longer hide that they were gouging the federal government with outrageous surcharges on grants. They were systematically defying the Supreme Court by their race-based admissions and hiring. They institutionalized segregationist dorms, segregated graduations, and antisemitism.
Finally, there is the so-called 'left-wing Resistance' and the street mobs' descent into violence and terrorism.
Sometimes, thugs ambush ICE agents.
Sometimes, they firebomb Tesla dealerships.
Sometimes, they attack federal buildings, shut down freeways and pelt patrol cars with concrete.
They continue with impunity because they know the Democratic Party cannot and will not censure them.
As in the months-long rioting of 2020, leftist politicos assume their street bandits will cause so much mayhem, violence and chaos that Trump will either be forced to call out the troops (and thus 'prove' he's Hitler) or be too scared to — only to be blamed for the unrest, which could cost him the midterms.
But who or what drives the insane rages of these various armies of the left?
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One is an obviously bleeding Democratic Party. Despite gushing about its new DEI, illegal alien, trans, and Middle Eastern constituents, it has no political power. Its issues are mostly 30-70 losers.
It has little power in the House or Senate beyond fake-filibusters, performative outrage, or profanity-laced rants.
It lost the White House. The Supreme Court nullified the illegality of left-wing district judges.
It does not trust the people, so plebiscites and ballot measures are mostly out.
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Two, unlike his first term, Trump is addressing the causes, not just the symptoms, of the progressive project, whether on the border, crime, cultural issues, or foreign policy.
This time around, there are no John Boltons, no Rex Tillersons, no Alexander Vindmans and no Anonymouses from the inside to thwart the Trump agenda.
The administration is loyalist and committed to addressing the root causes of the left-wing influence, not just its manifestations.
So, Trump has focused on leftist sacred cows like NPR, PBS, the elite campuses, USAID and the administrative state — all the inculcators and laboratories of leftist ideology.
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Finally, the left is outraged that so far, the Trump counterrevolution is working.
The economy is solid. The border is closed. Military recruitment has radically recovered.
The budget bill has passed. The Iranian nuclear threat has lessened. NATO is strengthening. The Middle East has a chance for calm.
Tariffs did not cause inflation. Deportations created more, not fewer, American jobs. Biological men will likely no longer be winning women's athletic contests.
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Add it all up, and the impotent left in all its orthodox and street manifestations has become unhinged.
And why not when it rightly fears that not just its power, but the very sources of its power, are in mortal danger?
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.
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