So I’m watching these protests in the various states, and I’m looking at the media coverage of them, and I see the comments on the Internet forums, and I think, “This is pretty weird.”
Here is video of one such event that took place recently in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Look at the cars. Look at the people. Those are Mommy Cars and Daddy Trucks with actual mommies and daddies in them. Those are what we used to call “adult Americans.” Those people live in modest single-family homes with manicured lawns. They have basketball hoops mounted over their garage doors. Unless you’re as old as I am, you may not realize how impossibly weird it is to see people like this protesting our government. People like this do not protest. They don’t have to. Government largely caters to these folks because they are the ones who pay the taxes. Such people might disagree with a policy or two, but they’re not going to drive down to the state capitol and honk their horns in a big parade over it. It’s not something they do.
We do see committed political activists of various stripes marching in Washington several times a year. But that’s not what this is. This is right out of the 1970’s and the movie Network. These people are not political crusaders. They are ordinary folks who are “mad as Hell, and they are not going to take it anymore.” In America. In Saint Paul. On Saturday.
This isn’t just happening in Minnesota. Kira Davis and Jennifer Van Laar reported on protests in Huntington Beach, CA and downtown Los Angeles. There have been protests in Austin, Texas; Salt Lake City, Utah; Boise, Idaho; Annapolis, Maryland; Indianapolis, Indiana; Carson City and Las Vegas, Nevada; New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois and Montana. The pictures from every one of them reveal middle class working adults of the sort we simply have never seen engaging in this kind of behavior. Remember these days. You may not see this again in your lifetime.
The prevailing opinion on the other side of The Big Ditch appears to be that these folks are ignorant white supremacist Nazis. Think of it: Nazis in Mommy vans. Not even Hitler was so devious.
How out of touch, how vested in Democrat Media Fantasyland, does someone have to be in order to see salt-of-the-Earth adult Americans trying to pay their rents and feed their kids, and then say this:
Trump’s “Ugly Americans”….they hate, they lie, they don’t respect the rights of others, they attack with their guns and tactics, they care less about others suffering and dying, yet they are the first ones clamoring for public assistance. Unfortunately, that is how the world now sees all of us until we fix this nightmare in November.
That’s a typical comment on the web site I took it from. And it’s not an especially critical one. I deliberately passed over the guy who wanted all the protesters shot. And that wasn’t from Buzzfeed or even Democratic Underground. That was in the Washington Post.
It is true that if you view the video from Saint Paul, you will see Trump flags on some of the vehicles. And we know these to be highly frowned upon by our betters on the left. But you don’t see Trump flags in the photos from Sacramento or Harrisburg or North Carolina. There is simply no reason to believe that these protests are being driven by any sort of partisan politics. These are Americans, doing what anyone sane would expect Americans to do: rise up and push back against overweening government that tries to restrict basic freedoms that are fundamental, and yes, unalienable, in the United States.
An interesting debate can undoubtedly be had over whether some of the anti-virus measures imposed by governments across the nation are prudent and necessary steps to protect life. But that isn’t the debate I see happening. What I see is political figures looking at their own constituents and seeing some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history. I see media figures claiming that the protests are driven by ignorance, privilege, and anti-black racism. I see average Americans on Internet forums calling on authorities to gun down their fellow Americans if they refuse to obey.
How does this happen? How does a sizable segment of our society — perhaps 30% of our adult population — drift so far away from their “fellow Americans” that they can no longer even recognize them when looking right at them? Instead they see racists, and Nazis, and “really dumb people.” What they don’t see is anyone like them.
