The other day, I wrote a post called “It can happen here. In fact, it’s already happening.” By “it,” I meant mob assault against people for having political views the mob doesn’t like or even for just refusing to affirm the mob’s political views. This had just occurred at a series of Washington, D.C. restaurants.
It happened here in Washington again last night. Sen. Rand Paul was confronted by an angry BLM mob after he left the White House following President Trump’s speech. The Senator and his wife required police protection to get to their hotel. He says that without the protection he might have been killed.
Unable to get to Sen. Paul, the mob closed in on the police. It nearly knocked an officer down. Paul had to hold him up.
As with the mob rampage at D.C. restaurants earlier in the week, this gang tried to force particular speech. The restaurant thugs coerced dinners into holding up their fists. Anyone who refused was harangued and harassed.
This time, the fledgling brown shirts demanded that Sen. Paul say Breonna Taylor’s name. She’s the African-American woman from Louisville who was shot and killed during a narcotics raid. ( Reportedly, Taylor’s boyfriend has admitted that he shot at the police, which, unsurprisingly, prompted return fire.)
Ironically, Sen. Paul, a libertarian, is the sponsor of the “Justice for Breonna Taylor” Act to do away with “no knock” police raids like the one during which Taylor died. Paul, though, refused to accede to the mob’s demand that he say Taylor’s name. He kept on walking.
It wouldn’t have mattered if Paul had explained his Act to the mob. Its members aren’t interested in changing police behavior. They want to get rid of the police and to physically attack people who disagree with their radical far-left politics.
Paul believes the group that confronted him was paid and brought in from out of town. Maybe. But there are enough fledgling brown shirts in the D.C. area who are happy to do it for free.
No sooner had President Trump denounced their violence and called out Democrats for tolerating it, then mob was back in action doing its fascist thing. It thereby confirmed one of the main themes of the Republican Convention and of the Trump campaign.
It is happening here, and it will get worse unless America elects (and reelects) leaders who are willing to denounce these mobs and take decisive action to curb them.