Since Gene Hackman’s passing earlier this year, I have been rewatching his filmography. His best performance was arguably in Crimson Tide, where he plays a rogue submarine captain opposite Denzel Washington and Viggo Mortensen. At one point he explains to them that “We’re here to preserve democracy, not to practice it.” In the moment, he’s abstractly describing the military chain of command, but the line foreshadows Hackman’s dark turn later in the movie.
Written 30 years ago, that cinematic turn of phrase seems particularly apt this week, following the news about Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated about 30 minutes south of the office where I’m typing this.
Like many, I was horrified at the news. I was, however, not surprised. I was also not surprised to see so many on the left voicing their support for Charlie’s assassination. The last 10 years of incendiary, dehumanizing rhetoric from them against America has all been in service to radicalizing foot soldiers to violence.
The silver lining for this is that it puts every Democrat hopeful for 2028 in an impossible situation, provided the country is still around by then. None of them wants to appear soft to radicals within the party – because the radicals are now the mainstream – but none of them want to say they support assassination in a general election. But apparently elections don’t matter to so-called progressives when they don’t get their way.
This summer, Sen. Chuck Schumer bragged that he “put 235 ‘progressive’ judges on the bench…and they’re ruling against Trump time after time after time.” Because the way to “preserve democracy” is for unelected dictators in black robes to fight the president, last year’s election, and the will of the American people.
The radicals at The New York Times last month published an op-ed that demanded they could only win if they, “Abolish the Senate. End the Electoral College. Pack the Court.” Because the way to “preserve democracy” is by destroying the institutions.
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Earlier this year, well-funded leftists engaged in violent riots in Los Angeles. The rioters did tens of millions of dollars of damage, engaged in mass looting, and killed at least one person. All but a few elected Democrats openly supported the violence while allied media outlets have provided cover. It’s the worst riot in LA’s history, well, since the last one. Because the way to “preserve democracy” is to burn down the cities it built.
Outright murder is now just the latest tool in their toolkit for “preserving democracy” when all other ways have failed. Remember that last year’s assassination attempt on President Trump was foiled objectively only by the grace of God.
This week’s successful assassination proves that they haven’t learned to be more democratic, only to be more successfully violent. The Democrats’ insurrection against our institutions and the will of the people illustrate how differently our two sides see violence. For us, we tell ourselves that one day we’ll see the Bat-signal go up, grab our AR-15s and My Patriot SupplyTM like the modern-day Minutemen we all hope we are, and rush to the battle. Some day.
But for them, that day has been the last 10 years. They aren’t waiting – they have started the fighting, all while blaming it on us. Talk of civil war has been trending for years. The CEO of JP Morgan said earlier this year that guns and ammo were a better investment than cryptocurrency.
The other side, for their own sake, desperately needs to back down. My fellow Townhall columnist outlined in great detail several years ago how “Democrats Would Lose the Second Civil War, Too,” but even he was probably too generous to the other side. Democrats have proven they are capable of mischief against our system while still using that system as a shield.
In any kind of open warfare – which events like Charlie’s assassination push us toward – they have no chance against a side that has 1 trillion rounds of ammo and the overwhelming support of the military. We don’t want this, but if it happens, they will be the ones to have officially fired the first shot. It’s like Viggo Mortensen said in Lord of the Rings, “Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.”
This is the challenge of preserving democracy against those who will do anything to destroy it.
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