America’s 249th birthday brings with it an unusually high level of anger. Instead of celebrating the dawn of a new and unprecedented era of liberty and prosperity that accompanied the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the United States, leftists are preparing to express their rage in scores of events from Presque Isle, Maine to San Diego.
One might think that for one day each year - July 4 - we might be able to come together as a people in recognizing the exceptionalism of the American founding and the birth of the greatest nation on Earth. But one would be wrong. The party of Democrats, roughly one-third of which now claim pride in being an American, is instead marking Independence Day by fomenting hate and discontent. How did we get to this degree of hostility and aggression?
Permit me to postulate that it began on Wednesday, September 17, 2008. The place: Elko, Nevada. The event: A presidential campaign rally with the junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama. The Democrat nominee for president was facing scrutiny on Second Amendment issues for bemoaning how some Americans cling to their guns and he was having none of it.
In response to this scrutiny, Obama encouraged rally attendees to engage with their fellow voters. "I need ya to go out and talk to your friends, and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to 'em whether they are independent or whether they are Republican,” he told the crowd. Okay, that’s fine. Talking is a good thing. But Obama was not content with simple conversation. He then incited the audience by instructing them, “I want you to argue with them, and get in their face.”
Democrats have been in our face ever since. For nearly 20 years, many liberals have forsaken civil political discussion, choosing instead to get in our face. Issues like abortion and immigration tend to ignite passionate debate, and liberals have gotten in our collective face for a long time on these and other matters. But the cancer of political incivility has metastasized to the point that many Americans cannot even celebrate our independence without widespread displays of spleen venting over whatever they’ve been told to rage against.
Barack Obama gets credit for this coarsening of our discourse and, this weekend, disrupting the celebration of American independence. It’s just the latest example of the harm brought to the nation by Obama. He encouraged supporters to spoil family Thanksgiving gatherings in 2013 in support of Obamacare. The year before, he told his backers to inject his politics into other celebrations like birthdays and wedding anniversaries.
This corruption of what would ordinarily be happy observances of significant events is more than a simple political tactic. It’s a strategic effort to agitate people in pursuit of dividing families and friends against one another, a core component of Marxist/Leninist ideology. That’s not conservative hyperbole, it’s a stated objective of communists.
In an article from the leftist publication Revolution, the author opens his piece entitled, ‘On the Role of Agitation and Propaganda,’ proclaiming that, “Communists often talk about the crucial importance of revolutionary agitation and propaganda. And with good reason. Together, agitation and propaganda, are a mighty and indispensable weapon in the Party’s revolutionary arsenal.”
This is what Obama brought to the United States. Beginning in 2008 and continuing over the years since, his strategic goal of provoking agitation has now infected Independence Day. In a way, this is a high water mark for American leftists. Previous agitation and propaganda efforts have revolved around political and legislative efforts. But this year, the American patriotism surrounding July 4 has been supplanted by rage.
The toxicity of this attitude is not to be trifled with. The closing lines of the Revolution article sum up the need for agitation and propaganda, reading, “They are key in enabling the Party to awaken, stimulate, and inspire the exploited and oppressed who are hungry for a way out of this torment of capitalism. Agitation and propaganda are vital in nourishing the seeds of the future in the movement of today.”
Barack Obama sowed those seeds 17 years ago and they have sprouted from coast to coast. The stated goal is to arouse and sharpen hatred and there are signs of success. This Independence Day, my fervent hope is that this hatred of America will yield a failed harvest.