Townhall Review | Commentaries

The tremendous violence in America migrated to an unlikely setting recently: The typically quiet city of Kenosha, Wisconsin. According to the Kenosha police department, out of 175 people arrested recently, 102 had a home address outside Kenosha, hailing from no less than 44 different cities.

What this means is that our cities are being torn apart by what amounts to a professional rioting class. These “protesters” are not merely upset; they are not merely decrying what they see as injustices. Those of the rioting class are genuine radicals—believing, per Critical Race Theory—that America is built upon a racist foundation. “White supremacy” represents the structure of this country, and so to cleanse America of it, American civilization must be torn down and rebuilt.

We are not merely witnessing “outrage” today. We are witnessing a focused attack on the fabric of America.

Terrible ideas have terrible consequences.

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Both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions have ended, and Election Day is coming quickly.

Here’s what we know about the fall campaign. It will feature a true contrast in ideas and ideology.

Joe Biden has made clear that he believes in a dramatically more powerful federal government that will play a bigger role in everything from health care to energy policy. The power with Democrats today doesn’t lie with moderate leaders who want incremental change. No, it’s with far-left progressives like Bernie Sanders who are looking to transform America.

You don’t have to agree with everything Donald Trump says and does to recognize that his vision is very different. He wants a freer America, one where Washington gets out of our way. Trump’s policies will work to boost our economy, make health care more affordable, and give citizens—not government—more power to make the decisions that are best for them.

The choice this November is clear. Now it’s up to us to make our voices heard.

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The fiery riots convulsing American cities have begun to resemble the devastating violence of the late 1960s, and will likely end the same way. Between 1965 and 1969, more than 150 American cities exploded in episodes of race-based destruction, beginning with LA’s Watts Riot that killed or injured more than 1,000 and destroyed 1,000 buildings.

Princeton scholar Omar Wasow studied the election that followed the riots, finding that areas scarred by unrest showed sharp increases in support for “Law and Order” candidates. By 1972, Richard Nixon, the proudly proclaimed “Law and Order” president, carried 49 states with an epic 61% popular vote landslide, by denouncing the leftist takeover of the Democratic Party with the candidacy of George McGovern.

In other words, Americans overwhelmingly rejected the violent protesters in both inner cities and on college campuses, so that radical “resistance” soon subsided—a crucial lesson for today’s nihilistic agitators and their feckless apologists.

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I’ll admit it: I was a skeptic on the prospects for a virtual Republican convention.

I’ve attended conventions since 2000—and I’ve always thought the Democrats brought better production values to the quadrennial pageants than the GOP did.

I expected a creaky, clunky series of wooden speeches.

Was I ever wrong. The Republican National Convention was a masterpiece of messaging.

We saw a look at an impressive record of the president. We saw Secretary of State Mike Pompeo—speaking from Jerusalem. We saw the diversity of today’s GOP. We saw Vice President Pence making the stakes clear when he said: “It’s not so much whether America will be more conservative or more liberal, more Republican or more Democrat. The choice in this election is whether America remains America.”

And, of course, we saw the president.

Hats off to the President, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel and all behind the virtual convention.

I trust and hope American voters were watching and listening.

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The selection of Senator Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s running mate has produced irrelevant arguments about whether she qualifies as African-American, since both her parents were born abroad.

But her history-making Vice Presidential candidacy does raise an uncomfortable question for advocates of identity politics. On what basis could Senator Harris possibly qualify for the slavery reparations she says she supports? Her parents immigrated from Jamaica and India; now none of her ancestors were ever enslaved in the United States. In fact, the Harris example exposes the lack of logic behind all reparations proposals.

Prominent Black politicians, including Harris, Corey Booker and Barack Obama, were all born to highly educated, hard-working, successful parents, and the idea of government pay-outs to products of privilege of any race is, obviously, ludicrous and unjust.

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The recent unveiling of the Republican agenda for a second term gave much encouragement to many who need it. Defeat COVID; create jobs; disentangle from China; provide school choice; teach American exceptionalism unapologetically; defend the police as an institution; oppose human trafficking—these and other measures offer sanity, flourishing, and hope to an embattled country.

No agenda can cover every issue. Two outstanding issues need platforming, however: religious liberty and abortion. The Trump administration has taken stands on both of these momentous matters and to good effect. In days ahead, though, supporters of religious liberty and the unerasable humanity of the unborn need more support, not less.

Religious liberty, after all, is for this gloriously free society the first freedom. Among other righteous ends, it enables a diverse coalition of many voices to speak on behalf of the unborn until the murderous abomination of abortion is a distant memory.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has done a lot to reveal the importance of the family.

Over these past five months we’ve seen a fascinating and revealing debate about the education of our children—with new conversations about public and private schooling, and of course new attention paid to homeschooling.

We’re seeing a lot of talk as well about justice and equality, about the role of parents and the structure of families.

This revealing headline recently appeared in the New York Times: “Every Choice for Parents Contains Potential Risks or Unfair Advantages.”

Claire Cain Miller writes, “It's the newest front in America's parenting wars,”—and you can count on the fact now that parents are getting judged and criticized as she says, “on message boards and in backyard meetups and virtual PTA meetings.”

But our pandemic has served to reveal that there is no structure, no program, no government intervention that can ever replace a functioning intact family with a mom and a dad.

Family provides benefit.

For that we should be grateful—and not ashamed—and not ashamed to say it.

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The Democratic National Convention—or the virtual convention—provided for us a display of the battle going on for the heart and soul of the contemporary Democratic Party.

On the one hand we saw efforts to show moderation—for example, Republicans who are crossing over to support Joe Biden. And on the other are progressives like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who want to remake America into a socialist haven.

But make no mistake about which side of the party is ascendant.

You need only look at Biden’s vice-presidential nominee, Kamala Harris.

She’s supported single-payer health care. She’s supported policies to decriminalize illegal border crossings. And she’s called for a Green New Deal that would raise energy prices and, yes, kill millions of jobs.

Don’t be fooled by the show you saw last week. Joe Biden and the Democrats will pursue a radical left agenda if given the chance this November.

Voters will have to make sure they do not have that chance.

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Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump, I am increasingly convinced that a large portion of the electorate will be casting a vote for him this fall in no small part as a rebuke to the media’s descent into a sort of collective hatred of the president.

Today’s journalistic elite is so quick to slice and dice any accomplishment of the administration—with no concern over the cost.

The latest iteration of this was the historic peace deal in the Middle East—the recognition of Israel by the United Arab Emirates. It was the greatest step forward for the region in at least 30 years.

And it was pushed offstage by anti-Trump talking points about … wait for it … the Post Office.

In 30 years of radio and television, I cannot think of one caller concerned about the Post Office.

The voting public has every reason to be disappointed with an establishment media that is irresponsible, untrustworthy, and increasingly and rapidly partisan.

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What is happening in America?

Many have asked this question of late. In Portland, Oregon, police recently received some sixty 911 calls, and could handle only a few. A video from the city went viral as it showed a man named Adam Haner attacked by a mob. He was conscious until Marquise Love, a Black Lives Matter protestor, roundhouse-kicked him. It is not known if Haner will survive.

This is merely one example of many from an embattled city. Americans should not miss what is taking place in our country. The foundations of law and order, of justice and social coherence, are shaking.

We should all take responsibility for the future of this country. Liberal policies and decisions are undoing American order. People do not have help when they call 911. Mobs are ruling downtowns.

Alongside other questions, we ask this: what will happen in America? Where policy corrupts, new leadership is needed.

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