By Rick Manning
Thousands of Islamo-fascist protesters are surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week. Businesses in the area surrounding the convention center have already boarded up their windows and closed their doors in anticipation of the likely destruction to follow.
The sad fact is that these protests are largely a creation of the same Biden-Harris administration that they are attacking.
While the violent protests of the left have been a feature of our political system since at least the 1968 Democratic National Convention, also conveniently held in Chicago, the normalization and excusing of it is a relatively recent phenomenon.
When the Democrats and their mouthpieces in the media did not condemn the numerous attacks on former President Donald Trump’s supporters in early 2016, it gave a clear signal that targeted violence was acceptable.
It is hard to forget a proposed rally for Trump in 2016 in Chicago that had to be cancelled because Chicago Police told the campaign that they could not guarantee the safety of the participants.
The images of Trump supporters being pelted with eggsAMP as they left a Trump rally in the once conservative enclave of Orange County, California still burns in the brain as a benchmark of the acceptance of violence against Trump supporters as being okay.
In order to reach the California Republican Party convention in 2016, candidate Donald Trump was forced to walk through an unplanted field adjacent to the building in San Jose in order to enter, as violent protesters attacked Trump supportersAMP both coming to and leaving the event.
Groups like Antifa became a household name between 2016 and 2020 as federal buildings were regularly attacked in Portland, Oregon and elsewhere.
The “civility” that the Democratic Party now claims to want to return to America was regularly replaced by violence by Democratic Party leaders through both their active support and in some cases quiet complicity with violence against their political opponents.
It is hard not to remember, Republican Party members of Congress practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball game were attacked by a Bernie Sanders supporter who came armed with the intent to kill everyone on the field, only to be stopped due to the presence of Capitol Police due to the participation of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.
Even that attack did not stop the wink and nod acceptance of political violence against Trump supporters.
Less than a year later, Representative Maxine Waters famously told supporters to, “get in their face” when referring to Trump administration officials, and Cabinet Secretaries and White House officials were regularly harassed at their homes and when trying to eat with their families at restaurants.
When President Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president in 2020 at the White House, this author and thousands of other Trump supporters exited the grounds into a crowd of crazed protesters, many forced to walk for miles out of their way in order to get to their vehicles conveniently parked two blocks away at the Willard Hotel.
St. John’s Church just north of the White House was set on fire by these mostly peaceful protesters, and President Trump was blamed when he had the National Guard clear a perimeter around the White House to increase safety. If any Democrats praised Trump for making the White House grounds safer after two incidents where radicals intent on attacking the President broke through the fences surrounding the White House causing the Secret Service to evacuate Trump and his family to a secure shelter.
And none other than former President Trump was nearly the fatal victim of political violence at his failed assassination attempt on July 13 at a Butler, Pa. campaign rally.
The left will always point to Aug. 12 Charlottesville, Va. and Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. riots while ignoring their own long history of culpability in promoting violence.
The ultimate irony about the Islamo-fascist protests around the Democratic National Convention is that President Joe Biden’s decision to change his Israel policy in response to a Muslim boycott of voting for him in the Michigan primary proved that pressure could change policy.
Since that moment, the anti-Semites have been unleashed on college campuses, discovering if they took over a building at Columbia University, denying tuition paying students the ability to go to class and doing physical damage to the building, there would be few if any repercussions. This quiet quitting by the leftist adults who were supposed to be in charge led to more and more aggressive, mostly peaceful protests.
Pandora’s Box had been opened and the consequences are now seen on the streets of Chicago.
I hope and pray that those who choose to protest at the Democrat Convention, as they are constitutionally allowed, avoid the violence that their predecessor protests have embraced. But if violence does occur, the irony will be that the chief arsonists who fanned the flames of hate, will be those now caught in its ugly grip.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.