An election to stop the spread of barbarism

The 2020 presidential election is the stop-the-spread election — yes, of COVID-19, but more importantly of appeasement in the face of barbarism.

As such, Trump is in the same position as he was in 2016. He is the challenger.

It’s Trump versus the District of Columbia’s men and women in both parties and their inelastic Ruling Class mentality.

Witness, for example, the rollout of “Republicans for Biden” as the offering of anti-Trump interference on day one of the GOP convention, led by former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and including former Illinois GOP congressman-turned-Obama-transportation-secretary Ray LaHood.

It was a collection of envious, status-mongering Swampsters long past their sell-by dates upset not about the travails of middle-income families or the failure of inner city schools, but rather unnerved only by their loss of relevance. They are happy to serve as sentinels for today’s Robespierres on the promise of regaining their sinecures.

Trump’s value proposition in 2016 was, to paraphrase historian Victor Davis Hanson: “I know all those elites on Wall Street, in Hollywood, media and academia, and they’re even worse than you think.”

Trump promised to bring a bicycle chain to The Swamp’s playground on behalf of people who play by the rules in fly-over America (as far as the Ruling Class is concerned) only to be fleeced by Republican and Democrat administrations alike.

Four years later, three things have changed.

First, the Left’s posture toward Trump supporters moved from a short sabbatical in search of understanding to a full-on purge of “deplorables” by any means necessary from whatever currently constitutes civil society.

Second, the Left’s predictions about a Trump presidency have not materialized — but Trump’s promises have.

Trump would serve at the pleasure of Vladimir Putin, we were told. He was an existential threat to the human race who would bungle us into nuclear war with Iran, initiate pogroms one minority group at a time and use a gas-guzzling rather than electric golf cart — sins of equal importance to the Left. And Trump would all while pass the savings on to the scions of his family’s real estate empire.

Instead, it is those same hysterics who are presently conferring license to identitarian barbarians to scorch the earth and torch America’s cities.

Meanwhile, Trump’s Twitter feed notwithstanding, he has turned out to be a fairly conventional politician in the sense of his willingness to cut deals and a fairly unconventional Republican in the sense that those deals would need to advance the commitments he made as a candidate.

The DACA program provides a useful case study. Democrat Socialists were happy to go along with Obama’s admittedly unconstitutional executive order suspending immigration law for children brought to America illegally by their parents while demanding a pathway to permanent legal status.

Trump offered a deal on status not just for the 800,000 “Dreamers,” but also for an additional 1 million young people who were eligible, in exchange for border wall funding. A secure border, as Trump promised, puts America in a better position to enforce immigration laws until and unless Congress sees fit to change them.

No deal. Mascots for use as demagogic fodder are more important to Democrat Socialists than reasonable solutions on intractable issues.

The third change in the last four years is the Left’s sprint to socialism. The 2020 Democrat Socialist Party’s brand was nicely explained by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio when he said, “There’s plenty of money in this country, it’s just in the wrong hands.”

Biden, de Blasio, et al., will say they mean to target billionaires, but what they actually do is target those without political power to strip them of economic independence.

Take a quick perusal of the impacts of COVID-19 lockdown policies eagerly pushed by Democrat socialist governors and mayors and to which they are bitterly clinging.

According to a study by the Institute for Policy Studies, between mid-March and mid-April. The wealth of United States billionaires increased by nearly 10% even as the unemployment rate was quadrupling to well north of 10%. People making less than $40,000 per year comprised a plurality of the layoffs.

It’s easy for public sector plutocrats and their wealthy friends to say shut down the economy and shutter the schools. They have options. What they aim to do is to exhaust your options so you bend the knee before them and content yourself with what they allow.

In sum, what has changed since Trump was elected serves only to reinforce why he was elected and the bases upon which he will be re-elected.

Dan Proft is the host of the nationally-syndicated “Dan Proft Show” radio program and co-host of “Chicago’s Morning Answer” on AM 560 - WIND in Chicago.

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