The current Trump Resistance strikes me as politically dangerous in ways we have not seen since at least the Sixties and early Seventies. Hatred and violence have escalated. The idea seems to be that, if Republicans contemplate withdrawing a few pennies for “the poor,” then those who oppose these cuts can feel justified in engaging in violence, because withholding benefits is, uh, itself violence.

Though anyone honest about the nature of such institutions — any thinker studiously attempting transactional clarity — can see that ceasing to give a benefit differs from inflicting a harm.

After the congressional baseball shooting event, I saw immediate blaming of the violence on . . . Republicans. No kidding. The would-be assassins was a Democrat, and he selected Republican legislators as targets, but it was the Republicans whom Democrats blamed. Even the usually not-an-airhead Juan Williams (Fox News contributor) attributed the start of all this to “the right’s” reaction to Bill Clinton. I guess it is always thus with feuds. Every provocation is taken as an occasion to escalate, and the source of the problem is always the enemy, never one’s own side.

Indeed, the logic of escalation rests on a simple idea: Force is never initiated. It is always retaliation. And thus excusable. Justified.

Examples of this abound. Multiple “parades” with threats of violence in Portland, Oregon, caught my attention because close by to me, just upriver. Both leftists’ and rightists’ weapons were confiscated by police, but public reports consistently called the confiscated makeshift weapons of the anti-left as designed to be offensive, with no mention of possible (and plausible) self-defense uses. (After all, the “anarchists” have been engaging in violence within the context of anti-Trump and anti-conservative speakers for several months now. Berkeley is a horrorshow, complete with violent attacks by BAMN and Antifa insurrectionists. Reasons for self-defense abound. The threats are in the open.)

My real worry? The very meme, “not my president,” serves as a repudiation of “the deal” that is a democratic republic. Protesting before the president-elect did anything was disreputable. Giving no time for the new president to prove his true stripes? A radical break from the past. The whole “pussy hat” parading was worse than silly, and the talk of violence by Madonna and other celebrities were examples of madness.

I could go on and on. But hey: maybe it is time for a splitting up of the federal republic. Maybe it is time for the blood to run in the streets. Every excuse made for BAMN, Antifa and Black Lives Matter is a declaration of rebellion, and perhaps I should make the most of it. Perhaps the United States is an atavism.

[Shudder.]

So, this is my challenge to the Not My President crowd. If you won’t accept a constitutional accession to office, why should I approve of or accept any of the policies that you no doubt espouse that I would find abhorrent? I cannot think of one. If the deal is off, the deal is off.

See why I worry? I may want less government, but I really do not want mob violence, social chaos, and a breakdown of civilization. I want a rule of law. The current lack of acceptance of the results of a democratic-republican election strikes me as inviting a civilizational breakdown.

Open rebellion is a dangerous path to a better state. It sets the path to anarchy, by which I mean: It is the way of Chaos.

Which is the usual excuse for tyranny.

twv