Bonfire of the Insanities

Whew, that was close. I got out of the pottymouth Democratic Party in one piece. Another year and who knows, I might have been wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and setting fire to a Tesla.

I am now a registered Independent, which means I am less likely to keel over from a coronary while watching the evening news. And no one is going to command me to hurl a Molotov cocktail at an electric car.

When did the left become so lowly and bitter? Yes, I understand that Democrats are, in the words of Paddy Chayefsky, “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!” But this amount of anger is ridiculous. A few celebrities even left the country. Are they sore losers, or is embracing a new flag an act of counter-patriotism?

Democrats hate Donald Trump something fierce. But we have recently come to discover that there’s plenty of rage to spare. Yet another imperious billionaire is on the Democratic Party’s hit list. It’s a good thing Tesla Cybertrucks look like tanks. Elon Musk is going to need more places to hide.

Tesla dealerships are receiving the same kind of attention that Jewish students have gotten used to on the campus green—that is, when pro-Hamas protesters grant Jews access to the campus green.

Until last week, Columbia University was certain that the First Amendment empowered masked thugs who haven’t cracked a book or attended a class in over a year to threaten and intimidate Jews. A law school right on campus never bothered to correct such a fundamental misreading of the Constitution. Students seized campus buildings, scrawled hateful, unprotected speech on walls, and blocked access to bathrooms.

That’s how high-voltage the left’s anger runs. By sheer coincidence, the original Ghostbusters used to teach at Columbia. Manhattan is quaking from so much hate, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is on the loose again—and he’s wearing a keffiyeh!

The Klan is feeling chastened. They’ve lost their Halloween cache to junior varsity terrorists-in-training.

It all starts with elected Democratic officials who have confused lashing out with leadership. Democrats have a dearth of maturity and decorum, but they’re flush with foulmouths. Representative Jasmine Crockett, a rising star, responded to Trump’s joint address to Congress with “Somebody slap me and wake me the fuck up.” Her message to Musk: “Fuck off”; her dream birthday wish: to have “Musk taken down” and for the nation to “yell and scream.”

Lovely.

The new chair of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin, told Republicans to “Go to hell.” Senator Ruben Gallego wanted an intern fired for “racist shit.” Senator Brian Schatz expressed his downcast view of the economy as “getting shittier.” Democrats stooped to posting videos slamming Republicans with their “shit that ain’t true.”

Representative Maxine Dexter confessed that she’s not very good at “swearing in public, but we have to fuck Trump.”

Methinks the lady doth protest too much. She’s pretty good.

In New York, Democratic protesters crashed an event featuring a Republican lawmaker who supports slashing federal spending. No passive nonviolent resistance here. The ruffians on the left scuffled with Republicans who tried to restore order.

Since when did anarchy become the calling card of the Democratic Party? This is what we get from the educated coastal, cultural elites?

America has become a place anathema to civilized debate. The mutually respectful exchange of ideas is wholly out of fashion. Pollsters were surprised to learn several years ago that a majority of American college students believe shouting down a speaker with whom one disagrees is appropriate.

The Democratic Party, apparently, has adopted the same tactic.

Pollsters were surprised to learn several years ago that a majority of American college students believe shouting down a speaker with whom one disagrees is appropriate. The Democratic Party, apparently, has adopted the same tactic.

It’s endemic on the left. Pro-Hamas hordes and Black Lives Matter gangs accosted diners in restaurants, demanding that they disavow their white privilege and affinity for Israel. We saw the defacing of monuments, toppling of statues, torching of police cars and precincts, smash-and-grab looting of stores, and burning of American flags.

Conservative Supreme Court Justices can’t get a good night’s rest with protesters chanting outside their houses.

And there is a special place in Democratic Party hell reserved for Musk. It’s gotten so bad, the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has stepped in as his personal lawyer. She announced charges against “violent Tesla arsonists” for committing “domestic terrorism” in setting fire to dealerships, cars and charging stations in Colorado, Oregon and South Carolina.

The Oregon assailant was armed with an AR-15 assault rifle and eight Molotov cocktails. In Charleston, South Carolina, the arsonist wrote “profane messages” before turning electric charging stations into bonfires. A person armed with a gun and Molotov cocktails lit up five Teslas in Las Vegas. Those flaming cars soon disappeared as if David Copperfield was performing on the Strip.

Setting Teslas on fire has become comedic material for Late Nite Talk Show hosts. Imagine if conservative humorists used January 6 for shtick.

It’s a completely new and different political culture where free speech is free only for those shouting and cursing the loudest. Activism is especially active, like taking a political spin class. Disrupting lectures, governmental meetings, Christmas tree lighting ceremonies. Clogging train stations, blocking thoroughfares and bridges. Taking over the lobby in Trump Tower.

It’s a completely new and different political culture where free speech is free only for those shouting and cursing the loudest.

It’s all so physically demanding, and the whole exercise can land you in jail. Democrats will soon trade in the donkey mascot for the Tasmanian devil.

Can this all be blamed on Donald Trump, who coarsened our political culture, did away with presidential niceties, declared war against the mainstream media and, more recently, federal judges who are thwarting efforts to implement his policies on deportations and shrinking the size of government?

Former Senator John McCain would no longer be called a “Maverick” in today’s rugged arenas that combine Mixed Martial Arts with strong-arm politics.

Democrats once prided themselves on producing elected officials who were suave, sophisticated and smart: leaders like Adlai Stevenson, John and Robert Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Bill Bradley, Joe Lieberman and Barack Obama.

One gets the feeling that the progressives who run the Democratic Party today would have no interest resurrecting any of these political figures, aside from Obama. Even Senator Chuck Schumer has gotten more guttural and indelicate. Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have given the Party a more piercing sound and rough-edged look.

And further down the bench with these backbenchers you’ll find others who have turned up the volume, cheapened the rhetoric, and are freely handing out the matches.

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled “Saving Free Speech … From Itself,” and his forthcoming book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Israel’s Just War in Gaza.”