The left’s deep-rooted violence is what insurrection looks like

We live in ugly times — made uglier, and ever more violent, by the institutional left. 

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller didn’t mince words this weekend: “There is a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country,” he declared on X.

“It is shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general. The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle . . . terror networks.”

Progressives like Stephen King shrieked “extremist!” in response, but example after example backs Miller’s point.

In Chicago on Saturday, a mob of protesters surrounded ICE agents on a routine patrol, ramming their vehicle and boxing it in with 10 cars to frustrate immigration enforcement efforts. 

Chicago officials allegedly ordered the city’s police to stand down and not assist the federal agents — even though one of the “protesters” was armed and shots were exchanged. 

Armed resistance to US government officers executing the law, with police refusing to back them up? That was no accident. 

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker didn’t condemn the violent resistance, but he did condemn the feds.

On Friday, Nicholas “Sophie” Roske — the leftist who, after attempting to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh for political reasons, claimed to have “become a woman” during his trial — received a stunningly light eight-year sentence from a Biden-appointed federal judge, considerably less than the 30 years prosecutors had sought. 

And in Virginia, Democratic state AG candidate Jay Jones has been revealed as a sick monster who fantasized in text messages about murdering Republican Todd Gilbert — as well as Gilbert’s “little fascist” children — over politics.

“Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy,” Jones explained. 

Virginia’s Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin called the texts “violent, disgusting rhetoric.” 

“Jay Jones is the poster child for the Democrat establishment and he fantasizes about murdered little children laying lifeless in their mother’s arms,” wrote Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the GOP’s candidate for governor. 

She noted that Abigail Spanberger, her Democratic opponent, has repeatedly told supporters, “Let your rage fuel you.”

Major national Democrats are keeping quiet about Jones’ comments, and there’s no move to force him to withdraw.

Virginia Democrats, Spanberger included, are circling the wagons around him after issuing token messages of disapproval.

Why should they oust him? This sort of violent rhetoric has become the leftist norm, with Democrats habitually calling their opponents Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen and the like. 

And it’s not just the kooks, but the party’s top leaders.

Sen. Charles Schumer openly threatened the Supreme Court, saying Kavanaugh would “pay the price” for overturning Roe v. Wade, shortly before Roske’s assassination attempt. 

Democrat after Democrat openly called Trump a fascist, a dictator and a mortal threat to “our democracy” — and two different people came close to killing him before the 2024 election. 

Leftists called Charlie Kirk, a man who traveled to college campuses to respectfully debate students, a neo-Hitler and “white supremacist,” supporting the charges with fake quotes, before a progressive shot Kirk dead in public.

Democrats are forever telling conservatives their “rhetoric” could lead to violence. Apparently they meant violence from Democrats.  

But though the triggermen and -women are usually disturbed individuals caught up in the general climate of hysteria that Democrats have deliberately created, there’s more to this than irresponsible rhetoric captivating the unhinged.

As Miller noted, a whole infrastructure of funding, messaging and legal defense is supporting this sort of thing. 

When Trump was shot in Butler, Penn., CNN, MSNBC and other left media started minimizing the event at once. 

The Washington Post’s headline was “Trump Leaves Rally After Loud Noises Erupt” —  “loud noises,” of course, being gunshots, one of which struck Trump. Another killed Corey Comperatore, a volunteer firefighter attending the rally. 

Some in the media circulated conspiracy theories suggesting that Trump was never shot at all.

After Kirk’s assassination, the same outlets swung into action to suggest he was a “divisive” figure whose “far-right” views essentially meant he was asking for it.

And as we see in the Roske case, in Chicago, and elsewhere around the country, Democratic governors, judges, prosecutors and others are doing all they can to interfere with federal law-enforcement efforts.

They’re denying the sort of routine protections that local police and the justice system are supposed to provide, while nonprofits wage “lawfare” via litigation and provide defense for those who are arrested.

Put it together and you have an army of crazies and far-left “activists,” a propaganda wing and a legal- and financial-support system, all acting in resistance against the duly elected government of the United States. 

Dare we call it an insurrection? If not, what is it? 

It’s certainly not politics as usual.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a professor of law at the University of Tennessee and founder of the InstaPundit.com blog.