The Washington protest and its context

By Howard Rotberg, INN

Hundreds of thousands of Trump supporters did what people do when they believe their government has abandoned them – they went to Washington to protest. Unfortunately, a small percentage, (whether or not there were a number of Antifa members among them) succeeded in spoiling the non-violent nature of the protest and attacked the American Congress building. No Senator or Congressman or police officer was hurt but one woman, a 14 years military veteran, who was unarmed, was shot by police and killed.

We cannot be too timid in our repudiation of political violence. Violence begets more violence, and those who participated in violence must be sanctioned by the legal system.

On the other hand, when Antifa and Black Lives Matter extended their violent riots to Washington steps from the White House, the anti-Trump media had nothing to say about violence. Republicans compete with how strong they can make their criticism of the violent part of the protest in Washington but Democratic politicians were mostly silent as violent protests went on all summer. People noticed that. They also notice that big Tech like Facebook, Twitter and Google censor conservative speech but not leftist speech.

Some say that President Trump incited violence, but his communications throughout the day made it clear that people should go home “in peace”.

The worst mistake we make when analyzing critical events like this one, is to lose sight of the context. Here the context was that hundreds of thousands of peaceful American citizens from all over such a large country drove all night or otherwise found transportation to Washington. They came because they feel that the elites in government and media and the academy and the bureaucracy disdain them, care not for their human rights, and hate the man they voted for in 2016.

Unlike the summer protests/riots by young thugs, this protest was done by an older crowd, with very few involved in storming the building. But the media will again do its best to taint Trump and the Republicans with its legacy.

The Trump supporters do not really fall into the role of traditional Republicans, the corporate and country club crowd. They are what Hillary Clinton disdainfully called the “deplorables”: they were alleged to cling to their guns and their religion, although the American constitution enshrines the rights to both of those.

They are working class, small business owners, service people, often have family members in the military, and are patriotic as opposed to those on the Left who often disparage their own country and reject the goodness of most of American institutions.

Without tolerating violence in any way, we need to understand the context, the context of what Democratic Party power-brokers have done to them and their political choices, including the President, for four years. These politicians have used every tactic available to subvert the will of the people – a failed two-year Mueller investigation, a ridiculous impeachment process, illegal spying and anything dreamed up by what we can only describe as disreputable Jewish politicians like Adam Schiff, Gerry Nadler, Chuck Schumer and Richard Blumenthal. These politicians hate the most pro-Israel and pro-Middle Eastern peace President ever. Their party welcomes anti-Israel, anti-Semitic types like Ihan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Keith Emerson and newly elected Raphael Warnock.

The majority of Americans feel that the 2020 election was “stolen” in a variety of ways including counting votes from dead people, from people out of state, by pausing counting when Trump was hundreds of thousands of votes ahead and after a few hours dumping hundreds of thousands of new ballots almost all for Biden. The Covid pandemic was used as an excuse to implement mail-in voting, although everyone knows that is susceptible to fraud. There is concern about the use of voting machines, which at first were claimed to be isolated from internet connection, but later were proved to be subject to foreign tampering.

On top of this, Americans who were losing their small businesses or their employment in locked down businesses, looked at politicians who kept their large salaries and benefits and continued to travel and dine in fancy restaurants when they ordered their constituents not to travel or dine out in groups. Then the Congressional leader Nancy Pelosi was seen to enter a locked down hair salon which was closed to everyone else. Then she was seen on television in her fancy gated mansion with a top of the line refrigerator and freezer filled with a selection of deluxe ice creams beyond the budget of the voters.

Americans knew that the media was conspiring to hide certain important facts from them – such as the evidence proving Joe and Hunter Biden’s connections to China, how Congressman Swalwell had a relationship with a Chinese spy, and how wealthy politicians like Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, Joe Biden, and Mitch McConell all were getting rich from their Chinese connections. Trump’s efforts to move jobs from a hostile China back to America resonated with those in the industrial heartland, even if such mattered little to New Yorkers or Californians.

When statistical analysis confirmed the unlikely results of the election, the American heartland knew that the country no longer respected them. The American media portrayed their leader as some kind of undignified buffoon, but when he gave his State of the Union address, it was Nancy Pelosi who made a show of cutting up her copy of his speech. The resentment increased.

As a retired lawyer I am just amazed that the Republicans could not get one judge to rule that there was fraud in at least four of the states’ election procedures, as well as illegality in the way that the rules were changed without proper authority. All of this shows me that Evil is stronger and smarter than Good in America.

It also shows that hyper-partisanship and ideological extremism can only act to repress half of the country for so long. Fairness and civic tolerance actually help both sides.

A few generations ago, our people used to ask of any political development, “Is it good for the Jews?”. What America has now become is definitely bad for traditional and/or observant Jews and bad for Israel and good for Iran and China.

I have been writing about ideologies, political culture and values and publishing other conservative and pro-Israel authors, and producing documentaries for 18 years now. I am reluctant to tell you what I think America’s chances are.

Let me just say that the world has gone crazy, that left-liberal Jews have gone crazy, and the winners now include the Leftist-Islamist-globalist alliance. When you lose the education system and the universities, and the media, and the entrenched bureaucracy, as America has done, there is certainly trouble in the future.

Howard Rotberg is a retired lawyer and the author of four books on ideologies and values: The Second Catastrophe: A Novel about a Book and its Author; Exploring Vancouverism: The Political Culture of Canada’s Lotus Land; Tolerism: The Ideology Revealed; and The Ideological Path to Submission… and what we can do about it. He writes also for various magazines such as Frontpage Magazine, New English Review, and Israel National News. He is the president of Canada’s sole conservative values and pro-Israel publishing house, Mantua Books, www.mantuabooks.com and lives in Hamilton, Ontario Canada.

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