OPINION:
President Obama’s supporters are threatening riots and violence should he be defeated in November. Mr. Obama is in deep trouble. He was trounced by his Republican rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, in the first presidential debate. Since then, Mr. Obama’s aura of invincibility — carefully cultivated by the establishment media — has been shattered. He has been exposed as an incompetent and arrogant socialist whose policies have failed to revive the economy. His angry second debate performance did not reverse his downward trajectory. His followers are now panicking. Some are demanding that blood flow in the streets should he lose the election. Hope and change have given way to rage and fury.
Last weekend, thousands of pro-Obama Twitter account users vowed to start a race war if Mr. Obama is not re-elected. Many pledged to burn down homes and shops. Laden with obscenities and racist language against whites, the tweets reveal the radical left’s anti-democratic, thuggish nature. “If Obama don’t [sic] win lets [sic] start a riot so Romney know [sic] what he’s getting himself into,” wrote one. Another tweet stated: “If Romney wins im [sic] goin [sic] on a rampage.” There were countless such threats, most of them much more vile, graphic and chilling — not fit for publication in a newspaper.
After the second debate, there was an explosion of tweets calling for Mr. Romney to be killed if he wins in November. “Already planning my attack,” said one. “Somebody should assassinate Romney,” wrote another. Besides Fox News and the Drudge Report, however, major media outlets have refused to even mention the story. The reason is simple: It shows — in stark, irrefutable detail — the intolerance and hatred of many liberals. Contrary to myth, revolutionary violence has been an intrinsic part of socialism’s march to power. Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez — together they have slaughtered tens of millions in the service of their ideology. In America, it has been predominantly the left and not the right that has engaged in heinous acts. Timothy McVeigh is the obvious exception. The Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, the Unabomber, eco-terrorists and the Occupy Wall Street movement, however, have championed violence to advance their anti-capitalist, anti-American agenda.
The establishment media’s hypocrisy is stunning. Imagine if the situation were reversed: Three weeks prior to the election, thousands of Romney supporters threatened to not only riot, but also assassinate the president should their candidate lose. The national uproar would be deafening. The New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, the Associated Press, along with Democratic media hacks such as Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Brian Williams, Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, Bob Schieffer, David Gregory and Wolf Blitzer (and many others) would be screaming for Mr. Romney and the GOP to disavow those comments. They would be right. Yet now, when it comes to threats against Mr. Romney, there is only silence.
Since the birth of the Tea Party, the liberal media have desperately sought to portray the movement as racist and extremist — a sanitized version of the Ku Klux Klan. Signs at Tea Party rallies comparing Mr. Obama to the Joker were denounced as menacing. Several placards stating that Mr. Obama’s big-government policies equaled the Soviet hammer and sickle were deemed incendiary. Many liberals to this day — without a shred of evidence — continue to maintain the fiction that the n-word was spewed against black members of Congress at a rally just prior to the passage of Obamacare. For nearly four years, the press corps has peddled one overriding narrative: Opposition to Mr. Obama is based on white bigotry.
Hence, it should come as no surprise that by relentlessly injecting racial vitriol, Democrats and their media allies have sown the seeds of widespread fear and loathing among swaths of Obama supporters. Just recently, the Obama campaign’s co-chairman, actress Eva Longoria, made her brilliant case for the president. “I have no idea why any woman/minority can vote for Romney,” her tweet read. “You have to be stupid to vote for such a racist/misogynistic” individual.
According to the deranged left, Mr. Romney is the second coming of George Wallace.
Race-baiting also has been practiced by senior administration officials, including Mr. Obama. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. charges that voter identification laws are akin to “poll taxes” once used by Southern segregationists to deny blacks the right to vote. Mr. Holder — reinforced by the Congressional Black Caucus — even claims that Republicans are engaged in systematic efforts at “voter suppression.” The president has fanned the flames of racial division by needlessly and prematurely passing judgment on the Trayvon Martin shooting case. He has referred to his critics as “enemies” who should be “punished.” In short, the administration has fractured America along racial, gender and class lines.
The results are predictable and ominous: Many of Mr. Obama’s supporters are seething with racial grievances. Riots after elections happen in Guatemala or Greece — not in America, where power is transferred peacefully. By refusing to denounce these threats of violence, Democratic leaders and the mainstream press corps are jeopardizing the very sinews of our republic.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and host of “The Kuhner Report” on WRKO AM-680 (www.wrko.com) in Boston.
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