Author Mark Steyn says the Democratic Party’s refusal to accept its loss to President Trump is making rational discourse almost impossible and setting the stage for a “civil war.”
The conservative pundit told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson this week that Hillary Clinton, failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, and their political allies are “playing with matches” by questioning the legitimacy of the entire political system.
“The Democrats essentially provide political cover for all these FBI-types monkeying around, wiring tapping, and surveilling the opposition,” he said Monday evening. “If the Democrats didn’t lend it political cover, we would all see it for what it is: the deep-state gone rogue. At the same time, the deep state’s investigation into George Papadopoulos and Co. provides cover for the Democrats as to why Trump’s victories, Republican victories, are never legitimate. So, in a sense, these two things operate on twin tracks and support each other.”
The “America Alone” author then pivoted to Ms. Abrams and Mrs. Clinton’s role in degrading civil discourse.
“When you have someone like Stacey Abrams actually saying we don’t need to concede anymore because this entire system is oppressive and out to get us, the Democrats are coming close to making politics entirely impossible and when you do that it doesn’t actually leave much else except civil war,” Mr. Steyn said. “By delegitimizing this process, they actually are playing with matches. … Stacy Abrams’ argument is ’unless I win, the election was rigged.’ And Hillary Clinton, who is a far more senior figure than Stacy Abrams, actually came close to saying that in Los Angeles — because I didn’t win, the system must be rigged.”
“What the Democrats have done for the last two years — in particularly Hillary Clinton — it’s Hillary Clinton’s refusal to lose, tied to what we’ve been talking about with all these deep-state guys going rogue in alliance with foreign intelligence agencies, eavesdropping, monitoring, trying to entrap American citizens, these two crimes are actually the same crime and one half supports the other half,” he continued.
Mr. Carlson said the situation was arguably worse, as liberal activists often question the legitimacy of the nation’s founding fathers and its most important documents.
The host said that at a certain point critics appear to be saying: “I don’t need to play by your rules. I’m just going to seize power when I can.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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