OPINION:
Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, in an interview on “Morning Joy,” called for the protesters in the streets of America to keep right on protesting in the streets.
In other words: A seated member of Congress called on the violent thugs to keep up their violent thuggery.
This is politicking, Democrat style. Once upon a time, Republicans who simply wished Barack Obama would fail in his White House endeavors created a firestorm within Democratic camps. It was too harsh a statement, they claimed. It was un-American to say, they cried. It just wasn’t done, wasn’t proper, they whined.
Well look at the Democrats now. The hypocrites.
Remember when Nancy Pelosi, while House minority leader, called for summers of resistance?
How about when Rep. Maxine Waters called for confrontations of Republicans in the streets, in restaurants, outside their homes?
Pelosi, May 2017: “Americans across the country are outraged — not only at Donald Trump’s scandal-ridden presidency, but at Republicans in Congress. … If we want to hold the GOP accountable, we need to convert that energy into wins at the ballot box. The Resistance Summer project will add to the avalanche of grassroots activism we’ve seen in every corning of the country since the Women’s March. It will boost the voices of so many Americans who are committed to resist the Trump-Ryan-McConnell agenda that threatens our democracy and the economic security of the American people.”
That was followed by then-House Whip Steny Hoyer, who said, “I’m pleased the DNC is launching Resistance Summer. … I’m confident it will yield positive results for our party in the months and years ahead.”
That was followed by Rep. James Clyburn, who said, “We resent Donald Trump’s rhetoric and we must resist his policies.”
That was followed by then-Rep. Joe Crowley, who said, “The Resistance Summer project will ensure that the incredible grassroots energy we’ve seen in response to President Trump’s dangerous agenda will continue in force.”
That was followed by Rep. Linda Sanchez, who said, “We need to knock on as many doors, make as many calls and register as many voters as we can to turn the resistance into a nationwide movement.”
Oh, the lovely summers of resistance project — my, how it’s grown and bloomed and blossomed. And turned violent.
Waters, in 2018, prodded the violence along with Los Angeles rally remarks like this, directed at Team Trump: “You think we’re rally now? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Already you have members of your Cabinet that are being booed out of restaurants … protesters taking up at their house saying ’no peace, no sleep.’ “
And this, from the same rally, directed at the crowd: “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
No wonder Antifa feels emboldened these days to kick in storefront windows and throw bricks at police cruisers and attack police — in broad daylight.
It’s what the Democrats have been pushing for all along. The Democrat mayors and Democrat governors and Democrats at the local levels of government in streets and communities torn by violence are only turning blind eyes to what they created.
It’s going to get worse.
On Saturday, Pressley said this, Mediaite wrote: “I’m looking to the public. This is as much about public outcry and organizing and mobilizing and applying pressure so that this GOP-led Senate and these governors that continue to carry water for this administration, putting the American people in harm’s way, turning a deaf ear to the needs of our families and our communities — hold them accountable. Make the phone calls, send the emails, show up. You know, there needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there’s unrest in our lives.”
This is politicking, Democrat style. It’s called Bring Your Own Bricks.
Or sedition.
Potatoes, potahtoes, right?
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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