The Democrats let the cat out of the bag, and now it’s clawing them in the face. The unruly mobs they mobilized to help them win control of the House of Representatives are now setting their sights on Democratic leaders.
Nearly 150 people were arrested recently outside the offices of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., while holding a protest to demand radical action on climate change. The same group that organized the rally, the Sunrise Movement, was also behind another protest last month attended by incoming socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, at which 51 activists were arrested.
The protesters are demanding the impossible from Pelosi: a “Green New Deal” that aims to achieve 100 percent renewable energy in 10 years. Ocasio-Cortez, one of the plan’s most prominent champions, envisions it being similar in scope to “World War II or the Marshall Plan,” predicting it will cost “trillions” of dollars.
The idea may produce thrills for environmental extremists like the ones arrested outside Pelosi’s office, but it will send chills down the spines of Democrat congressional leaders who must find a way to appease the far-left fringe of their base without alienating the more-moderate elements of their party and the country at large.
Indeed, the bellicosity of the Sunrise Movement protests must be positively infuriating to Pelosi, who wouldn’t be able to get a “Green New Deal” past the Republican-controlled Senate or White House even if she had the ability to get it passed in the House of Representatives.
It’s hard to feel too much sympathy, though, since Pelosi and her fellow Democrats have only themselves to blame for their current predicament. It was the Democrats, after all, who opened up the Pandora’s box of unruly mob action in the first place.
In the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats explicitly encouraged their supporters to harass Republican officials, condoned the violent domestic terrorism of the Antifa movement, and called for baying mobs to illegally disrupt congressional proceedings during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Hillary Clinton even threatened that the mayhem would continue indefinitely if Democrats didn’t win control of at least one chamber of Congress. But as it turns out, that wasn’t her promise to make.
Now, the same cynical tactics that Democrats so gleefully applauded when Republicans were the targets have been turned against them, and by the very radical activists they used as political pawns. And it’s happening with the active encouragement of some of the ultra-progressive candidates that Democrats used to stoke the enthusiasm of those activists.
The Democrats thought they could harness the fury of the far-left — anti-democratic, violent, and radical to its core — for their short term political gains. They were wrong. In an effort to gain power, they unleashed a golem on American politics, and the monster they created is now coming after them too.
Harlan Hill is a political adviser, media commentator, and an advisory board member of the Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.
