Last week Sarah Sanders was asked to leave a Virginia restaurant because she works for the president Donald J. Trump. There was a time, not that long ago when people on opposite sides of the political spectrum could share a meal or a drink, disagree on issues but still respect and even like each other. I had that experience many times. The left claims to be tolerant, but if that were actually true, Sarah Sanders would not have been asked to leave that restaurant. Roseanne recently tweeted an insensitive and ill-advised tweet about Valerie Jarrett’s looks, for which she later apologized. Roseanne is a comedian and no real conservative, just apparently no longer as far left as the rest of Hollywood. As a result, she lost her show. I wonder if she would she have suffered the same consequences had she made the same comment about Condolezza Rice or Candace Owens. Tomi Lahren was physically assaulted while having brunch with her parents. You don’t hear about anything like this happening in the opposite direction. Conservatives don’t need to resort to these types of actions because we believe that polite disagreement is more productive than harassment and intimidation tactics.
Earlier this month, Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame, someone of whom I am not a fan, decided to apologize for eating Chik-Fil-A. Apparently, if you support or are a member of the LGBTQQAAIP2S (I think I missed a few letters but you get the idea) community, you are not allowed to eat at a fast food restaurant owned by Christians. This sounds a lot like the fascism they accuse conservatives of practicing. Jack is no conservative by any measure and he is fully on board with every facet of the leftist agenda. The fact that he felt the need to apologize for eating at Chik-Fil-A serves to further illustrate the left’s intolerance of anything that challenges their beliefs. Not only do they require that everyone tolerate their ideas, lifestyle choices and beliefs but if you do not fully accept them, you are a bigot, homophobe, xenophobe, islamophobe and any other ‘phobe you can think of. These days, the left is only tolerant of those with whom they agree. If you disagree with them, you’re not just wrong or misguided, you’re evil. Civil debate has left the building.
Just this weekend Rep. Maxine Waters openly called for the targeting and harassment of officials in the Trump administration. Here’s a snippet of what she said: “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.” The full video can be found here. She has said before that she will “take Trump out”. Her rhetoric is no longer protected by the first amendment now that she is openly inciting violence against her political opponents. If anyone had said anything like that about Barack Obama or called for harassing his cabinet or administration officials, the media would have crucified them.
From the perspective of the left, if you believe in the second amendment, you’re a child murderer. If you want to secure our borders, you’re a racist and a Nazi. By virtue of being conservative in general, you’re a fascist. These are the left’s pejoratives du jour. There is nothing tolerant about this type of rhetoric. Once these words are used in the discussion, civil dialogue can no longer take place. This is a tactic purposefully employed by the left to shut down debate. Their goal isn’t persuasion, rather division and demonization. By painting conservatives as evil, they absolve themselves of any responsibility to engage in a civil dialogue and attempt to actually win an argument. Then again, they know that facts, science and statistics are not on their side on almost any issue so they have no choice but to resort to this low brow approach.