Partisan or patriot?

By Steve Woodward

British prime minister Neville Chamberlain holds a most dubious distinction as a failed leader derailed by diplomatic appeasement. 

In his quest to prevent World War II in 1938, Chamberlain attempted to cut a deal with a rising German political figure, Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain pursued appeasement despite writings and speeches by Hitler that failed to hide his lust for war and the creation of a German empire, and even after Hitler’s forced annexation of Austria in March 1938.

Chamberlain proclaimed that he achieved “peace for our time” when he returned from meetings with Hitler and other European heads of state after signing the Munich Agreement in September 1938. By early 1939, Hitler’s Germany began it rampage across the continent, trampling the pages of the agreement under foot.

Hitler proceeded to do precisely what so many had warned Chamberlain about. World War II soon became inevitable. 

Comparing contemporary leaders or nations to Hitler and the Third Reich typically is ill-advised because he was no mere tyrant. He was a murderous monster. Ask Donald Trump, who is neither but is often portrayed as Hitler-in-waiting by the fear mongering Left.

But there is a parallel between Chamberlain and his underestimation of Hitler happening before our eyes in 2024. There certainly is nothing Hitleresque about Trump, the MAGA movement, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or a corrupt corporate media. The parallel lies in the underestimation by Republicans and so-called independents of who these people are, and their insistence that we must “tone down the rhetoric” and “end the polarization”. 

Columnist John Hood of the John Locke Foundation – a constitutional government research institute – laments the nation’s political partisan divide in a recent, oddly timed column amid the final countdown to election day 2024. 

“I do indeed believe in bridging the partisan divide,” Hood writes. “For one thing, our discourse has become coarse, often even revolting.”

You don’t say, Mr. Hood? If we could only reason with Islamic jihadists. If we could somehow empathize with virulent antisemites parading in our streets and disrupting universities in defense of an Iran-backed terror plot that killed 1,200 innocents in Israel on October 7. 2023. If we could embrace the measured temperament of, say, Neville Chamberlain.

He prattles on: “Understand that others probably see things differently from you not because they are evil or stupid, but because they possess a different set of facts, experiences, assumptions and values.”

The partisan divide Hood laments is not, as he would have us believe, a drifting to extremes on both sides. Arguably, conservatives remain steadfast in defending our core principles in the spirit of William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. Meanwhile, since the improbably ascension of Obama beginning 20 years ago, the Left has not merely drifted but sprinted further away from any pretense of “leaning” Left of center.

Hood seems to have missed numerous glaring examples, so let’s refresh his murky memory. 

They were more measured, at first, in their dismissive contempt for conservative Republicans and their Christian tendencies. Barack Obama mocked us during a private event for “clinging to guns and religion”. Hillary Clinton scoffed, also behind closed doors, about a “basket of deplorables”. Then along came Trump in 2016. Gloves came off. The media concocted Russian collusion. Democrats in Congress pursued Trump’s impeachment on baseless grounds. And lusting for Trump’s demise, the Left seized upon a manageable virus unleashed by their Chinese ally, to impose formerly unimaginable tyranny, locking down cities and leveraging a well-orchestrated “health crisis” to hijack an election in 2020.

The emergence of a Biden regime has turned ordinary Americans into January 6 political prisoners. It has ushered in an era of lawfare in an effort, futile as it turns out, to diminish or even imprison Trump. It has normalized crime and homeland insecurity by deliberately allowing untold millions of illegal immigrants to surge across the U.S-Mexico border. 

It has brought us to a place where Hillary Clinton, no longer behind closed doors, is calling for the imprisonment of Americans for exercising a right to free speech. And to a place where vice president Kamala Harris is installed without a single vote having been cast as her party’s presidential nominee, platforming a campaign that defends abortion, ignores the economic realities crushing the American people and brazenly mocks those who dare express their Christian faith.

During a rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Harris denounced two college students who in defiance of her threats to nationalize abortion shouted, “Christ is king”. She shot back: “You guys are at the wrong rally.”  

Only a deranged atheist would be “triggered” by the mention of Jesus Christ. Is this a “polarizing” moment, Mr. Hood?

The strongest indicator that the era of naïve partisanship is over, and that it has been usurped by an understanding that we stand at a crossroads of distinct choice – good vs. evil, America First vs. America in managed decline – is proven by the very public denunciation of the latter by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard and, most recently, Democrat hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman.

Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, not only openly endorses a second Trump presidency. He outlines 33 policies embraced by the Obama-Biden-Harris that mirror what America’s most “aggressive adversaries would likely implement if they wanted to destroy America from within and had the ability to take control of our leadership.”

A review of Ackman’s concerns refutes the flimsy narrative advanced by Hood that we just need to mind our manners and we’ll all be sharing an ideological hot tub before we know it.

In fact, Mr. Hood, I would warn that it is dangerous, and intellectually dishonest, to lump evil and stupid together when exposing the agenda of the Left. The Left is inherently Godless and, thus, evil to its core, but stupid? Certainly not. Dismantling a nation and eroding its values, its culture, requires vast intellect, actually. The term “evil genius” applies. Utterly despicable, compassionless and arrogant, the George Soros-Klaus Schwab-Barack Obama deep state overlords do not want for intellect or resolve.

Thus, opposing them is not merely a partisan choice. It is duty.