No More Moral Superiority

Ever since Jan. 6, the Left and their enablers, such as Never Trump types, have made the argument that they have the moral high ground. After the recent attack on Israel, it's clear they do not.

Protestors gather in New York on October 10th, voicing support for Hamas just a few days after they slaughtered over 1,000 Israeli civilians. Image used under fair use, uploaded from Times of Israel.

Everyone knows I’m no fan of Donald Trump. From the minute he walked down the golden escalator, I’ve not spared my criticism of his rhetoric, demeanor, and character nor wavered in my belief that his leadership of the GOP and of America’s right wing have been extremely damaging to both.

But, unlike many of those who call themselves Never Trump, I never became a “vote Democrat to punish the GOP” type, and I’ve never set aside my conservative values and convictions in the belief that “the Democrats stand for democracy, and that’s all that matters at this point.” While I left the Republican Party for a time in 2020, I rejoined after that fall’s election, and I’ve never gone in for the rhetoric that “the Republican Party is irredeemable,” and anyone who knows me knows I’ve never been a “burn it down” kind of guy.

The pushback I’ve gotten from those who do adhere to the above talking points has largely been a focus on what happened on Jan. 6. The idea is that the left and the Democratic Party are multiple scales above what the GOP and conservatism have become in the era of Trump, that they are the adults in the room. The assertion is that I should join the “coalition of the decent” and set the majority of my disagreements on the issues and policy aside until after “democracy itself is no longer in danger.” And, admittedly, what happened on Jan. 6 has been a powerful tool of persuasion toward this narrative. It was a very dark day, and the Republican Party and the conservative movement needs to reckon with what happened.

But here’s the problem with this narrative.

In the wake of a terrible terrorist attack that has left over 1,000 Israelis dead, most of them civilians, hundreds of thousands of left-wing activists in America are marching in support of the Hamas terrorists. Academic institutions and other progressive-dominated institutions in America can't bring themselves to condemn wholesale slaughter. Left-leaning media companies are giving platforms to anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas voices. The lack of moral clarity in responding to acts of genocide is astounding.

And, even worse, American Jews no longer feel safe in their own country, thanks to the increasing anti-semitic rhetoric and acts of hate popping up all over the nation. In New York, the authorities are asking for the closure of Jewish synagogues because they can’t guarantee their safety. Clearly, any movement or party that associates, enables, or gives cover to this kind of rhetoric and behavior cannot be part of some “coalition of the decent.”

So please, stop trying to tell me that all the dysfunction, all the decadence, and all the gross radicalism in America is just on one side of the political coin. I have grown tired of people sitting on their high horses and smugly pointing to Jan. 6 as evidence of how far the right has fallen and how morally superior the left is in comparison, when Jan. 6, for how terrible it was, is nothing compared to the largest pogrom the Jewish people have faced in generations, it's nothing compared to innocent civilians dragged from their homes and shot in the street, and it’s nothing compared to the beheading of babies.

Last weekend, we saw the very face of evil, and if you can't condemn that, if you march in support of that, if you yourself want to engage in further acts of hatred, then you simply have no moral high ground whatsoever, and there is something seriously amiss in your heart and in your soul.

I again reiterate that we are going through a period of time in American history where we are awash in dysfunction and decadence, and there is no magical partisan barrier that keeps it all only on one side of the political equation while the other side is untouched. We are all swimming in the swamp.

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