Al Perrotta is on vacation.

The left in America isn’t playing fair. We ought to be able to assess by the overall behavior of Democrats and their allies whether the charging of Donald Trump is a temper tantrum, of the kind a possessed person or lunatic genuinely cannot control. Or whether it’s meant like a series of dog treats lined up on the floor to get us back trapped in our crate.

The trouble is that these people are obviously not faking that they’re insane. Otherwise they wouldn’t be insisting on castrating underage kids, subjecting them to porn, and leaving the southern border as unguarded as Hunter Biden’s self-respect. None of those actions is popular or even rationally defensible. Neither is nominating barely-living zombies as political candidates (nope, we won’t name any names). Or goading the U.S. to the brink of nuclear war with Russia, when we couldn’t defeat the goatherds of the Afghan Taliban. Or any of a long list of policies so radical that Barack Obama never tried them when he controlled both houses of Congress.

Ideology, Psychopathology or Demonology? Which Is at Work?

And yet, these madhouse antics seem not to be harming the Democrats politically, as long as they possess a stranglehold on national media, social media, academia, and most other institutions of any cultural power … right down to many churches and even the leadership at NASCAR. So it’s perfectly possible that what we’re witnessing isn’t a possessed person spinning her head around, but the smoothly functioning engine of a burgeoning dictatorship.

The Soviets, then the Nazis, then the Chinese and North Koreans, doubled down on policies that their critics deemed “insane,” which in fact served to totalize their power. Ideology serves as a substitute religion, a secondary reality for people to live in who scorn the real one and its Maker.

Likewise, it seems that resurrecting charges of petty campaign finance violations, centered on Trump’s alleged affair with a discredited porn star who lost to him in court … isn’t the mark of sound minds sincerely committed to keeping him out of the White House.

Before this travesty, Trump faced a field of potential challengers that might include the effective, popular, soberly conservative Ron De Santis. He was making political blunders that strengthened the case of those who strongly supported him once, but now think it’s time to move on … and be more Trumpian than he actually proved in office.

Are We Being Herded Like Cattle?

The charges scraped together by the cut-em-loose, crime-friendly, Soros-funded District Attorney of New York City might change all that. They very well might clinch the race for Trump, on the theory that Americans sick of leftist madness could conclude, “He’s the only one they’re afraid of!” When you see that a vampire responds to garlic and not silver bullets, you know which weapon to use.

Or is that just what they want us to think? Do they really think that Trump is the only plausible nominee whom they can beat, and so they’re hoping to herd us into rallying behind him?

And even if they think that (as they thought in 2016) are they correct? Or is the Enemy outsmarting himself, and in for a nasty surprise? Are we witnessing 4D chess moves, or the last few steps of a herd of swine on its way to drown in the sea?

It’s all too much for a mere mortal like me, without the advanced credentials of a professional exorcist. In that spirit, then, make what you can of the following breaking news headlines.

Keeping the Bidens Out of Prison

Miranda Devine of the New York Post interprets the possibly imminent jailing of Trump as a last-ditch effort to distract from Biden family corruption that’s finally too blatant to deny:

[T]he story took the spotlight off the bombshell bank records released the previous day by the House Oversight Committee, showing $1,065,000 had been funneled from a Chinese energy company, through Biden intimate Rob Walker, to four immediate family members of Joe Biden: his son Hunter, brother James, and Hallie Biden, the widow of his late son Beau, who also is Hunter’s former lover.

Also listed as a recipient of the Chinese money, which was doled out to the four Bidens in regular small increments between March 6 and May 18, 2017, was an as-yet-unidentified family member, listed only on bank wires as “Biden.”

That’s plausible, I admit. But are the Democrats all that keen to protect the Biden gang? It depends on whether you see the latter as criminal masterminds, or else as sweaty sock puppets which the Deep State is ready to toss into the hamper.

Forcing the GOP to Rally Around Trump

The move to indict Trump on half-baked charges is forcing even his critics and rivals to unite around him. As Bizpac Review reports:

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) responded to reports of a possible forthcoming indictment of former President Donald Trump with a counter-investigation, further probing the alleged weaponization and politicization of the government against conservatives.

…

Saturday morning, McCarthy reacted to the unprecedented possibility of an American president being handcuffed and perp walked by instructing that relevant committees probe whether [NYC D.A.] Bragg’s office, in pursuing what could be a partisan investigation meant to sway voter opinion of a political candidate, was the beneficiary of federal funding toward that end.

This from the Speaker who was positively salivating on January 6 (along with Liz Cheney and Mitch McConnell) at the prospect of charging Trump himself for allegedly inciting a riot. The same Kevin McCarthy whom courageous conservatives had to practically lock in a closet before he threw out Nancy Pelosi’s tyrannical House rules.

The Only Crime Left in New York City: Being Trump

The Daily Caller noticed that Trump’s only plausible rival, as of now, for the 2024 nomination, Ron De Santis, has weighed in to condemn the Democrats’ move:

“The Manhattan District Attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor and so he like, other Soros funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety,” DeSantis said.

“He has downgraded over 50% of the felonies to misdemeanors, he says he doesn’t even want to have jail time for the vast majorities of crimes,” DeSantis said, adding he doesn’t know “what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence” but that “if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush money payments, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office.”

Blue City Dystopia for Thee, But Not for Me

Speaking of city officials who are de facto pro-violent crime, look at Washington, D.C. No, not up close, of course, but from a distance. The Western Journal noted that the far-left, elected D.C. City Council approved

revisions to the Washington, D.C., criminal code that would have lowered penalties for many violent criminal offenses, such as robberies and carjackings.

The result would have been less reason for criminals in the District to fear the consequences of their criminal actions.

There would have been some rough justice in leftist members of Congress actually facing the kind of violent, lawless environment to which their policies consign millions of citizens. Come to think of it, why did Republicans even oppose these changes? Oh that’s right: they need to work in D.C. too.

Naked self-preservation trumped ideology, “equity” and other forms of virtue signaling. It turns out that congress members don’t really want to go to work in a truly “blue” city either. The U.S. Senate passed a resolution rejecting the D.C. Council’s plan, and “33 Democratic senators voted to block the changes. In the House of Representatives, 31 Democrats joined Republicans to block the changes 250-173.” Joe Biden made it clear he will sign any law reversing the Council’s decision.

So much for “self-determination” for D.C. citizens. But hey, let’s make the place a state, and give it two senators, okay?

Along The Stream

Don’t miss geopolitics and Islamic scholar Timothy Furnish’s wise, thoughtful analysis of the folly of America’s foreign policy elites, who lost Iraq and Afghanistan, but now promise to save Ukraine.

Proud father of a beautiful girl with Down Syndrome Tom Sileo writes about World Down Syndrome Day, and the gifts that God sends along with the genuine challenges faced by families.

 

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”