When it comes to political violence, the Left has a problem.
The Right likewise has a problem, but there's no shortage of commentary regarding this exact topic. In fact, even the federal government is laser-focused on violence from the Right. In contrast, left-wing violence in the United States tends to go largely unnoticed, if not unpunished.
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A word of advice from a historical perspective, for both parties: Get your people under control, embrace coexistence, and stop trying to "immanentize the eschaton" via violence. Because if you do manage to brute force the U.S. into adopting your preferred reality, the inevitable political counterreaction will be far worse than the thing you oppose today.
This isn't a threat. This is begging.
On Monday, law enforcement officials in New Hampshire arrested three left-wing activists after they were caught trespassing at an Israeli-owned defense factory. Factory employees called the police at around 8 a.m., claiming the driveway had been blocked and that at least three people had gained access to the roof. The fire department was also called out after smoke was spotted billowing from the factory roof.
"Officers discovered the front of the building had been spray-painted with red paint, windows had been smashed, and at least one of the main lobby doors had been locked shut via a bicycle anti-theft device," Union Leader reports. "Police said the smoke was caused by an incendiary device similar to ones later located on one of the suspects. Officers on the roof found more spray painting, smashed skylights, and damage to HVAC equipment."
The women, Sophie Marika Ross, 22, Calla Mairead Walsh, 19, and Bridget Irene Shergalis, 27, are charged with various crimes, including riot, sabotage, criminal mischief, criminal trespass, and disorderly conduct.
If the name Calla Mairead Walsh rings a bell, it's because she starred recently in a glowing New York Times puff piece titled "An 'Army of 16-Year-Olds' Takes On the Democrats." Walsh began her political "career" as a starry-eyed left-wing political booster for Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-MA) failed 2020 presidential campaign. Walsh then evolved into an outright communist apologist. Now, she appears to have become a domestic terrorist.
It's an all-too-common story for the Left's most left flank: from starry-eyed idealists to radicalized extremists. And as if the extremism isn't bad enough already, there’s the additional fact that, unlike the Right, left-wing radicals are often honored and venerated in elite circles. Remember: Bill Ayers became a "distinguished" professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago after his domestic terrorist group, the Weather Underground, went on a nationwide bombing campaign in the 1970s. (Imagine Hillsdale College offering Ted Kaczynski a "distinguished" professorship.)
The New Hampshire incident this week is simply the latest in the American Left’s storied history of political violence, much of which goes either unnoticed or unpunished. But left-wing political violence is real and it's rampant. Recall that entire communities were destroyed in 2020 by left-wing “anti-police” agitators. Nine years prior, the left-wing "Occupy" movement wreaked similar havoc.
Regarding the 2020 anti-police riots, one incident stands out among all the others: the case of disbarred New York attorneys Urooj Rahman and Colinford Mattis, both of whom graduated from Ivy League schools. During one night of violence, the two joined in, tossing a Molotov cocktail at an unoccupied police car and setting it ablaze. Rahman and Mattis fled the scene but were arrested later and charged with conspiracy to commit arson and possess an explosive device. Rahman received 15 months in prison. Mattis was sentenced to a year and a day in prison. This incident sticks out because Mattis and Rahman are, for lack of a more polite term, boring. Attorneys? Is violence such an acceptable form of dissent for the Left that even privileged Ivy League, left-wing, white-collar corporate lawyers dabble in the occasional firebomb?
Apparently so!
For all the ink that is spilled on right-wing violence and extremist right-wing rhetoric, the former of which is indeed real and indeed worthy of attention, one would suspect a similar level of concern for the Left, which has a habit of producing domestic terrorists, from Bill Ayers to the woman who starred once as the main character in a New York Times puff piece about left-wing teenage political activists. One would be wrong though.
But imbalance or not, the truth of the matter remains: Either we learn to tolerate each other enough to avoid any further escalation of hostilities or we go full-left or full-right as a country and await the inevitable, and oftentimes violent, counterreaction.
History rhymes, and if the Left believes it can use violence to force America to adopt its preferred reality, it’s only partially correct. It may be able to reshape the U.S. into something resembling its progressive ideal, but only for a time. History teaches the pendulum always swings the other way, and the speed and ferocity with which it does is directly proportional to how far it swung previously. This is true for both the Left and Right. (Ask yourself how many streets in Madrid still bear Francisco Franco’s name.)
Left-wingers excuse their violence by arguing it’s a necessary and legitimate form of dissent. But if they don't like incipient right-wing politics now, they are certainly not going to like what comes after a full-blown progressive takeover.
In other words, be careful what you wish for. This is not a threat. This is begging.
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Becket Adams is a columnist for the Washington Examiner, National Review, and the Hill. He is also the program director of the National Journalism Center.
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