America Must Decide Between Unity and Revenge

Joe Biden has plucked "unity" from a thicket of possible themes as the thrust of his inauguration as the 46th president of the United States. Although a commendable choice, it hardly reflects the rhetoric or actions of his party's leaders.  Will Biden's plea make any difference for a divided citizenry?

That questions lingers as Democrats led by a revengeful Nancy Pelosi impeached the president for "inciting violence" during his January 6 speech. The Speaker of the House inflamed partisan emotions with her second impeachment of Mr. Trump, a parting middle finger to the president.

Put aside your feelings about whether President Trump deserves this ignominy for his impassioned speech near the Capitol. Is the Speaker's action designed to knit the country or segregate it further?  Why impeach a president with less than a week left on his term?  

Constitutional scholar and former Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz labeled the impeachment "unconstitutional," pointing out the president did not incite the crowd but advocated his position. Here is how Dershowitz framed the issue:

"You can condemn, you can attack, you can refuse to vote for, you can do all those things which are politically available to you.  But the one thing you can't do is use the law, which is impeachment, on something that is protected by the First Amendment."

Will an unconstitutional act unite all Americans?

According to the Associated Press Mr. Biden's inauguration speech will be a "show of bipartisanship at a time when the national divide is on stark display."  This surely must apply to Biden's own party.  Or does healing require Republicans to suffer retribution and revenge at the hands of the victors?  

Pelosi's impeachment tactic was not just aimed at President Trump but also his supporters.  There is a movement afoot in the Democrat Party, corporate American and the media to punish anyone associated with Mr. Trump, including his 74 million voters.  Evidence abounds to validate this contention.

Rich Klein, the political director for ABC News, took to social media with this mencacing message: "The fact is getting rid of Trump is the easy part.  Cleansing the movement he commands is going to be something else."  Chastised and fearing for his career, Klein deleted the Tweet.

CNN anchor Don Lemon linked those who supported Mr. Trump to Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members.  "Principled people, conservative or liberal, are never on the Klan side. Principled people, conservative or liberal, are never on the Nazi side," he said on air in a reference to those who voted for Mr. Trump.

A PBS (Public Broadcasting Corporation) attorney Michael Beller was recorded saying the children of Republicans should be shunted to "reeducation camps." He didn't stop there.  "Homeland Security should take their children away." PBS subsequently fired  Beller from the taxpayer supported network.

During the impeachment proceeding, Democrat Rep. Jason Crow took the floor to denounce Rep. Taylor Green, a Republican who contested the election results.  "There are unfortunately a handful of members of Congress, Mrs. Taylor Green is just one, who are morally bankrupt," Crow bellowed.

"They are depraved and frankly dangerous individuals," he added. Green joined 147 of her GOP colleagues in questioning the results of the presidential contest.  Olive branches were nowhere in sight. The time was ripe to unleash the hounds of heckling to besmirch those who sidled with Trump.

Rep. Green suffers from convenient amnesia.  Members of his  party challenged the 2016 election results when the Electoral College votes were certified in the House. Speaker Pelosi tweeted: "Our election was hijacked.  There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOur Democracy."

Do you recall the hue and cry about the blasphemy of suggesting the election was stolen?  Crickets.

Corporate America is piling on too as a growing list of firms vowing to punish those who did not support the certification of the Electoral College results.  Among the first were Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs Group and JP Morgan Chase along with Citigroup and Marriott International.

"We have taken the destructive events at the Capitol to undermine a legitimate and fair election into consideration and will be pausing giving from our Political Action Committee to those who voted against certification of the election," a Marriott spokesperson said.

Titans of business are locking arms with Democrats to seek retribution for the grievances aired by the party.  These capitalist proponents have adopted the socialist tactic of becoming nothing more than an extension of the ruling party, raising antitrust and Constitutional issues.

In the midst of the boiling cauldron of reprisal, the two major social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook, reacted.  Twitter banned the president and Facebook suspended his account.  Many foreign leaders, including the Australian government,  condemned the ban as an act of "censorship."  

In Russia, the opposition leader, Alexey Navalny, cautioned that this precedent will be "exploited by the enemies of freedom of speech around the world. In Russian as well." Startling to hear a Russian lecture America about its Constitutionally guaranteed protection of free speech.

Then Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the ad-hoc leader of the Democrat progressive wing, unexpectedly, and likely inadvertently, revealed what Democrats are plotting.  Her chilling comment:

..."I do think that several members of Congress, in some of my discussions, have brought up media literacy because that is part of what happened here and we're going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can't just spew disinformation and misinformation."

Will censorship cure what ails America?  Or will people be left with no choice other than to make their voices heard in the streets?

Let's hope President-elect Biden's plea for unity is sincere.  However, unless his party's leaders and revenge-minded Democrats show restraint, America will descend into chaos and anarchy.  There will be no healing of volcanic passions unless both parties appeal to the greater good in us.

Unity does not mean everyone must agree on Mr. Biden's policies. Critics should not be silenced in the name of unity.  This Unity refers to our oneness as a nation.  We are united by the Constitution which guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press. 

If America turns its back on those freedoms, we will plummet into the abyss of failed democracies.   

Trump's Tweets Versus Dems Incendiary Rhetoric

Every tweet dashed off by President Trump jangles the psyche of Democrats.  Tweets are so unpresidential they scoff.  His cryptic dispatches are hurtful, mean-spirited. Trump's messages create confusion, contradicting staff.  The uproar over 280 characters has never been so self-righteous.

On the subject of presidential docurm,  Mr. Obama was hailed by the media when he became the first president to open a Twitter account.  He posted more than 15,000 tweets to fawning praise.  It was Mr. Obama, not Mr. Trump, who first broke with tradition to use social media as a political pulpit.

Democrats and Never-Trumpers demand Republicans renounce the president's tweets.  They are appalled by his tone. For the record, I too wince at some tweets.  However, like any president, Mr. Trump has the right to communicate in his unique style.  No one is forced to read the tweets. 

All this indignant outrage might be taken seriously if it wasn't so hypocritical.  Democrats are seldom if ever called upon by the media to defend their colleagues often palatable Trump-loathing screeds or the incendiary,  repulsive, vitriolic speech, including vile anti-Semitic rants.

The media stokes the tweet outrage by dissecting each one as if it were an atom then searches for those who are offended.  They are rankled by the audacity of the president to announce news on Twitter rather than pandering to their interests, wounding their journalistic and personal ego.

It may explain why the media either ignores or glosses over scandalous language by Democrats.  Before passing judgment on trifling social media missives, perhaps those who hold Mr. Trump in contempt should read the vicious tirades of Democrats reaching a wider media audience than tweets.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California) has called on her supporters and all Democrats to "harass" Trump cabinet members.  Her words have incited repugnant confrontations in restaurants aimed at former Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and most recently Eric Trump.

No Democrat has dared condemn Waters for shouting to crowds "tell them (Cabinet members) they're not welcome anymore, anywhere."  Can you just imagine the puffed up fury if a Republican lawmaker would have urged people to do the same to Obama cabinet members?

Then you have precocious Democrat Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez comparing migrant detention centers to "concentration camps."  Even giving her the benefit of her youthful 29-years, no educated person with an iota of historical knowledge would make such an outlandish, untruthful statement.

A member of Poland's Parliament invited the New Yorker to fly to his country to "study concentration camps."  He admonished her because the comparison "cheapens the history" of Nazi camps for the purpose of "political point scoring."  Democrats tip-toed around her comment to avoid confrontation.

In her latest dishonest broadside, Ms Ocasio-Cortez characterized the conditions at an El Paso County immigration detention center she visited as deplorable and complained about babies in dirty diapers and women drinking out of toilets.  Her explosive invective garnered worldwide headlines.

However, Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, toured the same facility later and reported his group of pastors "found no soiled diapers, no deplorable conditions and no lack of basic necessities." His rebuke was buried by the media.

Then you have Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) insulting Jews and all Americans by admitting she gets a "calming feeling" when "I think of the Holocaust and the tragedy of the Holocaust."  Her words should have led to her censure by Congress.  A few heads shook but nothing more.

She also once screeched to impeach "the motherf----r" Mr. Trump.  Take a moment and think what would have been the reaction if a Republican had used those exact words about former President Clinton.  The offender would have been stampeded out of Washington by the media and colleagues.

Ms. Tlaib's fellow Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) has waded in deep into the murky waters of anti-Semitism.  She claimed that Israel's allies in American politics were motivated by money rather than principle.  Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was reluctantly forced to call her out.

Not satisfied with one anti-Jewish slur, Rep. Omar charged Israel with "hypnotizing the world to carry out evil."  She also trivialized the attacks of 9/11 by remarking that "some people did something (on 9/11) and that all of us (Muslims) were starting to lose access to our civil liberties."

Instead of a Democrat groundswell to reign in this rhetorical swill, Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson has done the opposite.  She warned that those "making fun of a member of Congress" should be "prosecuted," adding the authorities need to "shut them down."

Apparently in her view, freedom of speech does not include mocking members of Congress, even if the person is an eight-year old child actor. Ava Martinez, who parodies AOC on social media, has received death threats and harassment, forcing her mother to end the skits for the child's safety.

Rep. Wilson is not alone in her campaign to bully Democrat opposition. Today there are many in Congress who want freedom FROM speech they consider insensitive. They are determined to persecute, defame and imprison if necessary anyone who dares to exercise their right to free speech.

Is this the America we want? If Democrats have the right to smear and deliberately sow discord, then surely the President of the United States should not be silenced for his choice of words on Twitter.  Or do Democrats prefer a double standard?  Their actions indicate they do.