Opinion Pieces

The following op-ed appeared at the American Mind on September 24, 2020.

We now have a Supreme Court vacancy, and President Trump and Senate Republicans are moving to fill it before the 117th Congress begins.
 
According to the White House, we’ll learn the nominee’s name Saturday. But whomever is chosen, we know they will apply the law and interpret the Constitution as written.
 
The Left is apoplectic, threatening all forms of retaliation. They’ve launched a second campaign to impeach the president, another campaign to pack the Court, and still a third campaign to get rid of the Senate legislative filibuster if the Senate flips.
 
What has the Left so worked up? Why are they threatening to—in the words of one former CNN host—“burn this entire f—ing thing down.”
 
What if I was to tell you that the answer has to do with the 1619 Project, the curriculum developed in partnership with the New York Times and now taught in classrooms across America?
 
Confused? Let me explain.

The 1619 Coup

The premise of the 1619 Project is that what you learned about our Founding in school is a lie. The Founding Fathers didn’t declare independence from Britain to secure our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They didn’t write the Constitution to secure our civil liberties. The 1619 Project teaches that the Founders were really just white supremacists who invented a whole new country to protect the institution of slavery.
 
This isn’t true, and prominent historians have debunked it, but the lie is still catching and spreading like the West Coast wildfires.

But if we accept the 1619 Project’s central claim, and our entire system of government was founded on the principle of racial inequality, the two are inseparable. Whereas the traditional Left saw racism as a disease afflicting America, the new Left sees America as a malignant tumor spreading racism around the world. For them, violently toppling statues of George Washington is not the cancer—it’s chemotherapy.
 
The1619 Project’s adherents have reached its logical conclusion: America can’t be repaired, so it must be burned down, then rebuilt by the same people who set it ablaze.

In the span of two weeks, 20 states across the U.S suffered the costliest string of riots in American history. The damage is estimated at $1 to $2 billion, similar estimates for a Category 1 hurricane. The media described it as a series of “mostly peaceful protests,” which is puzzlingly dishonest, even by their standards. But with 1619 blinders on, it’s easy to justify ignoring the breakdown of the rule of law; the phoenix is the real story, not the flames.
 
After introducing lawlessness to multiple major cities, the 1619 left is empowered and ready to redirect its energy at America’s highest court.  

The Permanent Revolution

If President Trump appoints a justice and Democrats finds themselves unable to legislate through the Supreme Court, they will try to pack it. Such a radical move was unthinkable a decade ago, because it would destroy the independence and legitimacy of the judicial branch, but to the modern left, that’s not discouraging. The destruction of America’s institutions is a moral necessity, and it helps them reach their ultimate goal faster—power.
 
Suddenly, all the episodes of the last four years make sense. From the Mueller investigation to the Kavanaugh hearings to partisan impeachment, it’s all a loop. The modern left undermines institutions to gain power and it gains power as institutions weaken.
 
It was Lindsay Graham who declared it so passionately, when he yelled across the aisle during the Kavanaugh hearings: “Boy, y’all want power. God, I hope you never get it.”