Unless Biden Wins Big, ‘Violence in Streets’ Possible, Says WaPo Op-Ed

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- Writing recently in the Washington Post, Prof. Rosa Brooks at Georgetown University Law Center said a brainstorming session by “The Transition Integrity Project” conjured some “likely” scenarios about the outcome of the November election and concluded “With the exception of the ‘big Biden win’ scenario, each of our exercises reached the brink of catastrophe, with massive disinformation campaigns, violence in the streets and a constitutional impasse.”

Reaction from some WaPo readers amounted to “Bring it.”

The Transition Integrity Project is described by Wikipedia as “a bipartisan group of over 100 current and former senior government and campaign leaders, academics, journalists, polling experts and former federal and state government officials formed out of concern about potential disruptions to 2020 United States presidential election and transition by the RNC. The organization was formed in late 2019.” Apparently, all of these people think President Donald Trump will lose in November and they are already planning for a change of leadership, and for trouble should he refuse to leave office.

As only people convinced of their own intellectual superiority can do, this “bipartisan group” imagined only four possibilities, as detailed by Brooks: “A narrow Biden win; a big Biden win, with a decisive lead in both the electoral college and the popular vote; a Trump win with an electoral college lead but a large popular-vote loss, as in 2016; and finally, a period of extended uncertainty as we saw in the 2000 election.”

They left out a fifth possible scenario which self-styled progressives arrogantly cannot envision: A huge Trump win in the Electoral College and with a popular vote impossible to overcome, even if every cemetery resident in America votes Democrat.

It is in this environment that the Second Amendment Foundation’s recently-launched “Second Amendment First Responder” initiative is likely to take on far greater importance than even SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb might have imagined.

The 2A First Responder project just expanded its scope of television advertising, reaching new audiences via DirecTV to subscribers of Fox News, Fox Business, CNBC, CNN, The Weather Channel, MSNBC, American Heroes channel, and History channel, and on DISH to Fox subscribers, plus Newsmax, One America News and Fox News in several local markets.

Public response to the campaign so far has been strong, Gottlieb said in a news release.

“There has never been a more critical moment for law-abiding Americans to step forward and defend their right to keep and bear arms,” Gottlieb said, “and that’s what Second Amendment First Responders is really all about. We’re not promoting a candidate or a political party, just a worthy cause.”

Timing, as the saying goes, is everything, and SAF’s 2A First Responder project appears to have been timed perfectly.

An opinion piece in the Western Journal by Randy DeSoto put the Washington Post article in perspective.

“The Washington Post has taken fearmongering to a whole new level, projecting that all election scenarios but a Joe Biden landslide will result in violence and chaos in the streets,” DeSoto wrote.

For the past three-plus months, Americans have gotten a daily dose of street violence on the evening news, so Prof. Brooks’ closing sentence that “if things go as badly as our exercises suggest they might, a sustained, nonviolent protest movement may be America’s best and final hope,” might require more than the proverbial grain of salt to digest. Protests that have plagued cities including New York, Portland, Seattle, Chicago and elsewhere have hardly been “nonviolent,” and she should know that.

These news reports have fueled gun sales, say some observers, and raised concerns that if “the mob” does not get its way, violence that so far has hit business districts will spread to the suburbs.

The Daily Beast recently reported “A coalition of leading progressive groups gathered on Zoom to begin organizing for what they envision as the post-Election Day political apocalypse scenario.”

“Apocalypse” might not be too strong a word, considering recent revelations about gun and ammunition purchasing that include at least 5 million new gun owners in the mix. The potential for trouble seems only to gain credibility considering the current push to defund and even disband police agencies, and the recent retirements of top law enforcement officials in several cities.

But there is an interesting angle in this recent gun buying, according to a recent poll released by the Dallas Morning News and University of Texas at Tyler. According to this survey, “Just over a third of Texans polled say they own at least one gun. Some 17% of gun owners bought a gun within the past 90 days, and of those, more than half were first-time buyers.”

Even more interesting is the revelation that “First-time gun buyers favor Biden over Trump, in fact, 51% of first-time purchasers surveyed favored Biden, while 43% favored Trump.”

If trouble actually does erupt, the nation’s far-left establishment would face a dilemma. Who would they call for help when – not “if” – angry conservatives fight back? Would they expect to be rescued by police they’ve been trying to place on the unemployment lines for the past six months?

Perhaps the left’s problem is best illustrated by the recent announcement from Sheriff Dave Wedding of Vanderburgh County, Ind. He appeared on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” program to explain why he has left the Democratic Party.

“As a law enforcement leader, I can’t imagine 101 days of rioting, and it is condoned by the Democratic leadership,” Sheriff Wedding stated. “It’s unbelievable that they can do that to a law enforcement professional. As a sheriff, I could not imagine putting my deputies on the front lines of these riots night after night with no relief in sight.”

Brooks’ WaPo essay attempted to provide some perspective, as if to explain this is all a bunch of think tank conjecture. However, such provocative “conjecture” could be interpreted as a threat if Trump is re-elected.

She writes, “(W)e built a series of war games, sought out some of the most accomplished Republicans, Democrats, civil servants, media experts, pollsters and strategists around, and asked them to imagine what they’d do in a range of election and transition scenarios.

“A landslide for Joe Biden resulted in a relatively orderly transfer of power,” Brooks said. “Every other scenario we looked at involved street-level violence and political crisis.”

Is that merely harmless hypothesizing or radical left wishful thinking?

The Transition Integrity Project apparently lacks the integrity to acknowledge a Trump landslide with coattails long enough to take the House Speaker gavel away from Nancy Pelosi for good this time just might occur. There would be no “transition” at all, and the Republic would remain, with all Ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights fully protected.

Taken at face value, the Brooks dissertation may seem as much a threat as think tank conjecture about potential consequences to an election that leaves President Trump in the Oval Office and the political left in tatters.

In one of the scenarios detailed by Prof. Brooks in her Washington Post piece, again envisioning a Trump defeat, she suggests, “Massive pro-Biden street protests begin, demanding that Trump concede.” This scenario suggests Trump would tweet to his supporters that “real patriots” would confront “these Antifa terrorists” and prevent them from stealing the election.

Suggesting street violence could erupt if Biden doesn’t displace the president seems to lay the groundwork for excusing such activity in the event Trump wins re-election.

Obviously, these think tank elitists expect Trump to lose. They should consult Hillary Rodham Clinton about that before planning a victory dance.

RELATED:

SAF Launches 2A First Responders Television Ad Campaign

About Dave Workman

Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.