On Sept. 12, Rep. Eugene Vindman joined fellow Virginia congressional Democrats in condemning political violence. Said condemnation came two days after an assassin murdered conservative icon Charlie Kirk while he was speaking at a free speech event in Utah.
“The rise in political violence … is disturbing and unacceptable,” Vindman and the Democrat delegation said. “We are unified in our condemnation of these attacks. It is critical to the safety of all Americans and the health of our democracy that we are able to approach our political differences with respect and without resorting to violence.”
Less than a month later, though, Vindman was standing by his man — leftist Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones. Jones’ campaign hit a speed bump after his 2022 texts fantasizing about putting “two bullets in the head” of a former Virginia Republican House speaker and wishing gun violence on his children came to light. Vindman couldn’t bring himself to condemn Jones’ violent rhetoric. In fact he re-endorsed him.
“We’re just a month out from Election Day in Virginia. It’s time for our Commonwealth to send a message that we’re tired of Republican chaos,” the freshman congressman urged in a X post. “VA, make a plan to vote — early if you can — for @SpanbergerForVA, @SenatorHashmi, @jonesjay, and Democrats up and down the ballot.”
In other words, political violence is “disturbing and unacceptable,” but not disqualifying for a Democrat in the heat of a statewide attorney general’s race.
Virginia Democrats must have thought as much. They overwhelmingly elected Jones, and fellow liberals Abby Spanberger, governor, and Ghazala Hashmi, lieutenant governor.
Vindman, the former deep stater involved in the Democrats’ first bogus impeachment effort against President Donald Trump, topped vulnerable Democrats in fundraising in the third quarter. But bags of money can’t hide him and the other vulnerable liberals who have preached peaceful resistance while endorsing political violence.
‘A Step Too Far’
In New Hampshire’s open 1st Congressional District race, liberal Marine Corps veteran and former Obama administration staffer Maura Sullivan posed with a man holding a “Veterans for Democracy” sign at a “No Kings” protest in June. The sign also included the numbers “86 47,” radical left shorthand for “86-ing” (getting rid of, or killing) Trump, the 47th president.
Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey posted on social media an image of seashells on a beach arranged to show “86 47.” He claims he had no idea what the expression “to 86” something or someone meant. Comey was questioned by the U.S. Secret Service.
Sullivan’s campaign told Fox News that the New Hampshire candidate “believes that there is absolutely no place for violence in our politics, regardless of party or affiliation.”
New Hampshire Republicans didn’t buy Sullivan’s explanation.
“I knew Maura was cozying up with the extreme radical left, but this is a step too far. Calls for political violence like this have no place in New Hampshire,” Granite State GOP chairman Jim MacEachern said in a statement to Fox News.
‘Do You Condemn Political Violence?’
Sometimes, the silence is deafening.
Sullivan’s Democrat opponent, Stefany Shaheen, has had much to say about “ceaseless gun violence” in pushing the left’s gun-control agenda. But Shaheen, the daughter of Democrat New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, couldn’t find the words to condemn political violence when asked last month.
“I hope you have a great night,” the junior Shaheen said in response to a questioner as she walked toward her car, Breitbart reported.
The questioner persisted. “Do you think the rhetoric needs to be toned down right now? Do you condemn political violence? That seems like a pretty simple question, ma’am?” Shaheen wouldn’t respond.
She got into the passenger side of a vehicle and left in silence.
In Maine’s Senate race, Democrat candidate Graham Platner has suggested that violence is a justifiable means to forwarding social change. Platner, who Politico describes as an “insurgent Democratic candidate” vying to take on longtime Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, has since deleted his comments posted on Reddit.
In 2018, the Marxist wrote, that if people “expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history,” according to CNN, which broke the story. “[A]n armed working class is a requirement for economic justice,” opined Platner, who described himself at the time as a “communist” and expressed a loathing for all police officers. The posts, according to Politico, were deleted three months before Platner launched his Senate campaign.
Platner has had a lot of explaining to do in recent months. As the leftist Guardian reported earlier this month, “there has been a steady drip of reports featuring Platner’s unearthed racist, sexist and homophobic online comments.” His tattoo (now covered) on his chest closely resembling a Nazi symbol didn’t do him any favors. Still, many national and state Democrats have rallied around the 41-year-old Platner, shru.gging off his violent comments as youthful indiscretions, even as they have skewered Republicans for much less.
‘We Kick Them in the Teeth’
In the battle for New York’s competitive 17th Congressional District, one Democrat candidate in a crowded field vying to unseat Republican incumbent Mike Lawler has “turned up the temperature.” Leftist lawyer-turned-TV reporter Mike Sacks last month called for defunding Immigration & Customs Enforcement — in typical radical language.
“When I said in Clarkstown that we should not fund ICE and must continue to protest them so long as they terrorize our neighbors, Lawler ran to Politico with the same old tired attacks to divide and distract us from the fascists he cheers on,” Sacks wrote on the 17th District Facebook page.
“When they go low, we kick them in the teeth,” Sacks added, after calling Trump adviser Stephen Miller a “fascist.” Sacks later said he was just speaking figuratively. His campaign slogan seems to be that he’s running for Congress in part to “Unf*ck Our Country,” a similar thought for a lot of Trump voters little more than a year ago after four disastrous years of the Biden administration.
Sacks’ hostile turn of phrase is a violent twist on Michelle Obama’s positive mantra, “When they go low, we go high,” an aphorism the imperious former first lady has given up on.
Jolanda Jones, a Texas Democrat state representative defeated earlier this month in a special election for the 18th Congressional District seat, took Obama’s high road to the gutter during the campaign.
“If they go low, I’m going to the gutter,” Jones told Axios a couple of weeks before the election. She urged Democrats to “fight ugly.”
‘Desperate to Appease’
It’s getting all too ugly for many Americans.
More than 60 percent of registered voters surveyed in a recent NBC News poll believe “extreme political rhetoric” was a key contributor in Charlie Kirk’s assassination. It’s a rare point of agreement in a deeply politically divided America.
“Republicans blamed rhetoric by the widest margin, 73%-19%, but independents (53%-28%) and Democrats (54%-34%) were also much more likely to blame extreme political rhetoric as a factor than to discount it,” the news outlet reported.
The violent rhetoric isn’t isolated, it’s becoming a feature in Democratic primaries, pressuring liberals to ratchet up the vitriol to fire up activists and voters. But they do so at their own peril in the general elections, potentially alienating more moderate swing voters in close races.
“Democrats are so desperate to appease their far-left base to squeeze through their messy primaries that they’re now normalizing disgusting and dangerous political violence,” Mike Marinella, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, told The Federalist in an email. “Voters are waking up to just how reckless and unfit this party has become.”
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
