by Jim Kunstler
“Protests are meant to be the voices of the unheard. Yet these protests are the voices of those who never shut up.” — Unnamed Observer of No Kings, reported by Roger Kimball
Over the weekend, you might have noticed, the Portland, OR, police cleared out the Antifa encampments down around the city’s ICE facility, carted away their lavish riot supplies, and warned them not to congregate on the street there. For now, anyway. Hmmmm. . . . Why do you suppose that happened? Antifa has been rioting freely around federal buildings in Portland since the Summer of Floyd, 2020. Did the police suddenly notice that Antifa has been disturbing the peace?
So far, nobody in the news media has bothered to ask the Portland Police honchos about this sudden change of heart, nor did the honchos venture to say. Did word come from higher up to finally put a stop to Antifa’s psychotic monkeyshines? Like, from Mayor Keith Wilson or Oregon Governor Tina Kotek? Wouldn’t you say those two have got some ‘splainin’ to do?
After all, the Antifa actions at this particular address were not just peaceable assemblies petitioning the government for redress of their grievances, as the Constitution has it. They were often violent efforts to interfere with federal officers going about their duties, namely, the expulsion of illegal border-jumpers. Left unsaid by the aforementioned persons in authority was whether they were in on that interference.
You can probably assume that they were. They represent the Democratic Party, and that is who allowed millions to jump the border between 2021 and 2025 under “Joe Biden,” evidently to lard their voter rolls and enable never-ending ballot fraud. The law is pretty clear about all that. If you come here without due process, you are subject to deportation. The gang behind “Joe Biden” tried to get around that by claiming that the millions flooding in were all “asylum seekers,” every last one, and thus here within due process of the immigration laws. That was simply not truthful. It was as fake as the “Joe Biden” presidency itself.
Of course, there is the looming matter of Mr. Trump’s proffer to send in federal troops to protect ICE officers while they see to their duties. Also, days ago, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller remarked that state and local politicians who interfere with ICE operations could face arrest and prosecution for criminal conspiracy, obstruction of justice, or even seditious conspiracy. Is that conspiracy theory? No, it just recognizes agreement between two or more parties to engage in criminal conduct, falling under federal statutes 18 U.S.C. § 371 plus 18 U.S.C. § 1503 (obstruction of justice) and 18 U.S.C. § 2384 (conspiring to levy war against the government, prevent, hinder federal duties, opposing federal authority, et cetera).
The penalties for those crimes can be heavy. Governors such as Tina Kotek, or JB Pritzker, or Gavin Newsom, or my own Kathy Hochul here in New York could face up to twenty years in prison on raps like that. Mr. Miller is giving notice that the new administration is not fooling around. We have lived through an era when fooling around was allowed and promoted. It did quite a bit of damage to the nation. Things have changed.
These moves by such bumptious pols also have the look of skirmishes preceding something that smells like Civil War, which is to say, insurrection. As a kind of sadistic object lesson, the Democratic Party is running a Jihadi communist for mayor of the nation’s premier city, New York. Imagine that, twenty-four years after 9/11! The cheek! Zohran Mamdani has run his campaign on the credible issue that the city is unaffordable for the non-rich. He is surely correct about that, though he misunderstands why that is.
I will tell you why that is: because all the Leftist progressive (socialist / communist-inflected) policy of the past eighty years in New York City has made property ownership and management almost impossible, including especially decades of their favorite ploy, rent control, and has created an artificial shortage of affordable housing in particular. Then, the Covid-19-era rent payment moratorium drove a stake through the heart of affordable housing. How can you take care of a building in which tenants do not pay any rent? How can that be a credible business? Do you understand that property management is a business? It has to pencil-out, cover its costs, make a profit.
Zohran Mamdani wants more of that, affordability-by-decree, which means he will for sure get less affordable housing and more property that no one wants to take care of — which is what slums are. That, plus a lot of other so-called policies aimed at persecuting anybody crazy enough to do business at any scale in New York. So, Zohran Mamdani and his delirious supporters are joyously marching into the wreckers’ ball for New York. Jihad is just the cherry on top of all that.
Mr. Mamdani is apparently a sure thing to get elected on November 4. Of course, Hillary was a sure thing, too, back in 2016, so we’ll just have to stand by and see, but his two opponents in the race are about the sorriest figures ever seen in a city that has historically produced cavalcades of political rogues, morons, and scoundrels.
The less obvious outcome, though, given Mr. Mamdani’s youth, lack of administrative experience, and cargo of hopeless ideologies, is that corruption and racketeering will run wild during his years in City Hall. It will make the Boss Tweed era look like a political golden age.
Coming in a week: JHK’s new novel, a comedy set during the week of the JFK assassination, November, 1963. JD Salinger makes his debut as a major character in American fiction.
You can pre-order here !
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