logo
The liberals' license: How the left finds release in an age of rage

The liberals' license: How the left finds release in an age of rage

The Hill05-04-2025

'We should replace our piece of crap Constitution.'
Those words from author Elie Mystal, a regular commentator on MSNBC, are hardly surprising from someone who previously called the Constitution 'trash' and urged not just the abolition of the U.S. Senate but also of 'all voter registration laws.'
But Mystal's radical rhetoric is becoming mainstream on the left, as shown by his best-selling books and popular media appearances.
There is a counter-constitutional movement building in law schools and across the country. And although Mystal has not advocated violence, some on the left are turning to political violence and criminal acts. It is part of the 'righteous rage' that many of them see as absolving them from the basic demands not only of civility but of legality.
They are part of a rising class of American Jacobins — bourgeois revolutionaries increasingly prepared to trash everything, from cars to the Constitution.
The Jacobins were a radical group in France that propelled that country into the worst excesses of the French Revolution. They were largely affluent citizens, including journalists, professors, lawyers, and others who shredded existing laws and destroyed property. It would ultimately lead not only to the blood-soaked 'Reign of Terror' but also to the demise of the Jacobins themselves as more radical groups turned against them.
Of course, it is not revolution on the minds of most of these individuals. It is rage.
Rage is the ultimate drug. It offers a release from longstanding social norms — a license to do those things long repressed by individuals who viewed themselves as decent, law-abiding citizens.
Across the country, liberals are destroying Tesla cars, torching dealerships and charging stations, and even allegedly hitting political dissenters with their cars.
Last week, affluent liberal shoppers admitted that they are shoplifting from Whole Foods to strike back at Jeff Bezos for working with the Trump administration and moving the Washington Post back to the political center. They are also enraged at Mark Zuckerberg for restoring free speech protections at Meta.
One '20-something communications professional' in Washington explained 'If a billionaire can steal from me, I can scrape a little off the top, too.' These affluent shoplifters portrayed themselves as Robin Hoods.
Of course, that is assuming Robin Hood was stealing organic fruit from the rich and giving it to himself.
On college campuses, affluent students and even professors are engaging in political violence.
Just this week, University of Wisconsin Professor José Felipe Alvergue, head of the English Department, turned over the table of College Republicans supporting a conservative for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He reportedly declared, 'The time for this is over!'
Likewise, a mob this week attacked a conservative display and tent on the campus of the University of California-Davis as campus police passively watched. The Antifa protesters, carrying a large banner with the slogan 'ACAB' or 'all cops are bastards,' trashed the tent and carried it off.
Antifa is a violent and vehemently anti-free speech group that thrives on U.S. college campuses. In his book ' Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,' Mark Bray explains that 'most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists. … From that standpoint, 'free speech' as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.'
Of course, many of the American Jacobins are themselves bourgeois or even affluent figures. And they are finding a host of enablers telling them that the Constitution itself is a threat and that the legal system has been corrupted by oligarchs, white supremacists, or reactionaries.
This includes leading academics and commentators who are denouncing the Constitution and core American values. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School, is the author of 'No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.'
In a New York Times op-ed, 'The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,' law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for the nation to 'reclaim America from constitutionalism.'
Commentator Jennifer Szalai has scoffed at what she called 'Constitution worship.' 'Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us,' she wrote. 'A growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.'
As intellectuals knock down our laws and Constitution, radicals are pouring into the breach. Political violence and rage rhetoric are becoming more common. Some liberals embraced groups like Antifa, while others shrugged off property damage and violent threats against political opponents. It is the very type of incitement or rage rhetoric that Democrats once accused Trump of fostering in groups like the Proud Boys.
Members of Congress such as Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) have called for Tesla CEO Elon Musk to be ' taken down ' and said that Democrats have to be ' OK with punching.'
Some take such words as a justification to violently attack a system supposedly advancing the white supremacy or fascism. Fortunately, such violence has been confined so far to a minority of radicalized individuals, but there is an undeniable increase in such violent, threatening speech and in actual violence.
The one thing the American Jacobins will not admit is that they like the rage and the release that it brings them. From shoplifting to arson to attempted assassination, the rejection of our legal system brings them freedom to act outside of morality and to take whatever they want.
Democratic leaders see these 'protests' as needed popularism to combat Trump — to make followers ' strike ready ' and 'to stand up and fight back.'
For a politician, a mob can become irresistible if you can steer it against your opponents. The problem is controlling the mob once it has broken free of the bounds of legal and personal accountability.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Editorial: Misusing the National Guard — Trump's LA interference with local policing
Editorial: Misusing the National Guard — Trump's LA interference with local policing

Yahoo

time17 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Editorial: Misusing the National Guard — Trump's LA interference with local policing

Always looking to provoke a crisis, Donald Trump has federalized 2,000 soldiers of the California National Guard against the wishes of the state's governor to put down a rebellion in Los Angeles that doesn't exist. And Trump is acting counter to federal law in doing so, which is no surprise for him. After demonstrators gathered in L.A. to protest ICE raids, some idiots in the crowd threw rocks at the immigration law enforcement officers. That's a crime and is not free speech. But the president used the sporadic violence, which was quickly quelled, to overstep his legal authority. On Saturday, he issued a directive claiming: 'To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.' Then, latching on to his own word 'rebellion,' he invoked a federal statute, 10 U.S. Code § 12406, covering the National Guard. The law is brief. It says that 'Whenever 1) the United States is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation; 2) there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States; or 3) the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States; the President may call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws.' There's no invasion, there's no rebellion and ICE is able to carry out its functions. And there is no lawlessness in the streets of L.A. that can't be contained by the local L.A. County sheriff's department, which has almost 10,000 sworn and armed deputies and the LAPD, which has almost 9,000 sworn and armed cops. If those law enforcement professionals need help, California Gov. Gavin Newsom could activate the National Guard. But Newsom didn't call up the Guard for backup because the soldiers weren't needed. That Trump went around Newsom, who he 'cleverly' calls 'Newscum,' is something that hasn't been done in 60 years, when Lyndon Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard in 1965 because segregationist Gov. George Wallace wouldn't protect civil rights demonstrators. There, Wallace was trying to defy the federal courts and the federal government. This is nothing like that. Trump says 'It's about law and order,' but he's the one who is going against the law and against regular order. And he's also talking about bringing in active duty Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton. That is also against the law, 18 U.S. Code § 1385. This statue is just a single sentence: 'Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.' 'Posse comitatus,' or 'posse' for short, are non-law enforcement persons acting as such. The military cannot be so used on the word of even the president. Trump should relent and demobilize the Guardsmen he wrongly brought into L.A. and let local and state officials secure the streets. _____

Uncle Elon's final report card
Uncle Elon's final report card

Business Insider

time27 minutes ago

  • Business Insider

Uncle Elon's final report card

All good buddy comedies come to an end. For President Donald Trump and first friend "Uncle Elon" Musk, theirs wrapped up with the same explosive fanfare upon which it started. But now their shared enthusiasm for cutting government waste has morphed into animosity for each other so deep and personal that it's become a textbook case study in management gone wrong. In November, just after Trump's reelection, I asked management experts if Musk could mimic his track record of juicing everything he could out of his lean companies to make the government run more efficiently. They were reluctant to doubt Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, but just as reluctant to think his efficiency tactics at Tesla and X meant he could single-handedly transform the government. I checked back in with some of them in March, six weeks into DOGE's chaotic tenure, after it dismantled USAID and axed tens of thousands of federal workers. They described his management as "clumsy," "wrongheaded," and full of "political recklessness." Now, the breakup of the bromance between two of the world's biggest, boldest personalities is surprising only in that it took so long to unfold and, once it did, moved with the speed that only two social media savvy, chronically online posters could propel. (Musk posted on X more than a dozen times lambasting Trump and his " Big Beautiful Bill" late last week, since deleting some of the most disparaging claims, and Trump suggested Musk might be suffering from "Trump derangement syndrome.") If DOGE is a cautionary tale in how not to manage, it's one from the furthest extreme, marked by a clash between the egos of two of the world's most powerful men that made politics extremely personal. Still there are business lessons to be gleaned even for those of us who run fewer than six companies and have fewer than 220 million social media followers. DOGE has proved "unsuccessful" up to this point, and is so far a "failed venture" for Musk and for the government, says Subodha Kumar, a professor at Temple University's Fox School of Business. It brought "disruption, a lot of delays, a lot of mistrust, and a lot of good people have left the organization," he says. "This kind of damage takes a long time to repair." To date, DOGE has claimed it found $180 billion in savings (Musk in May called DOGE "effective," but "not as effective as I'd like," as the original goal was to save $2 trillion). An analysis in April from nonpartisan research group Partnership for Public Service found that the department's actions could cost as much as $135 billion, an estimate of the costs of the firings, re-hirings, and lost productivity. Meanwhile, the four months Musk spent working taking a chainsaw to the federal government are wrapping up doused in drama that has spilled over to his other companies. After his 130-day post as a special government employee ends, Musk is pointing the blame for government waste back on Trump, skewering the spending bill for being too big and ugly, and endorsing a call to impeach Trump and replace him with Vice President JD Vance (that post has since been deleted). The lesson here is akin to that of two mob bosses of the gangster world who both crave the superior distinction of being the number one boss. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale School of Management leadership professor The escalating tension is just the beginning of a fight that could get worse for Musk, and likely has little benefit for Trump, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale School of Management leadership professor who has studied Trump for decades and advised presidents, tells me in an email. DOGE, he notes, overpromised savings and may actually cost US taxpayers more when it comes to rehiring costs, repairing systems, and weakened cybersecurity. As WIRED reported last week, DOGE is hiring, and even has reached out to technologists who formerly worked for the government. Musk's involvement with the DOGE proved tumultuous for his businesses from the start. His personal wealth ballooned by some $200 billion in 2024, surpassing $400 billion after Election Day. Once he got to work in the White House, his absenteeism from his companies — paired with a growing distaste for DOGE's actions among the electorate and protests targeting Tesla — led his net worth to drop alongside Tesla's market cap. Last Thursday, Musk's open beef with Trump further hampered his wealth, leading the Tesla CEO to lose $34 billion personally in a single day. Tesla stock, which has taken a beating as people turn on the company to protest Musk's government work, took its biggest tumble since March, closing 14% lower and wiping out $152 billion from the company's market cap. Musk is still the richest person in the world. For Musk, there's damage to the Tesla brand in need of repair. His next step could be "to portray himself as a purist who came in to offer his technical help and didn't realize how deep the corruption runs," says Michael Morris, a professor at Columbia Business School. "Musk could potentially portray himself as a wayward son of the tech industry." This might only work if the Trump administration continues to stumble, and if Musk also sees more success, like winning big with his robotaxi push. As Taylor Lorenz reported in User Mag Friday, some high-profile Democrats are already signaling that they would welcome Musk back into the fold. Trump over the weekend told NBC News Musk would face "serious consequences" if he donated to Democratic candidates (he did not specify what they would be). It's yet to be seen where Musk will find his next political alliances: On Friday, he ran a poll on X asking if a third political party should emerge to include the 80% of Americans in the middle of Republicans and Democrats, as he sees it. The president has threatened to go after Musk's government contracts — which total in tens of billions of dollars for SpaceX and Tesla. "The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Elon was 'wearing thin,' I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!" Trump himself bought a Tesla just three months ago, and is now considering selling it. (Best of luck to him, the cars' resale values have tanked). As Trump and Musk part ways, it's clear that Musk's brazen, fully autonomous leadership style didn't work in the government world, as it eschewed transparency and collaboration in favor of a top-down approach. "The one-size-fits-all policy does not work everywhere," says Kumar. "You have to understand the culture of the organization and you have to work from inside rather than from outside." Back in November, experts told me it wasn't clear what authority Musk would actually wield in the newly-created position to implement massive spending cuts. Trying to employ tech-world leadership tactics from the White House created a rivalry between Musk and Trump for power and control, undercutting the alliance between the two and leaving DOGE far short of its savings goals. "The lesson here is akin to that of two mob bosses of the gangster world who both crave the superior distinction of being the number one boss — with surging parallel drives for grandiosity," Sonnenfeld says. "Musk's tragic mistake was that he forgot his role — as a staffer and advisor to Trump, not the primary character he foolishly believed himself to be, and even now, continues to overestimate his own importance and indispensability."

Hillary Clinton Exposes Donald Trump's Narcissistic Motive For Sending Troops To LA
Hillary Clinton Exposes Donald Trump's Narcissistic Motive For Sending Troops To LA

Yahoo

time32 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Hillary Clinton Exposes Donald Trump's Narcissistic Motive For Sending Troops To LA

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday slammed Donald Trump's deployment of thousands of members of the National Guard in response to protests that have broken out in Los Angeles over immigration raids being conducted by his administration. Clinton pointed out on X, the Elon Musk-owned social media platform formerly known as Twitter, how California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) 'didn't request' the deployment of the National Guard but Trump 'sent them anyway.' 'It's the first time in 60 years a president has made that choice,' Clinton said, noting the historical significance and unprecedented nature of Trump's decision. The former first lady, who Trump defeated in the 2016 election, then argued that it's actually all about one thing for the president. 'Trump's goal isn't to keep Californians safe,' she said. 'His goal is to cause chaos, because chaos is good for Trump.' Clinton, a fierce critic of her onetime election opponent, last month slammed Trump's acceptance of a luxury jumbo jet from Qatar's ruling family to be used as Air Force One before being transferred to his post-presidential library. 'No one gives someone a $400 million dollar jet for free without expecting anything in return,' she wrote on social media. 'Be serious.' Trump Reveals What's Next For That Tesla He Bought From Elon Musk Karoline Leavitt Squirms Over Maria Bartiromo's Blunt Question About Elon Musk Trump Accused Of Inciting Violence With Chilling New Rhyme

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store