What is "Resisting" and How Is It Helping?

Good old Hillary Clinton was at it again, of course denying that she lost the election because she was a terrible candidate with a terrible campaign, and no message as to why anyone should vote for her, at least aside from her possession of a uterus.

When she made one of her recent pronouncements, it included something about "joining the resistance", or "being part of the resistance", or something sort of like that.  And I sat a moment and tried to think about what that could possibly mean.

Sure, resisting President Trump, I got that.  But what is she, you know, "for"?

That's where I started wondering how "resistance" translates into a direction to take the USA.  You see, all over the nation we have those "marches" that turn into riots, by paid and perhaps some unpaid rioters, yelling about "resistance" and being part of some kind of resistance movement.

And I wasn't really very sure as to what that all meant.

Resistance, per se, is trying to stop something from happening, which is perfectly fine if we're talking about criminal or antisocial activities.  In the realm of politics, well, we should be among a discussion and debate of what may be contrasting ideas for accomplishing the business of our nation, right?

This movement -- what is it for?  What is it trying to accomplish?  Simply opposing someone is simply not a strategy; you have to identify the problem, identify your solution, and explain why it is more likely to solve the problem than whatever it is that you are resisting.  But we're not getting any of that; just "resistance."

President Trump wants to have tax rates lowered to stimulate business to hire and create millions of jobs.  If you are resisting that, what does that mean, that you want higher taxes and fewer jobs?  He wants secure borders; do the resistors want open borders and a flood of competition for a finite number of American jobs?  Do they want Obamacare to stay as it is, as county after county drops to only one insurer, or now in some areas, none?

So when do we hold the resistors accountable for justifying their actions by presenting a better way to do -- heck, anything -- that is on the table as a current problem?  It is quite frustrating when the press, particularly, lets the left off the hook for being nothing but opposition.

I believe I have heard about 42,556 times on the mainstream media how Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he was committed, in 2009, to making Barack Obama a one-term president, and what a terrible thing it was that he was not going to "help" the then-president "succeed", which would mean that the nation would fail, as it was borne out through most of the previous administration.

Yet where is that outrage today?  Where is the press deeming the presidency something that the Chuck Schumers and Nancy Pelosis ought to be trying to help succeed, much as eight years earlier they dumped all over Sen. McConnell after his declaration.

Today that same press celebrates the "resistance", though never asking a resistor what, exactly, they were for and how their resistance was supposed to accomplish something vital to our nation.

Well, I want to know.  We have had eight years of utter disaster under Barack Obama; our economy showed virtually no growth in his time, as access to capital dried up and small businesses were starved and failed, and job growth was minimized -- except in the public sector.  We have well over 30% of the counties in the USA with only one health insurance provider, and next year some will have none.  Our friends abroad no longer trust us; our enemies no longer fear us, and in many cases they are already on our shores committing acts of terrorism.

How, I ask, do any of the "resistors" plan to make any of that better, and how do they expect that their plans to do so will succeed, by differing with the efforts that failed in the previous administration?  New approaches are being tried under the new Trump administration, and they have not yet been active long enough to know their impact.

Look, you know and I know, and the press knows as well, that the resistors are totally political and have no desire to "help."  That's not what they were paid for; they were paid to set a tone for electing Democrats in subsequent elections.  That's fine; if you recall, the USA responded to all the rioting and resisting in 1968 by electing Richard Nixon.

I hope that Hillary is subject to the same curiosity about her "resistance", because it would be nice (but unlikely) for someone to ask all that of the average rioter on the street.

Me?  I choose to resist "resistance."

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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