Analysis: Dear Left-Wing Protesters, Please Keep "Helping"

This is what ~~democracy~~ overplaying your hand looks like. Granted, President Trump's approval rating isn't in great shape, in part because millions of Americans are so horrified at his electoral victory that they're committed to endless "resistance." And many of his early actions have been controversial (although not nearly as controversial as liberals and the media believe them to be) as have some of his appointments -- although that effect has been magnified by Democrats' partisan escalations pertaining to the confirmation process (note how often they're the aggressors in these fights). But I'd be happy to place a heavy bet on the notion that certain manifestations of the Left's all-outrage, all-the-time state of perpetual protest are exhausting and off-putting even to many Americans who may not be MAGA hat-wearing Trump voters. For instance, Cortney covered this incident earlier, but I wanted to circle back and highlight a few absurdities. We begin with a handful of rabble-rousers blockading the stairs to a public school in order to prevent the duly-confirmed Education Secretary from attending a meeting (which was requested by a teachers' union, ironically). If you missed it earlier, here's a look at the spectacle:

Sec. DeVos physically blocked by protesters from entering DC school--turned away and left. Unclear if she attempted another door. @ABC7News pic.twitter.com/buNgmOJbya
— Sam Sweeney (@SweeneyABC) February 10, 2017

First of all, accosting a woman like that? Wow, sexist. And making life harder for the man of color assigned to escort and protect her? Wow, racist. Or at least those are the asinine, paint-by-numbers identity politics accusations they'd hurl if the partisan roles were reversed. In reality, this is just a spasm of unhinged, unfocused angry leftism. The sassy bearded fellow yelling at Sec. Betsy DeVos as she's being shuffled away from the door is a paradigmatic poster child for the "resist!" crowd, with an emphasis on "child." He begins the clip by physically preventing a public official from entering a public building to which she's been invited. Once she's turned away, he grabs his "black lives matter" placard and chases after her, spitting bile and shouting "shame!" Incidentally, BLM is generally a criminal justice issue, so its connection to an anti-DeVos protest (as opposed to, say, an anti-Jeff Sessions protest) isn't immediately obvious. There's a decent chance that he simply grabbed an all-purpose, feel-good, left-wing sign for the day. But as far as racial disparities do affect education in America, DeVos has been an ardent advocate on behalf of underprivileged children, many of them black, who have been stuck in habitually failing schools for generations. She's a strong school choice proponent, I'm sure she'd agree, because she agrees that black children's lives and educations matter. I'm fairly confident this thought has never occurred to her harasser

Next, he contemptuously accuses her of "buying" her position by "giving money to Senators." While the DeVos family has undoubtedly been quite active and generous in its financial support of Republican politicians over the years, the unions' annual lining of Democrats' pockets makes her contributions look like chump change. If we're going to play the money-in-politics, motives-impugning game, it's much easier to allege that Democratic opposition to the DeVos nomination was bought and paid for than was GOP support. Also, who wants to bet that this guy cast his presidential ballot for the presidential candidate who doubled Donald Trump's election spending? But hey, who needs critical thinking and self-awareness when there's outrage and under-informed self-righteousness to indulge? He ends his playdate adventure by trying to block DeVos' SUV from departing, because apparently she shouldn't be allowed to show up or depart. Or something. Similar tactics were employed by a larger group of protesters earlier in the day to impede the arrival of DeVos' team, via John Sexton:

A small subsection of the electorate likely approves of this slash-and-burn opposition to all things Trump, but I'd wager that a strong majority of average Americans view these kinds of tactics as petty, disrespectful, disruptive sore loserdom. If Lefty radicals are determined to help re-elect Donald Trump, they're off to a good start. By the way, DeVos eventually got access to the building for her meeting.