“Beneath the dignity of the office” is a term tossed around a lot by President Trump's critics. Something he said or tweeted is deemed by the media or beltway class of pundits as “punching down” and not worth the attention it’s given. I used to be inclined to think that way.
I really don’t anymore. Mostly because I know there’s no such thing as punching down or – despite what Mrs. Obama says about going high when others go low – the left can and does go low. They punch down all the time.
How many examples? Countless. It’s not always a matter of punching down, either. Sometimes it’s sucker-punching people who don’t deserve it and never expected it.
Do Chick-Fil-A employees deserve the hostile treatment the left has foisted on them simply because they work for a place whose owner thinks marriage should be between a man and a woman? I’m honestly asking, liberals.
The people earning wages are the “working class” you pretend to care so much about. What did they do to you? Organizing a boycott to harm the business traffic of a company to hurt their already wealthy owner? It makes no sense. Yet that’s not called punching down. That’s called “fighting for equality,” or some nonsense.
When Occupy Wall Street tied up bridge traffic a few years ago to impede traffic, or when they blocked entrances to banks, who does that punish? Bank executives? No. It’s punishing your neighbors and fellow citizens who are just trying to go about their day and make ends meet for their family.
When the left’s “Fight For Fifteen” walk-outs happen across the country in fast food joints, does that make McDonald’s shareholders and executives sit up and say, “Gosh, we’d better give everyone who works for us a raise today!”
No, walking out means their friends and neighbors don’t get a fast meal to eat on their way to work or home because the store is short-staffed. It means inconvenience for the customer who buys their products, not for the corporate big wigs they think they’re hurting.
These activist groups don’t inspire wage raises. You know what they inspire? Kiosks and artificial intelligence and robotics to replace the humans who don’t walk out on their jobs to score political points. Instead of a “fight for fifteen,” it’s now a fight to keep your job from being automated. That’s sucker-punching.
This week the online furniture outlet Wayfair became the latest cause of liberal crusaders. An employee-inspired walkout of over 500 at their headquarters was held ostensibly to protest the treatment of illegal immigrants held in detention at our southern border. Now get this: they don’t want their management making deals to sell furniture to companies who are building and furnishing detention centers in Texas.
Yes, you’re reading that correctly. They hate the treatment of immigrants in our “Holocaust-like” detention centers so much they want to stop their company from improving the detention centers. It’s too insane to make up. Again I ask, who gets hurt? Are they punching up? No, they’re hurting their own colleagues’ productivity and the very company that pays them their wages. They’re not hurting the CEO. At the same time they’re preventing the improvement of the very thing they say desperately needs improving.
When the freshman star of the Democratic party – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – chased the new world headquarters of Amazon out of her New York congressional district, she did so to make the point the company didn’t deserve tax breaks from the state since they were already so wealthy.
We can debate the tax code, sure. But she led such an aggressive and shrill attack on Amazon’s lack of “good paying jobs” and harassed the New York government for working with them through tax breaks. Amazon said "screw it" and moved to Virginia.
Of course, AOC cheered the move as though she’d killed a big, bad corporate dragon. Did she? No. Instead, she killed tens of thousands of quality jobs New Yorkers in her district could have used. Jobs they needed. She didn’t fight for the little guy. She crushed the little guy. She punched down. It was a sucker-punch to her constituents.
How about the term the American left has embraced above all else? “Intersectionality.” It’s okay if you don’t know the word. You’re likely a well-adjusted, happy person. Basically, it’s a term used to identify all the different demographic groups and how each suffer discrimination and overlap with one another.
It’s a fancy way to refer to lots of people with grudges who aren’t white, straight, Christian men and who feel they’re owed something for their particular gripe. Usually money.
Now is that punching up, or punching down? That kind of thinking isn’t MLK or JFK’s thinking, was it? Would MLK’s “content of your character” argument be welcome in today’s Democratic Party?
JFK cut taxes as president. He also famously asked, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” JFK hated communists and communism.
Democratic icons sound so… Republican today.
Democrats are now the party of intersectionality, a political party that celebrates victims, socialism, and favors genetics over character. That’s regressive, isn’t it? That’s sucker-punching. It’s certainly not punching up or up-lifting. It’s depressing, defeatist, and uninspiring as hell.
Critics can suggest President Trump “punches down” when he takes on Hollywood or sports figures in the public square or on Twitter. I see it as counter-punching for the country. Pride in her people. Pride in her heritage.
If you want to see punching down, look at who the Democrats hurt most. It’s the cities overrun with homelessness and poverty. It's violence, murder, high taxes, and filth on the streets. It’s not simply punching down, it’s an over-promise, under-deliver sucker-punch.
Donald Trump needs a knock-out win in 2020 to stop the left from leaving their voters punch drunk.