Earlier, by Peter Brimelow: Trump’s Indictment—Like I Said, This Is A Communist Coup

“Power can only be resisted by power—and tendency by tendency,” said John C. Calhoun in A Disquisition on Government. Clearly the best political thinker America ever produced, Calhoun has been driven out of public memory due to the “Racial Reckoning”—not least because Conservatism Inc. of course joins in with it [Buckley, Calhoun, and I, by Cameron Hilditch, National Review, October 28, 2020]. Yet one can’t help but wonder if it’s also because of the substance of Calhoun’s thought, specifically his warning that combating tyranny requires giving dissidents “the means of making peaceable and effective resistance” as an indispensable first step to constitutional government. Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau’s recent arrest—and of course the lawfare against VDARE.com—show that “peaceable and effective resistance” is under mortal threat.

The Constitution won’t defend itself, and it hasn’t. Since the Trump Inauguration itself through Unite the Right, internet censorship, the chaos of 2020, the January 6 Mostly Peaceful Protest, and beyond, Leftists have repeatedly trampled the norms of a free society—but incrementally, as if waiting for outraged resistance from conservatives. It never arrived. It’s now clear they can do whatever they want.

New cases illustrate the almost hilarious nature of two-tier justice in the United States.