In a couple of columns that have already run this week, plus the segments of The Spectacle podcast you should have already watched (and if you haven’t, then…seriously?), our regular followers will notice a distinctly optimistic strain in things in and around this space. The Revivalist Era has begun. And everything is going to change. Mostly for the better. But don’t you think for one minute that amid all the positive changes there won’t be resistance. There will be plenty. It won’t look like the unhinged madness that gripped the Left in 2017 when rioters descended on the nation’s capitol for Donald Trump’s January inauguration and did millions of dollars in damage, or when the institutional Left openly declared themselves to be “The Resistance” and threw up a set of barriers to the president’s implementation of his agenda which bordered on treason. Actually, scratch that. The slow-motion coup d’etat that was the Trump–Russia collusion hoax didn’t border on treason, it was treason — and it’s too damned bad nobody was punished accordingly for it. But it’s a little like the 9/11 hijackings. Nothing like that will ever happen again, because if you try to rush the cockpit with box cutters, you won’t be able to get in, and the passengers will get up and rush you — and when they get to you they’ll beat you severely because their assumption is that you’re there to fly the plane into a skyscraper. Or to do something else they won’t survive. Before 9/11, the paradigm was that if somebody hijacked a plane they’d fly it to Havana or something and the State Department would negotiate your release. Probably. At least, the chances were decent you’d make it out of the situation by sitting back and chilling out. That paradigm went away even before 9/11 was over; by the time the passengers of Flight 93 had felt their plane turn around and head for the U.S. Capitol they already knew what was in store, and so they retook the plane and kept it from getting to Washington. Rioters in pink pussy hats will be dealt with a little more harshly this time than they were in 2017, though probably not as harshly as the Jan. 6 protesters were. The “Marc Eliases” attempting to thwart the will of the American public, on the other hand, could have more long-lasting consequences applied to them. Lawfare is a double-edged sword, you know. So what does post-2024 resistance look like? That’s an interesting question. I’m not sure the resisters know yet. But one thing is for sure. 1. The Worship Of Luigi Mangione Shows You Who They Are Mangione, the deranged assassin of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson who was caught this week, appears to be the Left’s version of “Let’s Go Brandon” or Oliver Anthony of “Rich Men North Of Richmond” fame. Those two phenomena were examples of a populist backlash against Joe Biden’s election and governance, and they had some relatively deep meaning behind what was, on the surface, a scowling dissatisfaction with the status quo. The difference is that “Let’s Go Brandon” or Anthony’s video shot in the woods with canine spectators didn’t carry any corpses with them. The anti-Biden populist backlash was so non-violent, in fact, that the Left had to manufacture casualties like Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who had a stroke the day after emerging from Jan. 6 unscathed. But while Mangione’s motivations for slaughtering Brian Thompson aren’t fully explained by ideology — reading his manifesto and Goodreads book reviews before killing the business executive fills one not with an understanding of his personal philosophy but instead an appreciation for just how violently deranged he is, the reaction to Thompson’s murder has been very much ideological. (RELATED: Luigi Mangione’s Cognitive Dissonance) And dark. Democrats seem to find an orgiastic pleasure in the idea of murdering a corporate CEO. So much so, it seems, that Democrat talking heads are openly supporting Mangione. Here was someone named Briahna Gray, who went on Piers Morgan’s show and proclaimed a lack of empathy for Thompson… I could do an entire 5QT on the most disgusting left-wing reactions to Thompson’s murder. There are far worse ones than this. What’s most striking is how many there are. Thompson is almost like a stand-in for Trump, with his death a fantasy enactment of the unsuccessful Trump assassination attempts this summer. You can be sure that this will continue. We have a staggering number of mentally ill people out there who have made politics the foremost preoccupation of their lives (and I’m not just talking about Jen Rubin and Taylor Lorenz), and those people are wandering around lost over the fact that they lost an election to Hitler. Am I predicting that political violence is going to become the order of the day? I don’t think you’re going to see riots in the cities, no. But don’t be surprised if Brian Thompson is only the first of a sad parade of victims. Let’s not forget the swatting and bomb threats directed at Trump’s cabinet nominees. That’s another preview of what’s likely to come. Stay frosty out there. 2. This Is The Way It didn’t even take him a year. Argentina hasn’t run a surplus in 123 years but they’ve got one now. MILEI: ARGENTINA ENDS DEFICIT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 123 YEARS “The deficit was the root of all our evils—without it, there’s no debt, no emission, no inflation. Today, we have a sustained fiscal surplus, free of default, for the first time in 123 years. This historic… https://t.co/uszEgPd493 pic.twitter.com/nt5jJGQM1V — Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) December 11, 2024 Look for a free trade agreement between the U.S. and Argentina next year, and don’t be surprised to see Javier Milei’s reforms turn that into the fastest-growing economy in the world by the end of his term. (RELATED: Javier Milei: The Ricky Linderman America Needs) The analogy is to a basketball being held underwater. When that basketball is let go, its velocity shooting into the air is an impressive thing to behold. And Argentina has been held very much below the surface for a very long time. 3. ProPublica’s Aborted Pete Hegseth Smear You’ve probably heard about this, but in case you haven’t, the left-wing hack “news agency” ProPublica, which is both a vanity project for commie billionaires and a jobs program for Democrat propagandists disguised as journalists, planned a hit piece on Pete Hegseth which crashed and burned this week. The meat of this attack was to be that West Point officials were denying Hegseth’s claim that he’d been admitted to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point but opted not to attend. Hegseth was given one of those “we’re doing a hit piece on you and this is our obligatory notification and a chance to comment” messages. He did something smart, which is to post his acceptance letter from West Point on X before ProPublica could run their story, and thus set off an eruption of catcalls and sick burns directed at ProPublica for their failed attempt at a smear. ProPublica editor Jesse Eisinger attempted to deflect the ratio with this… Hegseth has said that he got into West Point but didn’t attend. We asked West Pt public affairs, which told us twice on the record that he hadn’t even applied there. We reached out. Hegseth’s spox gave us his acceptance letter. We didn’t publish a story. That’s journalism. https://t.co/TceZdglkmL — Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024 …but it didn’t help. Why? Because everyone noticed that Eisinger and his gang didn’t bother to cover the real story here, which is why West Point would be lying to ProPublica about Hegseth’s admission. Is this an indication of the Deep State’s attempts to resist a committed reformer at the Pentagon? Why yes, yes it is. But that isn’t of interest to ProPublica, is it? Of course, it isn’t. These people aren’t going to survive the new era which is arriving. They were built for a previous time, and the public has moved on. You can tell only so many lies before nobody’s listening. 4. There Are Still Hostages To The Woke, And Caitlin Clark Is One You’ve probably also heard about this… NEW: Caitlin Clark says she has white privilege in her TIME Athlete of the Year piece, says the WNBA is built on black players. As quoted by TIME, Clark says she earned her success but says she has privilege because she’s white. Clark says she now wants to help elevate… pic.twitter.com/TPKeDRdSGa — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 10, 2024 They’re hammering Clark for the “white privilege” stuff, as you would expect. The Daily Caller’s Andrew Stevens let her have it in a column on Tuesday, for example… If you’re Time, there was nobody else you were gonna be able to pick — Clark was literally the only option. Her performance in 2024 is undeniable. So with that being the case, why the hell is she feeling the need to bow down to wokeness? That’s exactly what she did in her Time piece that came out Tuesday, and just … give me a break, man. Time even described Clark as being “cognizant of the racial underpinnings of her stardom.” I’m going to be more charitable than Stevens was. Here’s the reality of Caitlin Clark’s situation: her well-being and athletic career are in danger whenever she sets foot on the hardwood. We saw that this past season when she single-handedly gave the WNBA a chance at profitability. Rather than recognize her as the Pete Maravich-style savior of the women’s game that she is, combining All-American relatability with a superb technical command of the game, the run-of-the-mill WNBA players’ crowd did everything they could to rough her up in game after game. So much so that midway through her rookie year, observers of the league were openly wondering how long it would be before somebody took out one of her knees. She’s doing the only thing she can do if she wants to make that stop, so she genuflects at the altar of wokeness. There’s a price to be paid for this, of course. A lot of people who were attracted to the women’s game because of Clark will see this prisoner’s confession and turn away, and Clark bending the knee to the woke horde will certainly make her personally less marketable. Because of those things, you can make a very reasonable, if not compelling, argument that she should have stood her ground and not babbled about her “white privilege.” But — and I said this when Drew Brees was made to bend the knee after criticizing NFL players who refused to salute the flag at the national anthem — an elite athlete only really gets to that level upon sacrificing everything else in his or her life to the goal of winning in the game. Caitlin Clark isn’t thinking about the larger implications of bending to the woke mob. She’s thinking about how to get treated like the other players in the WNBA so she isn’t taken out the next time she drives to the basket. Or, less demonstrably, so she isn’t presented as a white supremacist or Trumper among a WNBA fan base that looks mostly like the attendees at a Kamala rally and therefore shut out of the product endorsement game on which female players depend for compensation. You can criticize her for making those calculations. I’m here to tell you most athletes are going to do exactly what she’s doing if they think it will help them just play ball. And if your response is just to ignore the WNBA, then I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong. 5. This Is Also The Way Daniel Penny’s lawyer says they’re considering a lawsuit against Alvin Bragg, the Soros district attorney in New York who so maliciously and ridiculously wrecked his life for the “crime” of defending subway passengers against a drug-addled lunatic threatening their lives. Daniel Penny defense eyes Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg for potential malicious prosecution lawsuit | Fox News Jordan Neely case was rushed, involved ‘collusion,’ attorney says Days after his acquittal in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, lawyers for Marine veteran Daniel Penny… pic.twitter.com/ZT6Cvw0Ovt — Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) December 12, 2024 As I said above, lawfare is a double-edged sword. (RELATED:How Democrat Lawfare Launched Trump’s Comeback) And as I’ve said before, if you want to stop these aggressions against ordered liberty, they have to meet with recriminations. It isn’t enough that Penny beat Bragg’s rap for having choked out Jordan Neely on that train; Bragg needs to be taught a lesson and made to be afraid of the consequences of his conduct. So sue him and drag him through all the mud he’s dragged others through. This isn’t revenge. It’s self-defense — civilizational self-defense, to be more specific. You can’t just turn the other cheek in the face of an Alvin Bragg going all out to wreck the norms our society was built on (I’m not just talking about the Penny case here). You have to punish those aggressions. Force — power — is the only thing an Alvin Bragg understands. It has to be used against him. Hopefully, Penny’s lawyer will follow through on that lawsuit. READ MORE from Scott McKay: The Revivalist Era Begins The ‘Civil Rights’ Era Is Over. Good Riddance To It. The Old Game Continues Among the Worst GOP Senators The post Five Quick Things: Now You Find Out Who They Are appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.