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Trump officials are fleeing their homes in the face of left-wing threats, but The Atlantic says the problem is actually Trump’s rhetoric.

The threat of left-wing violence against senior members of the Trump administration is so severe that families with young children are being forced to vacate their homes and live on military bases. According to The Atlantic, they had it coming.

Officials such as top adviser Stephen Miller, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, and an unnamed senior White House official have been forced to live in military housing, far more than in previous administrations, the Atlantic’s Michael Scherer, Missy Ryan, and Ashley Parker noted in a Thursday piece.

The authors have some thoughts about why, facing a dramatic uptick in threats and assassination attempts by leftists against conservatives, these officials might be uprooting from their family homes. The culprit, they declare, is “the nation’s polarization, to which the Trump administration has itself contributed.” Stephen Miller basically invited kooks to show up at his house and terrorize his wife and kids, see, by advocating for an immigration policy that hurts leftists’ feelings. (The irony is lost on The Atlantic writers that the group warning the Millers [that] their kind will “not be tolerated” calls itself Arlington Neighbors United for Humanity.)

Miller, whom leftists like this guy publicly and casually fantasize about murdering, is “known for his inflammatory political rhetoric” and “regularly derides Democrats with inflammatory language,” the authors remind us. He was probably wearing a short skirt, too.

The Atlantic even found a source to blame the military for providing protection for Cabinet officials and their families. Keeping them safe on bases is “problematic,” says Johns Hopkins prof Adria Lawrence, because the military of a “robust democracy” should be “for the defense of the country as a whole and not just one party.” (Lawrence looks, let’s just say, exactly how you might expect.)

Another academic conveniently told The Atlantic’s readers that yes, political violence is a problem, but it’s an issue for Both Sides^TM. To demonstrate this claim, the authors cited an example of Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken being harassed by protesters who camped out at his house and “spattered fake blood on cars as they passed by.” Awkwardly for the Atlantic, these protesters were leftists angry that the Biden administration was not pandering enough to terrorist-run Gaza.

Lest you risk feeling sorry for the Millers’ three small children, The Atlantic reassures us that being run out of your home and onto a military base is actually a “status symbol” that confers “a certain sheen of importance” upon the displaced family.

“The isolation of living on a military base, at least for civilians, has also created a deeper division between Trump’s advisers and the metropolitan area where they govern,” the authors continue. “Trump-administration officials, who regularly mock the nation’s capital as a crime-ridden hellscape, now find themselves in a protected bubble…”

Did you catch that? Trump officials deserve no peace at their homes because they’re fascists. As evidence of their fascist tendencies, just look to the fact that they’re living on military bases and not among normal Democrat voters who want them murdered! Too bad the Trump administration has, um, shown no interest at all in addressing the rampant crime problem in Democrat-controlled Washington.

The authors go on to stress how ridiculous it was for the Trump administration to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization after the assassination of conservative powerhouse Charlie Kirk and multiple attempted assassinations of federal immigration agents. (Kirk’s very-online shooter engraved his cartridges with language calling Kirk a fascist, and the July 4 attack on a Texas ICE facility was allegedly carried out by an Antifa cell.) The authors downplay the move by noting that “the category of domestic terrorist organization has no meaning in federal law.” They must have forgotten that in 2020, their paper ran a piece urging the creation of a “Domestic Terrorist Organization” designation to fight racism.

Just as bad as the Atlantic piece is a writeup by The New York Times, which frames the story not as one of Democrat violence driving families from their homes but of “Trump administration officials taking over military residences.”

“It is unclear why so many Trump administration officials have sought to live on military bases,” John Ismay and Hamed Aleaziz write in the Times. Why might people who saw their friend assassinated in broad daylight, saw the president survive at least two assassination attempts, and saw a Republican-appointed Supreme Court justice survive an assassination attempt after left-wing protesters swarmed justices’ homes, want to minimize the risk to their families? It’s just impossible to say, really.

Either Ismay and Aleaziz are wilfully ignoring the obvious threat of left-wing violence, or they possess the collective observational skills of a box of rocks — both disqualifying traits for self-styled reporters.

It’s just so baffling, they continue, because Obama Defense Secretaries Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel “felt secure in their homes” when they were in office. What could possibly be different for Trump officials? If Panetta wasn’t scared of Tea Party grandmas, surely the Millers can shrug off the threat of antifa mobs and leftists like Virginia Democrat Jay Jones calling for the murder of Republicans?

Remember kids, political violence is a Both Sides^TM problem.

*****

This article was published by The Federalist and is reproduced with permission.

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Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Editors’ Note: As we have been saying for months, this infiltration by “haters” into the Conservative movement is against Conservative principles and, tactically speaking, a huge potential threat to our brand. It also risks fracturing the Conservative movement at a time when we need all the power and unity we can muster. If you are not familiar with Fuentes, Ben Shapiro did a great job in letting this young hot head hang himself with his own words. The man hates Jews, women, Christians who align with Israel, and just about every other group.  Then, on occasion, he says some things one can agree with. Somewhere, the notion of “cancelling” has become confused.  When Rosanne Barr lost her job at the network for making what now seems like a relatively innocent remark, that was “cancellation”.  When one thinks of Tucker Carlson, who has had guests on —from Darryl Cooper to Nick Fuentes —who say patently wrong and ahistorical things, and who leaves them unchallenged, that is bad journalism. And it has become a pattern.  We are not saying Tucker should not have a show, nor are we saying Fuentes is not free to speak his bile.  We are saying both of them should be roundly condemned for it, and Conservatives need to say, “Fuentes is not one of us.” That is not cancellation; that is pushing back and preserving the integrity of the Conservative movement. Ostracizing is not the same as cancelling. We commend the editor of the Daily Caller, as Tucker was a cofounder of the site but has been separated from it for some time. Nevertheless, The Daily Caller had the courage and integrity to call out both Fuentes and Carlson. We are sorry to see equivocation from the Heritage Foundation. We hope they can get themselves sorted out because they are too crucial to the Conservative Movement.  To us at The Prickly Pear, Fuentes is so hateful and ignorant that it seems just natural to call for his removal from the Conservative movement.  It really is not that hard.  If Conservatives don’t police our own ranks, how is that going to look to the people we are trying to convince? Both Tucker and Fuentes are free to peddle their bilge to skinheads and neo-Nazis, but we don’t want the public to think they are Conservatives.

Greetings, Dear Reader,
We’re entering bizarre, yet totally predictable territory.
Heritage is in damage control. Conservatives are pooh-poohing each other. Meanwhile, Mamdani is poised to take over Trump’s hometown and “Arctic Frost” looms heavy.
And before all of this came to pass, I had a fateful conversation among friends in which I called it all inevitable.

CONSERVATIVES IN DISARRAY

Certainty is a rarity in this business, but nevertheless, it does seem almost certain that Heritage’s President Kevin Roberts was getting bad advice.

The whole thing started with Tucker Carlson interviewing Nick Fuentes. Fuentes is relevant for two primary reasons. First, he’s rapidly become one of the most popular podcasters in the country. (More on this later.)

Second, philosophically and politically, his stated belief is that the U.S. government should show preference for white people. He thinks America should be a white, religious ethnostate. He reiterated this belief, albeit in the most moderate tones imaginable, in his time on Tucker’s show.

“We do … on some level … need to be pro-white. Not to the exclusion of other people, but just recognizing that white people have a special heritage here.”

Special racial status is by its nature exclusionary. We know this from history as well as recent history when universities gave bonus points to black applicants simply for being black.

Right along with Fuentes’s belief comes disdain or outright hostility toward other ethnic groups. And this isn’t casual racism, like asking why black people talk in movie theaters. It’s visceral, deep-seated hatred.

I understand what racial division looks like. I lived in two majority Hispanic communities. The Koreans hate the blacks, the blacks hate the Koreans, and everyone hates the Puerto Ricans and their obnoxious parades. Racism, contra prevailing university claptrap, is not for whites only.

Chief among Fuentes’s ethnic targets is, of course, Jews. And that’s where the real trouble starts for everyone.

A few months ago, in friendly company with various Republican operatives and communicators, I raised the issue of Israel.

“Is JD ready for it?” was the primary question I asked, under the assumption JD would be assuming Trump’s mantle in 2028.

The spine of the question is rather simple: Youth on both political ends of the spectrum are growing tired of Washington’s tether to Israel. It also doesn’t appear to be the kind of disregard that abates as years pass. No, in fact, it’s growing; it’s not irrational, and it can’t be ignored.

What’s more, this Israel debate is diverse. It ranges from people on the left who think the country should be outright annihilated all the way to the right, where intellectuals and common youth alike openly wonder how getting tied up in regional conflicts is in the interests of Americans.

Setting aside the most bloodthirsty among us, including the viciously and explicitly antisemitic, a growing chorus is openly asking why we keep getting stuck with the tab for Jerusalem’s foibles.

The national security blob would say going to war with Iran actually deters Beijing, but that explanation is losing its purchase. More and more, such adventures are viewed as they rightfully should be, in my opinion: Protecting and enriching the interests of wealthy and aging global elites at the cost of very young lives.

So the youth is understandably skeptical and getting more hostile by the day.

At best, Washington’s entanglement is a hefty bill in a time that calls for rapid redeployment of resources. Yes, China needs deterring and artificial intelligence needs power and 20 million illegal aliens need lassoing. But also can we start building homes again? Can we underwrite trades instead of universities?

At worst, it’s an obligation to another endless war in which we send the treasure of our youth to go die without a clear understanding of the upside. Something about showing Putin who’s boss?

They’re not buying it.

I believe that these unbelievers in old foreign policy assumptions will hit a critical mass on both sides of the aisle in the next 5-10 years.

I hope JD is ready for it.

—

Nick Fuentes is popular. Why is he popular? It’s obvious and layered at the same time.

First and foremost, he speaks uncomfortable truths loudly. Coming off a decade of vicious suppression for things as pedestrian as “hey, do these masks actually work?” you can see why someone as unapologetic as Fuentes would gain traction.

In a world where the prevailing left was both in control of institutions and utterly insane, someone saying obvious things in the most offensive, obnoxious terms imaginable is bound to gain a following.

And what was so insane about them? Let me count the ways.

They said men can be women. They suppressed studies showing child sex changes were actually bad. They suppressed studies showing the vaccine didn’t work well, or worse, actually hurt people. They shut down churches and schools. They arrested people for going outside. They told us to ignore the dozens, then hundreds, of illegals loitering outside the convenience stores and street corners and hardware stores in small-town America. It’s good actually. Ignore the unchecked immigration. Ignore the crime. The crime isn’t actually happening. How about this: Let’s legalize the crime! They instituted policies that were explicitly hostile to white people. They did this everywhere, from book scholarships at high schools to entrance exams to job applications to movie castings in Hollywood. They even held blacks-only events. They paraded nude men in front of children and called it progress. They even made it quasi-legal to assault people who spoke up about all this. Then they started assassinating us.

Given all that, why Fuentes is popular is obvious.

Second, a lot of what he says when he isn’t raving about “Jewry” or white nationalism is actually correct. Washington’s chief consideration at all times should be: How does this serve Americans? Rapidly altering the demographics of a town, city or state over just a handful of years is a recipe for disaster.

Also, can we please start arresting the criminals again?

Like most extremism in history, it garnishes itself in enormously popular ideas. Entire villages turned themselves over to ISIS in Iraq because Baghdad’s death squads were a decidedly worse option. We’ll cut your hands off if you smoke or drink and your women are slaves now, but you won’t be dead and you’ll have security, running water and food.

If the officials have abandoned you to the excesses and insanities of the extremists on the left, or worse, joined in the fun of destroying everything you love, the Fuenteses of the world start to look like much more attractive leaders.

It’s an absence of effective, constructive and, yes, even zealous leadership that gives rise to folks like Nick Fuentes. It’s the absence or disruption of discourse that makes them more attractive.

We’d do well to remember both.

—

What’s happening to Kevin Roberts right now is what’ll happen to JD eventually if he doesn’t learn from the mistakes and lean into questions as easily foretold as “Why are we going to war for Israel?”

Following the interview with Fuentes, Heritage came under immense pressure to distance itself from Tucker. I imagine what we saw in public was just a smidgen of what they were getting in private, I’m sure in no small part from viciously pro-Israel donors as well.

Heritage made a critical mistake here: It stealth-edited its site to remove mention of Tucker.

At that point, blood is in the water. The calls for a statement hit a critical point, and Roberts made another mistake: He actually made a statement.

Remember, aside from stealth editing their site, at this point, Heritage itself has done nothing wrong. Certainly nothing to merit a statement. They didn’t interview Fuentes, Tucker did.

You can watch the Roberts statement for yourself. The tone is weak. The overall message – besides that he stands with Tucker – is rather unclear. Leaving things like racial hatred open for interpretation is bound to get you pilloried. Good lord, Kevin, the left thinks everyone right of Don Lemon is a Nazi.

What did you expect?

In it, he says he’s against cancellation. A few days later, Heritage fires his top aide, a father of four, for reasons not explicitly stated.

Then he sprinted through every podcast imaginable over the weekend, doing damage control. He finally landed at Hillsdale College, where he explicitly apologized and condemned antisemitism in direct terms.

The funniest part of all this is none of it was necessary. The second funniest part is that nobody in their right mind actually believes Roberts or the Heritage Foundation is a hotbed of antisemitism. Almost none of it is honest.

Heritage should have just done nothing. Would they have lost money from deep-pocketed donors who also happen to demand frequent loyalty statements to foreign capitals? Yes, definitely.

But losing money and remaining distinguished is orders of magnitude better than losing money and debasing yourself.

—

As we consider the factional spat that’s wracked conservatives this week, I think this tweet from Adrian Vermeule is relevant.

The main thing most of my people in DC, the White House and Capitol Hill have been discussing amid all this is: Why aren’t we talking about the “Arctic Frost” disclosures showing how the IC teamed up with Obama and Hillary to overthrow a duly elected administration? Why aren’t we talking about how Mamdani got so popular? Why in the world are we debating whether the Heritage Foundation is antisemitic when the Ivy Leagues allowed swaths of terrorist sympathizers to disrupt the educations of Jews and gentiles alike?

—

Tucker did the right thing talking to Fuentes. Suppressing people only makes them more popular. Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say.

I used to love talking to the Nation of Islam guys when I lived in New York City. It wasn’t long before the conversations became comically feverish.

We can Monday morning quarterback the Tucker interview all we want, but it won’t be the last one Fuentes has. I’d love to see Fuentes go on Piers Morgan next. I’d love to see him so popularized that people reacquaint themselves with the folly of institutionally imposed racial hierarchies the same way I saw the crazy in the eyes of the Islam types, the same way we saw the crazy in racially preferred college admissions. I’m shocked we need to do that again, but it appears we do.

I hate to sound like an absolutist here, but I think the cure to folks like Fuentes is actually more engagement with him, not less.

One bit that went unnoticed by the frothing mania following the interview is how often Tucker attempted to intellectually inoculate Fuentes’s thoughts on Jews, specifically in biblical terms.

—

My last thought on this is that all of it should provide a rough roadmap for JD, should he in fact take the White House in 2028.

The debate around our relationship with Israel is only going to get more pitched.

If we leave it to the savages on both sides, it’ll turn into another Heritage situation or another campus situation, but way worse.

Best to head them off, to stand up and say something compelling and true, to implement diplomacy and policy that’s reflective of American interests and also compassionate to longstanding alliances, and to do all of that without a single trope in sight.

Otherwise, they’re going to come for you, Mr. Vance, and what Roberts went through will pale by comparison.

*****

This article was published by The Daily Caller News Foundation and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: YouTube Screenshot Liberty Lockdown