We are in bad times, with much worse to come.

At American Greatness, Victor Davis Hanson writes under this headline: History’s Bad Ideas are an Inspiration to Progressives.

…progressives see the court as an arm of the progressive movement that can enact social justice otherwise impossible either through referenda or their elected representatives. They see it as their own private domain (better even than the social fiat power of the armed forces) and essential to checking the ignorance of the irredeemables and deplorables.

…The nihilistic idea of nullification helped spark the Civil War. The few times the lethal gambit was repeated—we all remember George Wallace in 1963 standing in the door of the University of Alabama, defying federally ordered integration—it was usually smashed, given its ultimate logic was the replacement of America by the Founders’ nightmare of weak, feuding, and warring antithetical sovereign nations.

…In fact, the Left has resurrected an entire host of once discredited ideas from the nation’s past that reveal the new illiberal progressive ethos and remind us why those practices were odious in the first place. A new drive to limit free speech is underway, not just on campuses but also on social media. The effort is almost entirely progressive-driven and based on the assumption that what people sometimes say and think does not contribute to a progressive narrative, especially when it is more logical and persuasive than the efforts of the censors.

Nullification has indeed resulted in an emasculation of immigration law and helped redefine even criminal illegal aliens as victims of unfair federal intrusions rather than perpetrators of often violent crime.

Safe spaces empower the entire identity politics movement and bully anyone who sees a naked racist emperor arrayed in progressive robes.

Barring entry to a customer, or forcing her to leave the premises intimidates opponents and sends a message: obey or don’t eat, gas up, or stay overnight. For a time, such discrimination worked in the South and elsewhere in ostracizing opponents and reformers, and for the present moment it apparently is seen as valuable in bullying Trump supporters into retreating into the shadows and finding underground safe establishments.

To survive and spread, exalted righteousness always excuses tawdry methods, given the supposed ignorance and gullibility of the unenlightened.

Short-term expediency is well worth the goal of regaining power. Any smell from low tactics later can be perfumed away—once power is back in the correct hands.

…We are in bad times, with much worse to come.

Read more here.