How the Rhode Island opposition can stop harassment.
This suggestion from Nicole Solas has stayed near the top of my “to post” list for a month because it gets to an important strategic discussion too often rushed through on the Rhode Island right.
Nicole retweeted the picture used as the featured image of this post, which was posted by Kara. The “thank you” card reads, “Get the hell out of NK + stay in Coventry where you belong.” Nicole suggests:
If u receive notes of harassment & intimidation from political opponents, report ur legitimate, good faith basis of harassment, stalking, or intimidation to the police. Leftists files reports of fantasy thought crime in “bias reporting” systems & then uses those fake reports to justify more oppressive bias reporting policies like KGB General Garland’s memo marking parents as domestic terrorists. Unlike the lying left, conservatives actually are being harassed, and we need to file every single report of harassment to fight back.
We need to adopt leftist tactics to beat them at their own game. Leave no stone unturned. Answer them blow for blow. Every leftist misstep needs a formal complaint whether it’s filed in the school district, police station, ethics commission or court of law. Fight fire with fire.
The reason this is an important discussion to have is that we’re on a spinning wheel. In Rhode Island, and even within my own town, I’ve watched newly engaged people push back in exactly this way and ultimately burn out without having accomplished the needed correction. The primary reason it fails is that such solutions require some semblance of fairness in the news media, the police, the attorney general’s office, and the judiciary, and Rhode Island is just too far gone.
I brought a giant stack of harassing messages from one person to our local police, who seemed to agree they were, on their face, cyberharassment — targeting my children and actively using social media and other methods of online communication to get organizations to intimidate me and deprive me of employment and recognition. We can debate whether cyberharassment ought to be a crime, but if it is a crime (which it is) this was definitely it. The solicitor who handles local police prosecutions rejected the complaint, and there was no investigation.
Look at Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots versus January 6 at the Capitol. Although the incidents are usually less profound, the double standard is even more pronounced at the state and local level. Leftist outrages are excused or ignored, but if you’re a conservative, your (much less aggressive) response will be treated as the greatest of offenses.
As this plays out, your supporters will become frustrated, and most will give up, either returning to their lives or even leaving the state. Those of us who stay engaged, having learned from our mistakes, look up from our recovery and see a group of newly engaged people insisting that the solution is to push back and fight fire with fire. Been there, done that.
I could definitely be wrong, here; it’s possible this new wave will accomplish something where others have failed. But I think Nicole’s advice will prove wrong. The sheer volume of the offenses will work against you. One formal complaint is news (or maybe not, in our current environment). Dozens are noise. The media and the Democrats in power have no sympathy for you. Most think you deserve to be harassed, if they’re being honest.
On the other side of the question, there are many Rhode Islanders who are not that far gone. The problem is that they believe (and deeply need to believe) that the system is fair. So, when your formal complaints go nowhere, they’ll count that against you. They’ll assume there’s something they’re not seeing that made your complaint frivolous or the circumstances different than they thought. I mean, the Attorney General of the State of Rhode Island wouldn’t ignore (say) a library board’s obvious violations of open meetings laws in order to enforce partisan differences in who can use public property, right? (Not a made-up example.)
If formal complaints are a potential liability, however, informal ones can still have power. Conservative Rhode Islanders need to keep track of these incidents in some centralized, easy-to-find place and spread awareness. People need to make up their own minds without reference to our corrupt authorities, because you’re not going to stop the harassment, much less turn it into a political advantage, by appealing to the most corrupt and harassing among us.
In fact, the only way you’ll stop the harassment is by making it obvious that it’s giving you political advantage. You have to appeal to your neighbors.