Last week, I summarized the Resistance that began even before Donald Trump was elected President in 2016 and the movement’s goal of overturning the election by impeachment as Democrats explicitly stated before Trump even took office. What I didn’t address in any detail -- as regretted by some of the 182 wonderful commenters who responded to the article -- are the outcomes that likely will follow the impeachment proceedings whether the Dems succeed or fail.

Why? There’s rough road ahead no matter which of the opponents wins. The two sides of the deepening conflict are very different in their composition and hot-button issues, but also especially in responses to losing.

The Traditionalists consist of Red-State voters, gun owners, a segment of current and former military (of unknown size and influence), a few conservative church and faith leaders, conservative radio commentators, a shrinking number of Fox celebrity commentators, and some outstanding blogs like Powerline, Instapundit and American Thinker. In addition, we have House members at the hearing, including California’s Devin Nunes, Ohio’s Jim Jordan, and New York’s Elise Stefanik, who are powerful spokespersons. We also have a growing number of compelling writers like Victor Davis Hanson, Mollie Hemingway, and Andrew McCarthy who are providing outstanding analyses and commentaries. In terms of issues, Traditionalists respond to attacks or impingements on religious liberty, free speech, Second Amendment rights, the life issue, the need for conservative judges, and originalism in interpreting the Constitution. Here, the Traditionalists, who rely more on factual content and logical coherence, are at a distinct disadvantage in that their issues don’t stir the emotions as much as those employed by the Resistance.

In contrast, the Resistance consists of influential power brokers. They are the Democrats in the House majority, the media (including mainstream and cable television), Hollywood and entertainment celebrities, Deep State bureaucrats, radical judges/courts, university administrations, faculty and students, Antifa, Black Lives Matter, many liberal church leaders, numerous blog sites like Politico and Huffington Post, along with Drudge, who has gone over to the dark side.  The Resistance has seemingly unlimited resources, including multiple big-pocket funding sources as well as both offensive and defensive weapons they use without compunction: media attacks, Twitter storms, boycotts, marches, and demonstrations in the streets, physical attacks and intimidation, rioting, and arson. In terms of issues, students in particular resonate with Resistance ones like immigration, the LGBT agenda, radical environmentalism, racial inequality (though increasingly with low black unemployment, this issue is a hard sell!), and white privilege, which the education establishment is committed to shove down the Deplorables’ throats.  And, perhaps the most important difference is that for the Resistance, politics is their religion, which they live and breathe 24/7.

For all those reasons, if the Democrats win this sham of an impeachment proceeding and the 2020 election, we should be very frightened, because a victory will usher in an era of governance that will lead to a timeline similar to what happened to Venezuela. There is a poster making the rounds of social media that details the rapid progression of Venezuela’s descent from the jewel of South America to starvation and government-sponsored assassinations in the street. Many of today’s advocates for socialism have no recollection of Venezuela in 1992 as the third-richest country in the world. Nor do they understand that Venezuela’s socialist president ran on “income inequality” in 2001 and shortly afterward put into place the same list of “reforms” as the ones now being advocated by today’s Democratic candidates and some of their more radical allies -- healthcare under government control, free higher education, guns confiscated, opposition leaders imprisoned, elections suspended, etc.

If the Democrats prevail, the stock market boom and economic growth enjoyed under Trump and his wonderful pro-life and pro-family policy initiatives will be wiped out. The pro-growth tax cuts and deregulation that have produced growing prosperity across the country will be reversed. We will see policies enacted that inevitably end in disaster and loss of freedoms just as occurred next door in Cuba and Venezuela: single-payer healthcare, systems overwhelmed by illegal immigrants and more sanctuary cities harboring criminals, eradication of our religious freedoms (freedom of speech, expelling faith from the public square, and inhibitions on worship and religious expression). Our education system will increasingly consist of indoctrination and achievement scores will deteriorate further. We’ll once again bow to other nations and apologize for being America. We’ll turn soft on terrorism again. The victim population will expand and more and more of our cities will look like Los Angeles or San Francisco.

On the other hand, if the current attempt to impeach Trump fails and President Trump wins re-election, the Democrats will go ballistic. Having failed at three years of undermining him and formal coup attempts, our nation will likely see violence rivaling the worst in our history and on a scale like we’ve never seen before. Democrats are sore losers and, as we’ve seen repeatedly, are determined to get their way whatever the cost to the nation.  Thwarting them after they’ve put everything on the line for impeachment will unleash the passions of their extremists, Antifa and Black Lives Matter. It’s become more and more typical for radicals to deal with any barrier to their unrealistic Utopian schemes by street violence and rioting. An overview of past riots indicates what is possible when hatred and fury prevail:

• In 1965, the Watts Riots lasted six days with nearly 1,000 buildings looted, damaged, and set on fire, 34 people killed, and 3,500 arrested.
• In 1967, the Detroit Riots ended up with 43 people dead, 2,000 buildings destroyed and 7,400 people arrested.
• The 1992 Rodney King riots in LA caused 63 deaths, about 1,100 buildings damaged from hundreds of fires with total property damage of about $1 billion.
• During the recent 2015 riots in Baltimore, more than 100 citizens took to the streets to throw bricks and bottles. Approximately 300 businesses were damaged, 27 stores looted, 150 vehicles were burned, at least 20 police officers were injured and the city was in a State of Emergency for nearly a month. During the next month there were 43 homicides and more than 100 non-fatal shootings.
• During the most recent Charlottesville Riot, the police and National Guard did not protect the demonstrators or the public. What was said about the Charlottesville riot could easily apply to the unease associated with the great divide over the current impeachment hearings; they are a “milestone of America’s path to an ugly future.”

As Americans look at the farce unfolding at the rigged impeachment hearings that trample the norms of fairness and due process, we should be very afraid of that future and prepare to protect our citizens and property. If they fail in their efforts to erode the general public’s support for Trump, the future for deluded Democrats is dire. As they desperately try to drive the duly-elected president from office in order to regain what they feel is their right to power, they are risking all credibility. None of their pathetic, unpalatable Dem candidates has the charisma to inspire middle-American voters. Clearing the path of any obstacle to victory for the Democrat nominee in 2020 is obviously the only thing that Pelosi and Schiff and the rest of the Deep State apparatchiks care about. It is their only hope of survival.

We should work to ensure that President Trump and his policies prevail. We’re going to need someone hard-nosed and strong enough to hold the country together during the aftermath of this manufactured crisis and attack on the nation’s democratic processes.