Orlando Terrorist Attack Is Deadly Threat to Left’s Agenda

The Left is being forced to acknowledge that the Orlando terrorist attack is an existential threat to its agenda, amid an election already focused on America’s inability to control world affairs and its own borders.

The Left’s agenda to eradicate the nation state through open borders and disarmament is in real trouble after a known radicalized Islamist, with a connection to a suicide bomber, whose father broadcast a radio show supporting the Taliban, who was given security clearances and weapons licenses to work on DHS contracts, claimed allegiance to ISIS while methodically slaughtering 50 Americans in Orlando.

Prior to the Orlando attack, data revealed that terrorism and national security ranked second behind economic growth as the most important priority for all Americans, according to the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

But that was because just 11 percent of US Democrats ranked terrorism and national security as their highest priority. In contrast, 33 percent of Republicans and 26 percent of independents ranked terrorism and national security as their highest priority.

Although there have not been any new polls since the attack to gauge changes in US voters’ attitudes, the traumatic loss of life and visible gore is bound to have substantial psychological and political consequences.

Following the deadliest mass shooting in US history, gun sales immediately spiked, and the price of firearms makers’ stocks surged on June 13. Smith & Wesson Holding Corp’s stock leaped 11.6 percent, while Sturm Ruger & Co Inc. shares jumped 10.7 percent.

Across the Atlantic, Breitbart News reported just before the terrorist attack that the polls indicated that UK voters favored a June 23 referendum vote on leaving the European Union by 10 percent. But following the attack, the pro-“Brexit” campaign quickly plastered posters across the nation warning, “Islamist extremism is a real threat to our way of life. Act now before we see an Orlando-style atrocity here before too long.”

In the first effort at damage control, Hank Plante, Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist, who was one of the first openly-gay TV reporters, tried to shift blame for the carnage onto conservatives by publishing an op-ed titled, “Orlando shooting: Hate speech Lit the Fuse.” In a classic Leftist victimization screed, Plante wrote:

Every anti-gay politician, every bigoted preacher, every self-hating bully has blood on his hands. Make no mistake about it, the shooting in Orlando which targeted the LGBT community was the end result of decades of anti-gay hate speech and gay bashings.

The focus of Plante’s argument was blaming the terrorist attack on conservative Catholic Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for expressing sympathy about “the way radical Islamists have targeted gays and lesbians in other countries.”

Plante assigns the Senator culpability for inspiring the terrorist attack because LGBT publication The Advocate concluded last year, “Marco Rubio might be the most anti-gay presidential candidate yet.”

Most Americans know nothing about the credibility of The Advocate. But it is the same publication that wrote about how hilarious it was when gay British comedian and BBC host Stephen Fry in 2010 claimed: “I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want.”

Despite the misogynistic comments, Plante did not call for shutting down The Advocate or having Fry terminated as host of the BBC state-owned television quiz show called QI. Fry continued as the host of QI for six more years, until he retired.

To get a sense of the threat from the terrorist attack to the Democratic Party, the April WSJ/NBC News monthly survey of US voters found Republicans had a 19-point advantage over Democrats — 43 to 24 percent — regarding which party would do a better job of dealing with ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

But in a contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Clinton held a 17 percent advantage over Trump, 37 to 20 percent.

But just hours after the June 13 terrorist attack, Donald Trump was quick to state a call to action: “We’re not tough enough; we need to respond.”

It took another day and tremendous media scrutiny before Hillary Clinton used the term “radical Islamism.” NBC News called Clinton’s use of the term “marking the first time she has used the controversial phrase and signaling a break from President Barack Obama’s stance on it.”