{"id":1300,"date":"2026-02-13T09:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T09:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/2026\/02\/13\/2026-02-13-unity-argument-was-empty-rhetoric\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T23:10:59","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T23:10:59","slug":"2026-02-13-unity-argument-was-empty-rhetoric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/2026\/02\/13\/2026-02-13-unity-argument-was-empty-rhetoric\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Unity\u2019 argument was empty\u00a0rhetoric"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Christopher Corbin<\/a> · Contributing Writer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his Feb. 6 Perspectives column \u201cNo time for unity,\u201d Micaiah Brindle makes a number of bold assertions. He argues that the political left in the United States promotes an ideology that is too radical, too militant and too bigoted to be worked with, and as such it is the moral duty of conservatives, and especially Christians, to deny any ground to the left and to \u201cremove\u201d any ground given previously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This thesis is empty rhetoric. While the author provides many ideological talking points, the work provides few facts that support the thesis. The article, to use a line from the work, \u201centirely misses the reality of American politics in the 21st century.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo time for unity\u201d opens with the assertion that \u201cleftism necessarily stands for anti-American, anti-Christian and anti-white principles,\u201d thus immediately dehumanizing those on \u201cthe left.\u201d Those who adhere to \u201cleftism\u201d aren\u2019t Christian. They aren\u2019t Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author continues, stating that \u201cthe cult of transgenderism and abortion\u201d were dominant leftist policies in the 2024 elections, with \u201cmass immigration\u201d being the only acceptable policy for leftists on immigration. Neither abortion nor \u201ctransgenderism\u201d were top priorities for either party in the last election, though they did make good strawmen to attack each other with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The official 2024 Democratic Party platform dedicated its first 50 pages and five chapters to economic concerns before dedicating four pages to \u201creproductive freedom\u201d and \u201cLGBTQI,\u201d both of which are just smaller sections within a larger chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is also true for the Republican platform. Of its 20 stated promises only two, promises 16 and 17, remotely relate to \u201ctransgenderism.\u201d The first 15 promises instead focus almost entirely on military, energy, economic and immigration concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abortion is not mentioned in the promises, and President Trump ultimately sidestepped the issue and left it up to the states. As for said immigration concerns, the Democratic platform called for strengthening the border while providing more resources for legal immigration, not the \u201cmass immigration\u201d the author implies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the meat of the argument in \u201cNo time for unity\u201d comes when the author claims \u201cAs a result of left-wing ideology \u2026 violence is increasingly occurring. This ranges from school shootings, often against Christians, by transsexuals inspired by their mental insanity and targeted political assassinations.\u201d This is not true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If left-wing ideology promoted mass shootings and political assassinations the numbers would indicate it. Instead, the reverse is indicated. The National Institute of Justice found in 2024, that \u201cthe number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism. Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed \u2026 227 events that took more than 520 lives. In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.\u201d That the Department of Justice took this report down a week after Charlie Kirk\u2019s death is, of course, just coincidental.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school shooting the author is likely referring to is the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting. While it is true that the shooter had identified as a transwoman, establishing an ideological basis for the shooting has proven much more difficult for investigators, given that the shooter made frequent usage of antisemitic language and idolized Nazism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with this incident, the claim about school shootings is not supported by data. The Gun Violence Archive considers a single event during which four or more people are shot a mass shooting. Between Jan. 1, 2013 and Sept. 15, 2025, 5,748 mass shootings have occurred, of which five were perpetrated by confirmed transpeople, or less than 0.01% of them. Given that 0.8% of the U.S. population is trans, this does not demonstrate a population more prone to mass shootings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only one group shows a particular inclination to this sort of violence, as the vast majority of mass shootings are perpetrated by men. According to research by the National Library of Medicine, most mass shootings are impulsive and emotionally driven. They are not motivated by gender identity, political ideology or mental illness, and it should be stated that contrary to what \u201cNo time for unity\u201d implies, being transgender does not constitute mental insanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo time for unity\u201d also cites the assassination attempts on President Trump as examples of leftist political violence. Again, the truth is more complicated. The political ideology of Thomas Crooks, the first would-be assassin, is also difficult to determine. He had written in 2019, for example, \u201cI hope a quick painful death to all the deplorable immigrants and anti-trump congresswoman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investigators believe that Crooks turned on the president for his actions during the pandemic, and that he felt that political power could only be achieved through violence. Ryan Routh, the other attempted assassin on President Trump, again has a murky political history, but had most recently registered as an independent, and in a Twitter post claimed to have voted for Trump in 2016. It seems he started planning the assassination after the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, \u201cNo time for unity\u201d uses these claims to conclude that \u201cthe left has become militarized against normal Americans to the point where politics has become existential \u2026 when a group defines itself by opposition to \u2026 (your religion, race, ideology) … working with that group is no longer possible.\u201d This claim is then undermined by the author writing, two sentences later, \u201cthe American right \u2014 the opposition to the left \u2014 must be a reactionary movement, tailor made to combat the left.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, the left is evil because it is militarized and defines itself in opposition to the right, thus the solution is for the right, defined only as the group in opposition to the left, to become a hardline and militarized reactionary movement ready to \u201cremove\u201d ground given to the left, in order to establish \u201cits vision of traditional Americanism.\u201d After all, \u201cnormal\u201d Americans aren\u2019t leftist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hypocrisy, thus, becomes obvious. This sort of radical, bigoted and militant thought from the right is just as guilty of destroying attempts at unity as any action on the left. The author has exposed himself as the very thing he claims to be fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre we not required as Christians to oppose evil where we find it?\u201d asks \u201cNo time for unity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, we are, but not like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our savior rode a donkey, not a warhorse. He told us to love our enemies. He said to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus died for everyone. Hatred for people is anathema to his character. We must seek truth and unity. Conflict with each other only benefits evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

existential \u2026 when a group defines itself by opposition to \u2026 (your religion, race, ideology) … working with that group is no longer possible.\u201d This claim is then undermined by the author writing, two sentences later, \u201cthe American right – the opposition to the left – must be a reactionary movement, tailor made to combat the left.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, the left is evil because it is militarized and defines itself in opposition to the right, thus the solution is for the right, defined only as the group in opposition to the left, to become a hardline and militarized reactionary movement ready to \u201cremove\u201d ground given to the left, in order to establish \u201cits vision of traditional Americanism.\u201d After all, \u201cnormal\u201d Americans aren\u2019t leftist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hypocrisy, thus, becomes obvious. This sort of radical, bigoted, and militant thought from the right is just as guilty of destroying attempts at unity as any action on the left. The author has exposed himself as the very thing he claims to be fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre we not required as Christians to oppose evil where we find it?\u201d asks \u201cNo time for unity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, we are, but not like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our savior rode a donkey, not a warhorse. He told us to love our enemies. He said to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus died for everyone. Hatred for people is anathema to his character. We must seek truth and unity. Conflict with each other only benefits evil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his Feb. 6 Perspectives column \u201cNo time for unity,\u201d Micaiah Brindle makes a number of bold assertions. He argues that the political left in the United States promotes an ideology that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[215],"tags":[111,16,45],"class_list":["post-1300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions","tag-christopher-corbin","tag-editorial-perspectives","tag-issue-2026-02-13"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Ian Schartner","author_link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/author\/schartnerij23\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"In his Feb. 6 Perspectives column \u201cNo time for unity,\u201d Micaiah Brindle makes a number of bold assertions. He argues that the political left in the United States promotes an ideology that","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1756,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions\/1756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}