The Daniel Penny Verdict is a Turning Point

So, when that criminal stepped onto the New York subway on May 3 of last year and began, per witnesses, “ranting insanely,” claiming that someone was going to die that day and that he did not mind going back to prison, the passengers were understandably terrified. Some prayed. Some tried to hide. Others tried to avoid eye contact.

One man bravely did not run or hide. Marine veteran Daniel Penny did what he had been trained to do in the face of danger to his fellow Americans.

He bravely confronted the criminal and subdued him with a chokehold. The criminal, with enough drugs in his body (per the medical examiner) to “put down an elephant,” succumbed to the combination of those drugs and the chokehold and died.

Most law enforcement officers and citizens would thank Penny for his courage in the face of this frightening and violent situation — and several of his frightened fellow passengers did exactly that immediately after the event.

That is no doubt part of why Penny was not charged with anything at the scene. It required 11 days and multiple protests for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to recognize that he had an opportunity for more lawfare, and he jumped on it.

But it didn’t work this time. This time, even a New York jury wasn’t buying it and rendered a not guilty verdict on the charges. Sure, the Washington Post isn’t happy, but the response from the opinion pages of most credible sources echoes approval for the verdict. What changed?

I am a member of the board of advisers for Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, which is composed of veterans and citizen patriots concerned with radicalism in our military. Our organization was born when founders witnessed an acceleration of radicalism at our service academies in the wake of the Black Lives Matter/antifa riots.

For quite a long time, our battle has been largely uphill. But the worm has turned.

In a recent piece, I pointed out that beyond Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, the 2024 election was really a referendum on reality. In it, I argue that the leftists and their sycophant media allies finally jumped the shark with their false narratives — from the unending woke nonsense, the COVID-19 deceptions, to Biden’s supposed sharp mental acuity, to asking us to believe that the border is secure, or that Trump is a Nazi and a threat to democracy.

Americans have had it, and they let us know with their votes.

Just what are they pushing back on? In a word, it is leftism.

No matter how soundly the concepts of Marxism have been defeated over the decades in both debate and real-life practice, the Marxists didn’t go away; they merely regrouped.

They continue to push the same agenda of oppressed and oppressors – but have recently used race, color, and sexual identity in place of social class as the impetus for the necessary division and chaos. For a number of years, it has worked quite well.

Let us hope that the 2024 election results and now the Penny verdict in New York are clear signs that the era of wokeism, racial division, hatred, discrimination, and lawfare, is over — that Americans will no longer be duped.

They want their liberties and constitution back — and that seems to be on the horizon.

Greg Salsbury is a former president of Western Colorado University, and a member of the Board of Advisers for STARRS (Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services). He is the author of the 2006 award-winning book But What If I Live? and the follow-up book Retirementology – Rethinking the American Dream in a New Economy.

First published on the Washington Examiner

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