The real Democrats – the dinosaurs, the elitists, the detesters of deplorables, the Chicago politics-types, and the arrogant – are back, with none more obvious than Eric Holder, who offered this violent language for his political opponents. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports :

"We have to be ready to, you know, not do anything inappropriate, not do anything improper, certainly not do anything unlawful," he said. "But to the extent that they want to have a fight, let's do it. You want to rumble, let's rumble. You want to have a knife fight, we're gonna do it."

Nice bloody language you got there, Eric. Would you like to elaborate? Will there be rust on the knife, and will it be dull? Will you sever an artery and draw gushing blood, and will bits of flesh fly and stick to the wall? Which artery do you want, pal? Will you leave your victims in the street or take them to the hospital emergency room? And while you are at it, will you throw in the use of a Fast and Furious scandal gun, which of course happened on your watch during the Obama administration?

Such irony. A statement like this, which is loaded with thuggishness and reflects the interior mindset of the speaker, is actually coming out of a Democratic former attorney general, America's top lawman. That gives a recrudescent whiff of just how Democrats would govern if let into power again.

The vague opening disclaimer of not doing anything "inappropriate" is Holder's way of saying: "Nice house you got there, be a shame if anything happened to it..." The rest of the language is sheer violence.

Nobody in the GOP is talking about knife fights against Democratic opponents. They are having a political competition instead of a knife fight.

Holder just wants the knife fight.

The whole statement calls to mind President Obama's campaign statement about knife fights, one of the very few things he ever said that was memorable:

Obama also joked about rubbing out his opponents #TheChicagoWay:"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," #Obama, Philly, 2008 — John Kass (@John_Kass) August 10, 2016

What's going on here? Well, remember: Eric Holder is running for president, as I argued here. Obviously, he is trying to whip up the vote, and it's a given he's trying to rouse the black base of the Democratic Party. Democrats know they can't win elections without energizing nearly all black voters, as they did with the election of President Obama. So Holder is pressing his advantage as a nominally black candidate (out in the Caribbean, where his family is from, he would not be considered black at all, given his light skin), and it's pretty disgusting that he considers that voter base responsive to a thuggish appeal. Obviously, he wants to show presumably them, and the rest of the rage-Democrats, still steaming at the election of President Trump, that he's a fighter.

But it won't fool all of them, and the rest of us see only an arrogant elitist who likes to thumb his nose at the law. What a gift he is for the Democrats, doing his part through his thugspeak to tamp down the Democrats' blue wave and remind us all of how Democrats really govern.