BY ALEXIA JAMES

At CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) last Friday the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, claimed that left-wing protesters are getting $1,500 a week to deliberately cause violence in response to Donald Trump’s presidency. LaPierre insisted that those protesters are “willing to use violence against us” and that “they want revenge. They’re angry, they’re militant, and they’re willing to engage in criminal violence to get what they want.”

Now, this is not the first time accusations have been levelled at US liberals for organising a paid, organised campaign of violence. The Trump White House and numerous Trump supporters have also claimed that the protests against the Trump presidency are paid for – invariably the financier George Soros, who supported Hillary Clinton in the US Election, takes the blame for being the paymaster.

Still, no evidence has come to light which proves the protesters are paid by Soros or by anyone else. Until such facts comes to light, LaPierre’s comments are mere speculation.

What isn’t speculation is the opposition that Trump faces from Obama appointees in the US security services and across other Government departments such as the Department of Justice and IRS. If Trump is genuinely looking to “drain the swamp” then he can be sure to get lots of resistance from Obama diehards who, while defending their livelihoods, may or may not have something to cover up.

Across the pond in the UK the Copeland by-election has been and gone. It was caused by the resignation of Labour MP Jamie Reed who, like Copeland itself, fast grew tired of being a New Labour MP in a Labour Party of the Far Left under Jeremy Corbyn.

Reed resigned the seat for a multitude of reasons – Copeland happened to have many constituents involved in jobs provided by the nuclear industry to which Corbyn is diametrically opposed. Yet one of the more striking reasons listed by Reed for his resignation was an “army of trolls” who caused him a whole bunch of stress on a daily basis. He simply grew tired of having to put up with them. Without losing his sense of humour, Reed declared, “there’s nothing like getting told to die by an anonymous egg.”

Reed, while he was an MP, insisted on responding to his trolls with humour, echoing former Tony Blair adviser John McTernan who had recognised early doors during the Corbyn leadership that the hard Left hates humour. “It can’t co-exist with it. Just treating people who are clearly incensed – and in some case for reasons they don’t know why – with a light touch is something they hate.”

The Corbynista trolls are particularly unpleasant and sometimes off their rockers – one called Furries4Corbyn even claimed that Reed was “worse than ISIS”. But they were not the first troll army on the UK political stage. That was the hordes of Picts north of the border – the SNP troll army, who soon reaped infamy as the cybernats. Their nadir came when, a few hours before the poor fellow’s death, cybernats were accused of abusing pro-Union David Bowie.

Political trolling en masse has been taken to a new level by the fiercely loyal supporters of Jeremy Corbyn as they seem organised to troll. Again, though, there is no evidence of trolls being paid directly by the Labour Party or by Momentum for trolling – some of the trolls unmasked so far have either been suspended in the past by Labour or belong to some tiny Trotskyite movement which the Web has given them the chance to soap-box from.  Yet there’s still a suspicion that Corbyn’s followers’ trolling is coordinated in packs.

The problem is that trolling – like terrorism – tends to eventually be effective. Reed resigned and other MPs took Twitter breaks. Silencing has long been a favoured technique of the hard Left and they see every day an opponent spends off Twitter as a victory. That is how sad they are.

It’s the anonymity of attacks, both in America and the UK, which is worrying. As Reed explained in the past, “the anonymity or lack of accountability on social media doesn’t assist politics. Politics is all about transparency, accountability and openness. Standing by what you’ve said.”

Now, especially after the murder of Jo Cox, it seems that social media companies are taking organised pack-trolling more seriously. Complaints have been made publicly in the UK across the House of Commons from such prominent MPs as Diane Abbot and Nadine Dorries.

Still, the Social Media companies need to do more. It is not hard for them to pass an IP address to the relevant authorities. It is not as if the malaise involves that many people – there are not that many Billy-no-mates stuck in their studio flat in the ‘burbs who are engaged in politics let alone of the green ink brigade mentality required to troll targets en masse.

The situation in the US is far more worrying as organised thuggery is nothing new and will likely lead to lost lives. As for the UK, expect Corbyn’s Kinder, Gentler Politics?

Not a chance.

Expect a new and dirtier political environment across the board.