Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear, that there is a white America that he believes will save his version of ‘Us’ and his presidency. I have read story after story about the infighting that is tearing at the diversity seams of the Democratic party when the real story is the shredding of the two White Republican Americas. There is a commonality of rich versus poor in the Republican party that binds it, but increasingly the conservative cloud with its’ silver lining gleaming with cruelty is being visibly tarnished. Following the last celebrated moment of Republican fairness, punctuated with its’ support for the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the Republican Party corralled the leftover angry Democrats [Dixiecrats] and based any future ascension on the backs of lies, misinformation, and bigotry.
The Us v. Them case is in the court of America…
To the shame of the 4th Estate, bigotry and racism are being seriously discussed on cable news nightly opinion shows as a re-election strategy. Todd, Matthews, Cuomo, Carlson, Hannity and the like condemn and excuse Trump’s racism according to their ideology, then move the conversation to what this means for Mr. Trump’s re-election hopes. This normalization is dangerous and indecent. After you say the president of the United States of America is an open “racist,” what more is there to discuss; unless you are a member of the two Republican Americas.
The first is a group of Republicans who hide in the cloakrooms of Congress and huddle in the corners of their cliques around water coolers and lunch boxes and whisper, ‘I would not speak that way.’ The second group writhes in public indignation and false outrage then says, but what about “socialism.” Rep. Elijah Cummings was called a “racist” by the Commander-in-Chief yesterday. Republican Mark Meadows, whom Mr. Cummings defended against the inference of racism levied against him during the Cohen testimony, is contemptuously silent; I wonder what he is saying in the cloakroom of Congress? Where is the Meadows defense of Mr. Cummings and his denouncement or clarification of anyone who would call him [Cummings] a racist?
Complicity is undistinguishable from guilt. Shaking your head in disapproval and finding excuses for the obvious is not only condoning bad behavior but it is cowardly. We can insert a bit of recent history here; remember the name, Reverend Wright? For what seemed like months on end the conservative press told us former President Obama condoned what they interpreted as the un-American statements of Pastor Jeremiah Wright. Not only did Obama make it clear that any thoughts anyone derived from the Pastor as being anti-American was not his, he made a point to assure all Americans by publicly chastising the pastor. In a celebrated speech in Philadelphia to make his position crystal clear Mr. Obama said “…we've heard my former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation and that rightly offend white and black alike.”
Obama continued, “I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy, and in some cases, pain.” This speech has often been credited as rescuing Mr. Obama’s candidacy and eventual presidency. That is not true, what won him the presidency was saying it loudly, publicly, and not cloistered in a cloakroom or coffee shop in middle America.
Vote in 2020 for Change.