Search This Blog

18.7.19

Edwards, left show their intellectual dishonesty

You know Louisiana’s political left hasn’t emerged from intellectual bankruptcy by reading its vacuous reaction to Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s social media comments and those added by some of its Congressional delegation.

Trump certainly provoked a reaction when days ago through social media he advised “‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen” who came from dysfunctional developing countries to return and solve those places’ woes that then would give them the moral credibility to make policy choices for the U.S. He guessed that Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had drawn criticism from four females of her party who express radical leftist policies – Reps. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Ihan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib – gladly would pay the airfare for such individuals.

Probably not, but Louisiana’s GOP Rep. Ralph Abraham, who is running for governor against incumbent Democrat John Bel Edwards, seemed amenable to the notion. On social media, like Trump not mentioning any particular names, he broadened the idea by observing “There’s no question that the members of Congress that @realDonaldTrump called out have absolutely said anti-American and anti-Semitic things. I’ll pay for their tickets out of this country if they just tell me where they’d rather be.”

On top of this, Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy made media remarks about Trump’s statement. While he faulted Trump for discourse he didn’t see much above “playground insults,” he accurately noted the “progressive” ideology exuded by some Democrats, specifically the four female frosh, has its acolytes thinking that “America was wicked in its origins. They think that America and its people are even more wicked now, that we are all racist and misogynistic and evil. These “whack jobs” he termed the “four horsewomen of the Apocalypse.”

Perhaps more accurately, given the quartet’s totalitarian political leanings and antagonism they generate within their own party, they might better be called the “Gang of Four.” But he and Abraham hit the nail on the head: not only does the political ideology expressed by the Gang contain ideas alien to American political culture and the guiding ideas behind the American political system, but also these vocalists specifically propagate one of the most odious notions in contravention of American ideals: racism, especially of the anti-Semitic kind.

Each of the four is on the record with unimpeachably racist/anti-Semitic statements ranging from the troubling to nauseating. However, America’s political left does all that it can to deflect, if not explain away, these remarks that, if coming from a political elite who doesn’t agree with its ideology, it would condemn vigorously.

Yet in regards to this episode, the ideological left has sunk to new lows of intellectual and moral dishonesty. It answers this recent criticism of the far left ideology of the racist Gang and perhaps others in Congress by calling any such remarks – wait for it – racist! It does so under the puerile notion that the criticizing a collective of Hispanic white and non-white individuals for any reason must percolate from some racial animus, regardless that the content of the critiques contains no reference to or connection to race. In other words, it defends a group of racists of these particular ethnic backgrounds by terming anybody who disagrees with their political agenda as racists.

In Louisiana referring to Abraham –who himself is of Semitic origin – and Kennedy, both the left’s academic (and media) and political elites reflected this intellectual laziness and inability to process irony. But perhaps the most dishonest of the bunch was Edwards, who tried to have his cake and eat it, too.

Asked on his monthly radio show (sponsored by the same media organization whose Internet story about the controversy has as part of its URL “/state-republican-leaders-respond-to-the-presidents-racist-tweet/”) for his reaction, Edwards (who must have burned the midnight oil trying to formulate a way to thread the needle for a question he surely knew he would face) called Trump’s tirade akin to remarks directed at people who “sat at lunch counters that they weren't supposed to sit at, or wanted to ride the bus wherever they wanted to sit, or wanted to register to vote.” To make sure he connected his gubernatorial opponent to that opinion, he said of Abraham’s remarks, “That’s very, very unfortunate. Louisianans are better than that and hopefully they will demand better than that from their governor.”

Consider that verbal abuse hurled at blacks a half-century ago came from racial animus, yet Trump’s, Abraham’s, and Kennedy’s remarks addressed the vapidity of the Gang’s ideology and attitudes about their country. So, Edwards is calling Trump and Abraham racists without using the term, as part of an ideological dog whistle to help shore up electoral support from the state’s Angry Left yet trying to obscure that from the large portion of the electorate offended when liberals lecture them than any opposition to their political agenda is by definition racist.

In that respect, Louisianans are better than their present governor and hopefully later this year they will demand that of their next chief executive.

No comments: