And this is why the political left is out of power in Washington and can’t win an election in most parts of Louisiana – intellectual poverty behind its argumentation seen as such by enough voters who demand better.
At its last meeting, the Louisiana Public Service Commission stripped Democrat Davante Lewis of his vice chairmanship for remarks made over social media. The job, which Lewis had assumed only at the year’s beginning, carries little weight and basically gives its holder the power to run meetings in the absence of the chairman.
Lewis precociously had been put into the job after just two years as a commissioner at the request of the year’s chairman, Republican Mike Francis, out of a spirit of bipartisanship he said. Francis then moved to remove Lewis upon learning of the remarks, and following partisan lines by a 3-2 vote Lewis was dumped.
Those remarks involved a social media post made by GOP Gov. Jeff Landry. It simply posted a picture of Rachel Levine, a former assistant secretary in the federal Department of Health and Human Services known for supporting and trying to put into place policy preferences at odds with best evidence regarding the gender dysphoria phenomenon relating to children, and the new department Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., known for contrarian positions on several issues such as widespread vaccination. Landry’s comment was, “Major upgrade in the @HHSgov Secretary department. Lots of work to be done, and excited for @RobertKennedyJr to get started. Let’s Make America Healthy Again!”
Going unnamed by Landry, perhaps one in 20 Louisianans could identify the picture of Levine. Maybe one in 100 could identify Levine also as a biological male. Yet Lewis flew off the handle at this presentation, posting (styling himself “Commish. Davante Lewis) a first and second sentence reading “This tweet shows that conservatism right now is only about cruelty and chaos. They will find away [sic] to be cruel to someone just bc [sic] they can[.]”
This is utter nonsense. So, to follow the implication, presenting two pictures and extolling the virtues of one figure is “cruelty” and sows “chaos?” And even among the tiny sliver of people who would know Levine is a man presenting himself in a manner typically identified with women (although they disproportionately would be consumers of both Landry’s and Lewis’ posts), how in the world is calling one an “upgrade” over the other being “cruel” to the other?
Note that non sequitur screeds without intellectual merit are the left’s stock in trade, where instead its adherents anchor these on purely emotive grounds. Lewis here engages in a familiar leftist tactic of manufacturing outrage where none is deserved as a means to establish victimhood, conjuring offense in order to claim moral superiority to back an entirely foundationless and specious argument.
However, the intellectual poverty of Lewis’ statement, or even his general PSC decision-making, doesn’t disqualify his from exercising a position of authority on the body. What does is his post’s third and last sentence, which, paraphrased, is to call Landry the equivalent of what armed forces veteran and actor R. Lee Emery termed a “jackwagon.”
Simply, while the public must tolerate Lewis because he won an election, it doesn’t have to have someone so immature who exercises such poor judgment in a position of authority. That he would respond as he did demands that he look at himself in a mirror and understand it is he, not Landry, who is what he called Landry in his post.
So, it was entirely appropriate for the GOP majority on the PSC to vacate him out of an officer’s position. Doubling down on an emotive appeal bereft of reason, Lewis whined it was all because he is black, when in reality it’s because he disgraced the PSC and, even though this hardly can be called a punishment with whatever revoked benefits being so tiny and symbolic, has demonstrated the wrong kind of temperament to be a leader of it.
Then, to introduce some comedy into the incident, the other Democrat commissioner who voted against the penalty. Foster Campbell, unintentionally reinforced the absence of intellect behind leftist interpretations of Lewis’ action and predicament. Campbell said he would vote to keep Lewis on because, he alleged, he had seen other commissioners engage in derogatory free speech without sanction, thus this attempt was discriminatory.
But the only alleged example he gave was an incident where he claimed when he was speaking Francis (whether he was on the PSC at the time) held up a sign equating the substance of Campbell’s verbiage with bovine manure. If even true, this is comparing apples and oranges: the alleged incident wasn’t a personal attack on another elected official but instead expressed opinion about the quality of the argument, whereas Lewis directly insulted Landry over something that could offend no reasonable and mature individual.
Lewis’ reaction to it all shows he hasn’t grown up yet, even as it conforms perfectly to the far left playbook of emotive appeals over reason, which will win him plaudits from the Angry Left that clutches at victimhood like a string of pearls to define the world. Whether that bloc can provide enough votes to get him reelected may be in question if he continues to blunder like this.
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