New Birthers

New Birthers

by

R.E. Prindle

 

In an apparent effort to redeem itself. in the 8/13/19 issue the Wall Street Journal published a Barton Swain article called The New Birthers of which I will publish a few paragraphs.  After decades of ridiculous accusation of Nazism, Hitlerism and Fascism the Left has now in addition to racism begun overusing terms such as White Supremacist.  Swaim compares White Supremacism to the Conservative Birther controversy.  While not exactly comparable there may be some relationship.  After all Obama was born in Kenya, Africa while Trump is not a White Supremacist; in fact he seems to be openly favoring POC much more than Obama ever thought of doing.  Obama was much more sneaky about it.  Here is Swaims argument in his own words:

One of the great annoyances of the 2000s was how Democratic office-holders and media personalities constantly obliged conservatives to defend George W. Bush when we weren’t inclined to.  It felt churlish to criticize a man for signing a terrible budget deal when his enemies were accusing him of invading a foreign country to line the pockets of his friends in the oil industry.

Here we are again, only it’s much worse this time.  You want to fulminate against Donald trump for his cruel tweets and childish behavior or his madcap non-policies on trade and North Korea.  But then the president’s meanest adversaries on the left will level a charge so dishonorable, so wantonly unfair, that you feel almost bound to defend him.

The most common of these charges is that Mr. Trump is a racist.  And lately, the charge having failed to stick the way his despisers thought it would, the charge has been intensified to ‘white supremacist.’

The idea of describing Mr. Trump with any word ending in “ist” has always struck me as risible.  The suffix connotes the conscious holding of a principle or doctrine, whether good or evil—socialist, Dadaist, impressionist, Platonist, meliorist.  But Mr. Trump doesn’t do principles and doctrines.  The only “ist” word that can tenably describe him is “nationalist”, and that fits loosely and only sometimes.  A racist or a white supremacist must at some level consciously hold definably racist or white supremacist beliefs: otherwise the terms are useless.  Mr. Trump may have a neurosis that makes it impossible for him to abide by social conventions, but that does not make him a racist.  His attention span is too short, his eye too firmly fixed on momentary advantage to adopt a creed more complex than “Make America Great Again.”

Yet Mr. Trump’s fiercest adversaries couldn’t be more certain that he is a racist.  They parse his tweets and his spoken words and quote them to each other in versions deliberately stripped of context.  They speak of “dog whistles” and “code language,” as if he were capable of verbal subtlety.  They accuse him of saying what he hasn’t said:  I wonder how many commentators on CNN and MSNBC have stated, as if reporting fact, that Mr. Trump thinks Mexicans are rapists and neo-Nazis “good people”?  If he were an actual racist or white supremacist, Mr. Trump’s verbal incontinence would have made this fully apparent by now.  There would be no need to debate the question.

While not exactly complimentary to the President the essay does show up the ridiculousness of Liberal discourse.  The simply do not listen to themselves or they wouldn’t emote such twaddle.  However, defensiveness is not going to deliver the election.  Only attack after attack displaying the ineptness of the Democrats and whoever their candidate may be is the only method.  Don’t pull punches. The Right must totally disregard these puerile accusations, and attack, undermine, destroy each and every Liberal offensive.

The Left is firmly entrenched in the States they won last election and they are making gains in key States such as Texas and Florida that were tenuous back in ’16.  So-called independents much be convinced that their future lies with Trump.  If these can be won there may be chance for Trump to win.  Quality Republican Congressional candidates have to be found.  That is essential.  Most essential is to realize that this is trench warfare and not some Super Bowl Game.  And that goes for China too.  Xi is probably holding out hoping to ‘influence an American election’ and it may work.  Losing will be catastrophic.  Buckle down, this is serious.