While Virginia is the immediate focus of the Democrats (in my view) politically foolish "no tolerance, no forgiveness ever" policy towards anything that might offend some fraction of the party base, as a piece in Politico lays out, the problem extends far beyond Virginia and will impact other states and most visibly, candidates in the Democrat presidential 2020 primary contests. Yes, the author is a Republican who is editor of the National Review, a pro-Republican publication, but he makes the valid point that what the Democrats are doing will likely guarantee that no candidate capable of winning the general election will get the nomination. From my many years in the GOP in the past, I learned that the entire purpose of a political party is to win elections and maintain your party's candidates in office so that they can further the party's policies and agenda. You never push to remove an officeholder of your party unless they are guilty of true crimes or perhaps abuse of their office. These concepts are seemingly totally lost on today's Democrats, especially those under thirty based on what I have observed on social media. To me, Democrats need to decide whether they want to win elections and further their governing policies or self-destruct and allow their political opponents to win the battle (and the war) and put in place the antithesis of what Democrats supposedly want. Here are article excerpts:
All statewide officials in the Commonwealth of Virginia should resign if Democrats are held to their own standards.
Even if Gov. Ralph Northam didn’t appear in blackface in an image on his medical-school yearbook, he confessed to once darkening his face as part of a Michael Jackson costume.
Attorney General Mark Herring, who called Northam’s conduct indefensible, also used blackface once when dressing as an African-American singer.
Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax has been accused of sexual assault and been harshly dismissive of the accuser (he reportedly said of her in a private meeting, “f--- that b----”).
If ever wearing blackface, even in the 1980s as both Northam and Herring did, is a career-ender, and if we are supposed to “believe all women,” then all three of these Democrats have to go.
Only Northam has been thrown overboard by the party, with Fairfax and Herring getting passes so far because Democrats don’t want to nuke the entirety of a state executive branch they control.
Regardless, Virginia is an indication of an inflamed and unforgiving Democratic mood that will define the party’s battle for the 2020 presidential nomination.
Democrats are about to embark on the first woke primary, a gantlet of political correctness that will routinely wring abject apologies out of candidates and find fault in even the most sure-footed. The passage of time will be no defense. Nor the best of intentions. Nor anything else.
Any lapses will be interpreted through the most hostile lens, made all the more brutal by the competition of a large field of candidates vying for the approval of a radicalized base. The Democrat nomination battle might as well be fought on the campus of Oberlin College and officiated by the director of the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
Being a progressive hero of long-standing doesn’t afford any protection. Consider Sen. Elizabeth Warren. She certainly deserves all the grief she gets for her laughable identification of herself over the years as an American Indian. But for the identity-politics Left, her fault runs deeper: In trying to rebut the allegedly racist mockery of her as “Pocahontas,” she herself committed a racial offense. . . . Cherokee Nation activist Rebecca Nagle told CNN last week that Warren needed to apologize “to the tribes that she has harmed and to Native people broadly.”
Sure enough, she apologized, and presumably will keep on doing it as long as she’s running.
In this environment, being a white male, particularly a white male not obsessed with gender and race, is a risk factor. This is a major vulnerability of Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose outright socialism is no defense.
Segments of the Left jumped on him this week for doing the same State of the Union response that he’s done for the past couple of years. This time was different because he’d be following the African-American activist Stacey Abrams, and somehow or other supposedly upstaging her. Activist Marc Lamont Hill called Sanders’ choice “racially tone deaf.” Never mind that Sanders had praised the choice of Abrams for the formal rebuttal.
In every presidential campaign, candidates have to explain and backfill to get with the party’s latest program. What will make this process so much more intense for Democrats is the belief that even past mistakes involving the choice of words or symbolism are affirmatively injurious of other people. And the belief that such mistakes represent deep sins to be repented.
Even Sen. Kamala Harris, who calls racism, sexism, and trans-phobia matters of “national security,” isn’t safe. She was once a prosecutor, after all. Reviewing her record, a New York Times op-ed writer said “she needs to radically break with her past.”
Who doesn’t? No one will be woke enough to emerge from this process unscathed.
While perhaps well intentioned - the saying goes that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions - the Democrats' "zero tolerance, no forgiveness" policy is unworkable and is likely to paralyze the party and drive away good candidates. If the Democrats want to be politically competitive, they need to rethink this idiocy. Otherwise, be prepared for many years of GOP rule.
No comments:
Post a Comment