For those who don't know, John Lewis is a "civil rights leader" who decided to attack Trump this week. Lewis, a black Democratic Congresscritter for life called Trump an "illegitimate president" and whined that Moscow helped steal the election from Hillary Clinton. Trump responded appropriately by Tweeting that Lewis should "spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results."
The Democratic outrage machine jumped into full gear:
"Let us remember that many have tried to silence @repjohnlewis over the years. All have failed." -- Nancy LaPuta PelosiAnd more of course.
"John Lewis is an American hero. You're a fake billionaire who won't release his taxes. Put down Twitter and get serious about governing." -- Rhode Island representative David Cicilline.
There are two problems with this, both of which define the core problem with the Democrats.
First, it's pretty obvious that most of the outrage is fake. Pelosi doesn't care if someone insults Lewis. If he were a Republican, she would be the first in line calling him racially insensitive words. All she really cares about is trying to stir up her brain-dead race-baitable followers. It is cynical exploitation of a non-event to generate anger.
Indeed, think about how cynical this is. Lewis fired the first shot. How can it be improper to respond to someone who just slandered you? Moreover, what exactly did Trump say that was so bad? Did Trump name-call? Did he call him illegitimate? Did he say anything at all personal? No. Lewis was an ass to be sure, but Trump made a legitimate point: he told Lewis to take care of his own house first and he pointed out that Lewis has done little to help the people he represents. If anyone in that exchange deserves the asshole award, it's Lewis.
Consider this too. Some Democrats have tried to hang their crap on the idea that this was somehow super "insensitive" because Trump said bad things about Lewis right before the Martin Luther King holiday. But let me ask this: if the proximity of MLK made this type of comment inappropriate, then why did Lewis fire the first shot? Shouldn't Lewis have respected the occasion? And how does it help to get nasty and bring politics into this as Cicilline does if we're supposed to respect the occasion?
This is all hypocrisy and the Democrats trying to turn a legitimate criticism of a man who peaked in his youth and has lived off the government for longer than my whole life into a racial issue at a time when it should be clear that Trump is the first politician since Reagan to care about the lives of black people... rather than the votes of black people. It is a diversion to keep blacks from waking up.
And that brings us to the second problem. The second problem is that their drones actually believe this faked outrage. They really believe that certain people, based on color or gender or where they put their genitalia, cannot be criticized without it being racist, sexist or whatever-the-f*ckist. They essentially see these people as sacred cows who can whine away stupidly without anyone suggesting otherwise. That is unacceptable in the free world. That is also why liberal "communities" are so messed up... because criticism gets dismissed with demonization so thee community stagnates.
Idiots.
Someone called a president illegitimate!? Deeply shocking. An act without precedent in modern history!
ReplyDeleteTrump returning fire via Twitter is even more shocking!
Seriously, it's just politicians on opposite sides of the aisle doing what they do.
The Demo-bullies aren't used to someone on our side punching back. Sure, I occasionally wish Trump wasn't as impulsive as he can be, but I sure as hell enjoy and appreciate his having pulse enough to not let the left control the narrative.
ReplyDeleteJust read this hilarious statement from Priebus. Its all just politics.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/15/reince-priebus-calls-on-obama-to-defend-trump-legi/
Reince Priebus, the incoming White House chief of staff, called on President Obama to tell Democrats to stop trying to delegitimatize the election of President-elect Donald Trump.
“President Obama could step up,” Mr. Priebus said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
Mr. Priebus said of the latest attack on Mr. Trump’s legitimacy form civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis, Georgia Democrat: “That’s insanity and it’s wrong.”
“The administration can do a lot of good by telling folks that are on their side of the aisle, ‘Look, we many have lost the election on the Democratic side, but it’s time to come together and stop questioning legitimacy,’” he said.
http://nypost.com/2015/09/19/trump-says-he-has-no-moral-obligation-to-defend-obama/
Trump has challenged Obama’s faith and citizenry for years.
He suggested Obama was born in Kenya, that he does not have a birth certificate, and that his religion is Islam in a Fox News appearance in 2011.
And he repeatedly called for Obama to release his long-form birth certificate until the president posted a copy on the wall of the White House briefing room in April 2011 and denounced Trump’s “silliness.”
You know, it is one thing for "private citizens" to question the legitimacy of an election of our President which, btw, is exactly what Trump was at the time. It is quite another for a sitting Congress member to do it in their official capacity as a sitting member of Congress. That can be construed as an official disparagement of our entire system of government.
ReplyDeleteNow, 23 Dem members of Congress (4 from NY) who will not be attending the Inauguration.
See also: Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid v. Candidate Mitt Romney re: tax evasion accusations on the floor of the Senate.
Anthony, It's a pretty twisted world though when politicians "doing what they do" is to invent fake outages to stir racial hatred and keep their followers angry and scared.
ReplyDeleteEP, That has been their problem. They aren't used to it. As a general rule, when Democrats lob a grenade, Republicans rush to surround it... and they wouldn't even know how to lob one of their own. Seeing Trump do it and the shock and horror this has caused on the left has been worth the price of admission.
ReplyDeleteSome points:
ReplyDelete(1) John Lewis started it. What he said was something that 3 months ago sent the Democrats into hysterics whenever Trump said it. Hypocrisy, pure and simple.
(2) Trump had a right to hit back but...
(3) You don't say a man who was nearly beaten to death at the Edmund-Pettis Bridge is "all talk, talk, talk."
(4) As a result, Trump is looking like the bully.
(5) You know what, I'll Let Ed Morrissey explain things here:
"On the other hand, this looks like a pure trap by the Democrats, one into which Trump blithely walked. They know that Trump can’t help but respond with personal-tinged attacks when he’s criticized in public, so they put their civil-rights icon on stage to attack Trump’s illegitimacy on the weekend before Martin Luther King Day. All that’s missing is Admiral Akbar spotting the Imperial forces swarming around the Death Star — and yet Trump didn’t see it coming. Instead of pointing out the continuing Democratic hypocrisy on election and legitimacy, Trump attacked Lewis personally. Voila! Democrats got the media narrative they wanted coming into MLK Day, and the media got the excuse they needed to put Team Trump on the defensive."
Thank you, Ed.
The best thing for Trump would probably have been to ignore it. If he accused the man of trying to undermine his presidency he would look like a giant hypocrite.
For Trump (or his supporters) to complain about someone calling him "illegitimate" is rich for the reasons Anthony listed.
Anthony and Bev,
ReplyDeleteAs a general rule, this is just fringey politics. Trump has always been a fringe character... now the Democratic Party is.
I also agree with Bev that there's a substantive difference between seated politicians and idiots on game shows making these kinds of comments.
That said, however, I no longer believe that the Democrats respect Democracy in the least. To them, it is all PR in their efforts to get power. If they thought they could do it, they would end Democracy tomorrow and rule as dictators. They have no principles and no ability to allow dissent.
Hi Kit.
ReplyDeleteA number of Trump's has are each in some way of his own making:
ReplyDelete(1) Russia-link accusations: He has spent a whole year refusing to say an unkind thing about Putin. As Gary Kasparov said, "I'm still waiting for Trump to say something about global affairs that hasn't literally been said first by the Kremlin."
(2) Illegitimacy attacks: As Anthony pointed out, he pushed the birth certificate BS and 3 months ago was threatening to refuse to accept the results of a Hillary victory, saying it would be illegitimate.
There is a reason his approval ratings are at 37%, lower than Clinton (68), GWB (61%), or Obama (83%), and if you factor in the "wrongness" of the pre-November polls by adding, say, 5% (the national poll was off by 2.7%*) he's still deep under those three at 42%.
LINK
*The 2016 national polls were less off than 2012 (3.9%), by the way. It was the state polls where things went crazy, it seems and even then they were still (mostly) close. What was weird is they "were all wrong in the same direction." LINK
Hi Andrew.
ReplyDeleteCan someone please remind me how/why we’re supposed to respect Democrats who claim to be patriotic when they boo a suggestion to say the Pledge of Allegiance? From the experience of a Facebook friend yesterday ...
ReplyDeleteMy friend checked out a MoveOn.org rally in Santa Monica, held in a Lutheran Church no less. Their purpose was to organize to resist Trump at every turn. She rose at one point and respectfully suggested that, as long as these people were – in their words – “taking their country back,” they might say the Pledge of Allegiance, and perhaps there was a veteran who would like to lead it. She was booed and called out of order. Booed. The leader said, “We don’t do do that. The Republicans do that.” While utterly unsurprising, this is very telling about the vast gulf between the left and the right today.
You got me, EP. The Democrats are consistently anti-American and anti-AmericanS and then whine when they get called on it.
ReplyDeleteWhat's more, they make their political turds into "American heroes," which is why they can't come up with a deserving woman for the currency -- only leftists -- and why people like Lewis are supposed to be untouchable.
I love how Mike Pence is handling this. He is learning the best aspect of "How to be Trump" and doing it well. His swipe at Lewis as being "so disappointed" is a pretty fantastic way to handle this.
ReplyDeleteI'm also happy that Piers Morgan is calling out Lewis and the Democrats on this: LINK. Hopefully, more people will call out the Democrts on their disdain for Democracy... a problem with their party for as long as I've watched politics.
There's an ice storm and I'm coping with bored kids. Some scattered reactions:
ReplyDeleteFirst, I said this earlier on Twitter. It's really simple, someone crosses Trump, he crosses them back. Complaining about it only makes the first shot look insincere.
Trump's response to John Lewis was completely accurate, which is why Lewis appologists had to completely ignore it and go on a separate offensive. This is good counter-narrative in that it removes the inconvenient ideas from the discussion. However, it's a weak counter-narrative in that it's the same-old-same-old everything-is-racist story. Though, frankly, disengagement is the best outcome their side could hope for. Incedentally, this all goes for the "sacred holiday" angle, too. Everyone is inured to the idea that it's never the right moment to say or do anything.
For what it's worth, John Lewis is a figure of such prominence that most people probably have to Google him. On one hand, that makes him sort of a de facto underdog. On the other hand, it makes it hard to get worked up.
EP, Trump is the shadenfreude president, to be sure.
Priebus' comment isn't as hilarious as it is uninteresting and predictable. What does Trump have to say!?!?!
Frankly, I think it's perfectly fair to raise the conspiracies that Trump engaged in as a private citizen as criticism of him now. The problem for the Democrats is they've become so thouroughly disfunctional, there's no accusation they can make that doesn't apply to themselves tenfold. Plus, I've never seen a politician so deft as Trump at changing his position without losing followers. (Also known as pacing and leading. See Scott Adams' blog.)
Ed Morrissey gets one thing spot on right out the gate. The John Lewis thing does look just like a pure Democrat trap. From all angles. To everyone. As in, no one is buying this who wasn't already subscribed. Thank you, Ed, indeed!
The funny thing is, Trump didn't respond with a personal tinged attack, which is why the Dems had to go back to the "racism! racism! racism!" playbook. "Ah! The good ol' days, when George W. let the media walk all over him," seems to be what a lot of pundits on the right are saying these days.
Andrew, if I were to criticize each party's relation to democracy, I'd say the Republicans don't have a good idea how to exted it while Democrat regard it as a means to an end.
Kasparov has acknowleged that geopolitics is poker and not chess. His skillset is attuned to assessinng his own resources against the resources of his opponet. Poker requres a skillset attuned to assessing the oppenent himself. That seems a lot closer to the skills required for successful business negotiation. By the way, a good bluff involves letting the opponent beleive what he wants to believe. Always be asking yourself, is what I believe what I want to believe?
Mike Pence is in possibly the most enviable position in the world. Imagine what he's learning.
OT: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus had to shut down this year. How can they compete?
Once the nominations were won, it was clear that the only question was which dumpster fire would burn for the next four years.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who thought the parties were going to work hand in hand was kidding themselves. That is not behavior that has been encouraged by, say the last two decades of politics. The pattern is wave goes in, wave goes out.
If you are on the wrong side of the wave, your best hope is not to acquiesce but to resist, carving out a name for yourself so when the wave goes out, you have standing as a man of principle with the new majority.
Along those lines, Democrats are doing what Trump and his defenders would do if he had lost (and were doing when they feared he might lose). Political ethics are as usual, completely situational.
Andrew,
ReplyDeleteTrump called for and applauded the beating of protestors during his rallies. Hatred of the opposition is simply the way of things.
The only thing holding the enemies in check is the system and the fact the public doesn't really support the most extreme parts of either side.
This is actually a really good article about the Democrats using fake outrage as a political tool.
ReplyDeleteLINK
Bleak world, Anthony. I don't think it's accurate either that this is just par for the course. This has been a growing phenomina which has arisen on the left starting under Reagan and grown year after year. It's most openly hateful period peaked under W Bush, but the insanity and cynicism seem to be at a zenith right now.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP is not the same. Some fringers are -- particularly Atl-Righters. And Trump has echoed it back at times, but that's about it.
tryanmax,
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I won't miss them. I've never found old-school circuses to be all that interesting or clever or impressive.
Pence has very quickly mastered the art of politics. Too bad the rest of the party hasn't, but at least he has.
Kasparov was an amazing chess player. I wish hi luck unseating Putin someday.
The whole attack on Trump was insincere and I think that fact is reinforced by the number of center-right MSM organizations who are calling it such rather than fellating Lewis... as a few Republicans have reflexively done.
Lewis doesn't impress me. He stood up for what was right. That's great. But then what? Then he took a government job and spent 60 years playing the racial spoils game and stoking the very division he claimed to be fighting initially.
He also keeps bad company. If his side wasn't so hateful, so ready to lie and destroy and so unprincipled, then I might care. But I don't. I also don't believe that anyone has the right to claim they are above criticism for opinions they inject into the political debate.