The effort to oust President Donald Trump seized its latest victim for collateral last week when Virginia Governor Ralph Northam was “outed” for allegedly wearing either “blackface” makeup or a KKK hood in a photo from his high school yearbook.
Naturally, the media is in an uproar about this, with Democrats in Congress (as well as Republicans) calling for the Governor’s resignation.
However, this situation is not likely to be a real matter of trying to secure racial justice, or “healing from the sordid history of American racism.” Rather, it seems to be the Left’s most recent attempt to create a framework for how to get rid of President Trump.
Let’s examine how this might work.
Racism has changed in America. Instead of it being carried out in the framework that the white European Protestant male is the source of all oppression against other groups (blacks, women, Hispanics, Catholics, Jews, RUSSIANS!!, people with polka-dot faces, and those with elephantitis all included), now it is sort of like “all the other groups get to strike back against good old Whitey.”
Except that it is not really all these other groups at all. Primary focus has been on those with African ancestry, because the period of legalized slavery in the United States has been so strongly vilified for at least forty years.
In fact if anything, it seems that most white Americans are loath to mention anything at all about African-Americans or American Indians (Native Americans) with anything but admiration for “how they have overcome great obstacles.”
However, the trope of racism has been brought to bear against those who are white, European-ancestry, any kind of traditionally-oriented Christian, and usually, males. It has been extended to MAGA hats and many things Trump, with the excuse being that the US President referred to Haiti and other such countries with an expletive adjective (that was billboarded around the nation from a closed-door meeting).
As in other areas of American politics, it makes no difference if one is correct or incorrect. The only thing that seems to matter in modern politics is appearance.
So when Virginia Governor Ralph Northam made the news last week for vocally and publicly supporting abortion of a baby at any point in the term of pregnancy including at labor, the outcry was very strong, and Democrats now had a big problem.
A major part of the liberal agenda is abortion-on-demand, following the same model that was originally proposed in early forms of Communism. However, the shock of this barbaric practice being brought to bear against born children, where the baby would be killed after birth because the mother wants it, was evidently too much for someone.
Shortly after this horrific proposal was struck down in Virginia’s legislature, a photo of Mr. Northam’s pictures in his yearbook surfaced, showing two men, one in black-faced makeup and one in a Ku Klux Klan whitesheet uniform. The photos were from his medical school yearbook in the year 1984.
Presently the governor is under heavy pressure to resign, even though his resignation would reveal the problems his lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, has in more clarity, for Mr. Fairfax is accused of sexual assault.
The pressure to resign is coming from predictable sources – those being the Republicans, and also from fellow Democrats who are probably playing strategy.
However, this situation may be bigger than it looks.
The 2017-2018 #MeToo phenomenon revealed the power of the “court of public opinion”, that is, a mob of people pushed to action through receiving knowledge of a situation that they are told they should be outraged about. Racism is such a hot-button topic that it is very difficult for anyone to go public and speak a very simple truth to Mr. Northam’s situation:
This is a big deal over nothing.
This is the truth. In the late 1970’s and 1980’s KKK themes and black-faced people, people imitating and lampooning cultures, colors, faiths and national ancestry was an extraordinarily popular form of humor. Mel Brooks, the Jewish comedian, spared no effort at imitating, even playing Hitler, lampooning Malcolm X, Winston Churchill, the Spanish Inquisition and many other stereotype sources. No one expressed outrage at his antics. In fact, if anything, people of all races and cultures found their meeting points in comedy and humor that this irreverent man offered.
No so anymore. Now these events must be answered with outrage, or else you are not a good person.
Governor Northam played a stunt in 1984 that was doubtlessly seen in the same light as Mel Brooks saw these things – subjects that could be laughed at now because we were not like that anymore. But standards of judgment have now been changed so that we are forced to give some “sympathy” for “how awful this was that we treated anyone in this way.”
This is simply nonsense. The discomfort some people talk about feeling is not because they are outraged at how cruel it is to black people to bring up any memory of the Klan. They are uncomfortable because they know that public opinion is said to be that this is horrible, yet in their own hearts, they do not feel horrible about it, and so then they think something must be wrong with them for not being sensitive enough.
This whole phenomenon is predicated on the fact that most people desire to be good, or at least seen as good.
This phenomenon is social manipulation played out in a masterful way. And the Left knows it can be used to bring down the President. The Governor is an acid test. Here is how:
- Governor Northam is being accused of being racist now because of this picture in the past. He probably was not even thinking along racist lines when he dressed like this then. We who lived in that time must be honest about that. Lampooning the KKK was humor. Look at this video, aired on March 15, 1997. And in 1984, this was even more common. (Yes, that is Sting playing a Klansman. Anyone hear him apologize for this? Let us hope not.)
- The gamble is this – if the Governor can be forced to resign over this, or make a fool out of himself by trying to deny it or not tell the whole truth about it, or if he can be forced to apologize in “shame and horror over his horrific actions in 1984”, then the Left will know it has quite a weapon. It will know it can use a person’s past against them and that if presented correctly, the mob will follow right along.
- The subsequent target for this sort of action may well be President Trump. Now, this was tried against him during the presidential campaign by the Hillary campaign, through the release of the Access Hollywood tape in which Donald Trump engages in a bit of big-boy shower talk. However, the savvy candidate defused it in about two seconds by simply admitting that he did it, that he was wrong, and sorry. Because he was so direct about it, the opposing campaign had nowhere to go. But if they can nail him on racism, and make him try to defend himself, then they have a prospect at winning.
It does not appear that the Left has a very good grip on this concept, however. President Trump is very good at sloughing off mud when it is thrown at him, and he also is very quick to add some more mud and throw it back. If anything, one of the elements of this story is that the Left is really out of touch with reality concerning Mr. Trump. Nothing they do seems to stick, though to give them credit, they do keep trying.
What is concerning about this latest round is that the attacks against Governor Northam have engaged the right, ostensibly Trump supporters, and they are almost all completely roped in to saying the same sort of lines as those on the left say: “It’s horrible! We cannot be so insensitive! We feel the pain of the suffering of the black people!”
But the real issue and problem with Governor Northam – his radical pro-murder stance, his complete and utter exposure of the brutal nature of abortion he wants normalized in his state – the Left does not want any attention to be directed at this.
Nor do they want any attention directed at the fact that their supposed “crusade for the elevation of the African-Americans” is really a ruse, designed and intended to keep these good people dependent on government, in effect, slaves, just of a different type. We examine this in a parallel piece, here.
This was very likely a “revelation” launched not from a conservative, but from a leftist, as the Democrat Party eats one of its own for revealing the Plan too abruptly, and too early.
Time will tell.
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