One of the most annoying ploys of liberal journalists is to advise Republicans that the truly wise path in politics is to surrender to liberals on everything, and the dumbest path is to oppose them emphatically.
The latest flagrant example of this is a column in the Los Angeles Times with the provocative headline "Republican racism has finally weaponized Kamala Harris." The columnist, Jackie Calmes, was falsely categorized for decades as an "objective journalist." Moving over to the opinion pages isn't really a significant change. Calmes begins by acknowledging Vice President Harris is deeply unpopular. But, shazam! Republicans "keep doing stupid stuff underscoring their racial insensitivity" -- like Gov. Ron DeSantis and his government in Florida claiming a "silver lining to slavery" in their new African American history standards for schools.
It doesn't matter that the Florida standards explicitly demand slavery be presented to students as a dehumanizing horror. It doesn't matter that the original standards that DeSantis criticized also had a passage about a so-called "silver lining to slavery." It doesn't matter that the "silver lining" for slaves came after slavery ended or after they escaped slavery. What matters is trying to construct a spin that makes Kamala Harris less of a liability for Democrats.
Calmes touted how Harris had a "pretty good week" as "she's put the lie to the claim that the left is forcing a guilt trip on white children by fully teaching them about the nation's sins as well as its triumphs." Calmes used to work at The New York Times, the originator of the fact-mangling "1619 Project" that forces a guilt trip on all Americans with the supposition that America hasn't really changed much since African Americans were held in bondage as subhuman chattel. That project was aggressively promoted to schools across America as a curriculum. Then the liberal media pretended no one was teaching critical race theory in schools.
Harris is championed as the opponent of "perilous ignorance," as conservatives insert "both-sidesism" into teaching the history of American slavery. This sounds just like liberals finding it perilously ignorant to allow both sides of an argument in your newspaper articles. Liberals are always trying to win by intimidating anyone out of dissent. Calmes quoted Harris asking how could anyone suggest "that there was any benefit to be subjected to this level of dehumanization?" This is why liberals mock "alternative facts." Disagreeable facts should be shamed out of public discourse.
Calmes also embraced Harris wrapping Emmett Till into this message, that somehow the Republicans won't teach the children about that brutal murder, or advocate that everyone forget about it. "The vice president -- call her Biden's attack dog, as some accounts have, or simply a truth-teller -- is not going to dissuade Republicans from their attempt to rewrite history. Yet even if she's preaching to the choir, hers is a message that must go out. Maybe she's finally found her niche."
It's not "Republican racism" to oppose left-wing propaganda standards in our schools. It's not "truth-telling" to proclaim that Republicans want to teach American history without a substantive focus on slavery and segregation and lynching and the Ku Klux Klan. But Democrats and their media allies eternally try to hold on to voters of color by arguing that the Republicans are all undeniable racists, and never mind that inescapable historical fact that the Democratic Party was the staunchest party behind slavery and segregation.
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