Trump is just the latest to be branded with the “R”-word.
“Behind Trump, the GOP Really is Becoming the Racist Party” is the title of an article that appeared last year in The Daily Beast. It may as well have been written today, for the implication of the author—a self-described Muslim-American—represents that of Donald Trump’s opponents on both the left and right.
Dean Obeidallah purports to be offering “some friendly advice to the Republican Party” when he warns that it doesn’t “want to be defined by” its “most extreme members.” In remaining “silent” while Trump “garners increasing support from white supremacist organizations,” Obeidallah assures Republicans, “the more likely” it is that “the GOP will become known as the party of racists.”
Get it? This author, not unlike every other enemy of Trump, would have us think that the last 40-50 years or so haven’t occurred, that it is only now, courtesy of Trump, that the GOP exposes itself to the charge of “racism.”
According to the left, the Republican Party is and has always been the party of racists, fascists, xenophobes, homophobes, misogynists, and Islamophobes. It is “anti-immigrant,” treating immigrants as “second-class citizens.”
Rightly or wrongly, Ronald Reagan is not only widely regarded by Republicans as a “conservative” hero; he is regarded by most presidential historians as among the greatest of American presidents. Yet not only did the left blast Reagan as a “racist” during his tenure as president. They continue to blast him as such to the present day.
“Racism,” a Salon writer informs us, was “at the heart of the Reagan presidency.” The 40th president used “coded racial appeals” to “galvanize white voters [.]” Tavis Smiley charged Reagan with having “tortured” blacks, and the famed philosopher Noam Chomsky said as recently as 2014 that Reagan was an “extreme racist” who presided over a period for blacks not unlike that which immediately succeeded Reconstruction.
Martin Luther King, Jr. himself disliked Reagan, going so far as to say that only “the irrationalities induced by a war psychosis” could explain “such a melancholy turn of events” as the presidential candidacy of “a leading war hawk” like Reagan.
As for George W. Bush, he wasn’t just “neutral” with respect to “civil rights” but outright “hostile” to them. No less a publication than the New York Times lamented as recently as 2009 that “civil rights” enforcement diminishedduring Bush’s tenure. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann wasn’t the only person to charge Bush with being a “fascist” and a “Nazi.” Bush’s “modus operandi” was to acknowledge “racism” “while actively undermining any effort to deal with” it. Bush couldn’t help peppering his speeches with “deeply…racist remarks [.]”
Kanye West famously (or infamously?) accused Bush of neglecting Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans because he didn’t “care about black people.” Actor Michael Myers, who was standing by West’s side when the latter made this comment, applauded him for his “courage” for having “spoke” the “truth.”
The Nation, in 2008, took Bush and GOP strategist Karl Rove to task for having launched a “dirty,” “racist attack” against John McCain and his adopted daughter back in 2000. However, they were quick to note at the time that the Arizona senator was competing with Barack Obama for the presidency, and had hired Charlie Condon, among those who “launched the racist attacks” against McCain’s daughter, to run his campaign.
This, though, should’ve come as no surprise to anyone, for McCain, such lefties as Michael Moore implored us to recognize, was both a “racist” and a “sexist.” After all, he criticized Susan Rice.
The Phoenix New Times eviscerated McCain back in 2011 for allegedly having made “the most disgusting, reprehensible, and irresponsible comments of his political career [.]” McCain, supposedly, remarked that some of Arizona’s wildfires were caused by people who had crossed America’s southern border illegally. In so doing, he made an “outright racist statement.”
As the media now targets Trump rally attendees as “racists,” it is worth noting that it painted McCain rally attendees with same brush.
In fact, someone went so far as to author a book with the subtitle, “John McCain’s Racism and Why it Matters.”
After losing to Barack Obama in 2012, the last GOP presidential nominee has tried making himself relevant again by going after Donald Trump. But “Adolph Mittler,” as Conan O’Brien referred to him, had been branded with the “R” word as well.
Besides using the racially insensitive expression “tar baby,” Romney “pandered to birthers and their racist conspiracy theory.” This, though, is exactly what we should expect from a man who subscribes to “an historically racist religion” (Mormonism). Such was the concern over Romney’s “racism” that some created a website to “expose” it: www.romneys-racist-heart.com.
Make no mistakes about it: Long before Donald Trump came on the scene, the left charged the Republican Party with “racism,” “fascism,” etc.
Long after Trump is gone, the left will continue making the same allegations.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is either self-deluded or dishonest.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member