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Opinion
Reece Terry, publisher
Mark Boehler, editor
4A • Friday, January 20, 2017
Corinth, Miss.
Conservatism is not racism The confirmation hearings of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, President-elect Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, provided plenty of drama that can help explain why racial tensions never seem to go away in America. This was particularly evident in the concluding panel of the hearings, which consisted of six black men, three opposing Sessions’ nomination and three supporting him. The three in opposition were all members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The three in support were all black legal Star professionals with long perParker sonal histories working with Sessions. Testifying in support were Columnist a former assistant U.S. attorney who worked with Sessions when he was U.S. attorney in Alabama, a former U.S. Marshall who worked with Sessions in the Attorney General’s office of Alabama and the first black general counsel of the senate judiciary committee, on which Sessions serves. Striking about the testimony of these three black professionals was that all of them knew and worked with Sessions for 20-plus years. Each had personal stories about his professional and personal integrity. Clearly all three of these men testified because of their gratitude and affection for this man. Judiciary committee general counsel William Smith captured the views of all three saying, “After 20 years of working with Jeff Sessions, I have not seen the slightest indication of racism because it does not exist...” In contrast, the three Black Caucus members, Sen. Cory Booker, Rep. John Lewis and Rep. Cedric Richmond, went on about their opposition to Sessions because of his alleged weakness on civil rights — a polite way of suggesting he is a racist — while bringing virtually no evidence to support their allegations. As Smith noted in his testimony, “We have seen people who have never met Senator Sessions claim to know him and know his heart.” Unfortunately, politics has come to be conflated with racism. That is, those on the black left who have dominated black politics for so many years now brand anyone who does not share their political views as racist. This could not have been more evident than in the haughty and pretentious observation by Rep. Richmond, Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, that “....if he (Sessions) were, in fact, a champion of civil rights, wouldn’t the civil rights community support his nomination, rather than speaking with one voice in near unanimous opposition?” I have been fighting for civil rights for over 30 years. But for a black leftist like Rep. Richmond, the many black conservatives who share my views don’t exist. According to the black left, a black who believes that abortion should not be legal, who believes that black parents should have the right to decide where to send their children to school and who believes that marriage is the sacred bond between a man and woman is not part of the “civil rights community.” Similarly, based on these beliefs, because he is a conservative, Senator Sessions must be racist. Let’s think for a minute why racism is so horrible. Racism is about denying a person’s unique humanity and thinking you know who they are based a few external characteristics. It is sadly ironic that this is exactly what those on the black left, who claim to bear the standard for civil rights, do. The three black men who testified to support Senator Sessions’ nomination are evidence of the diversity of black opinion nationwide. We’re not going to get out of our racial rut until everyone starts seeing and respecting people as individuals. Philosopher longshoreman Eric Hoffer once wrote, “Every great cause starts out as a movement, then becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” The problem the Black Caucus has with Senator Sessions is not that he is a racist but that he is a conservative, and that is not good for their racket. Star Parker is an author and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Contact her at www.urbancure.org.
Prayer for today Gracious Father, I pray that I may be willing to profit by the experience of great teachers, and appreciate the value of strong principles. May I too live for the higher ideals of life, and through a sympathetic response add power and virtue to other lives, while gaining strength for my own. Amen.
A verse to share You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in your word. — Psalm 119:114
Reagan & Trump: American Nationalists Since World War II, the two men who have most terrified this city by winning the presidency are Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. And they have much in common. Both came out of the popular culture, Reagan out of Hollywood, Trump out of a successful reality TV show. Both possessed the gifts of showmen — extraordinarily valuable political assets in a television age that deals cruelly with the uncharismatic. Both became instruments of insurgencies out to overthrow the establishment of the party whose nomination they were seeking. Reagan emerged as the champion of the postwar conservatism that had captured the Republican Party with Barry Goldwater’s nomination in 1964. His victory in 1980 came at the apogee of conservative power. The populism that enabled Trump to crush 16 Republican rivals and put him over the top in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan had also arisen a decade and a half before — in the 1990s. A decisive advantage Reagan and Trump both enjoyed is that in their decisive years, the establishments of both parties were seen as having failed the nation. Reagan was victorious after Russia invaded Afghanistan; Americans were taken
hostage in Tehran; and the U.S. had endured 21 percent interest rates, 13 percent inflaPat tion, 7 perBuchanan cent unemployment and Columnist zero growth. W h e n Trump won, Americans had gone through years of wage stagnation. Our industrial base had been hollowed out. And we seemed unable to win or end a half-dozen Middle East wars in which we had become ensnared. What is the common denominator of both the Reagan landslide of 1980 and Trump’s victory? Both candidates appealed to American nationalism. In the late 1970s, Reagan took the lead in the campaign to save the Panama Canal. “We bought it. We paid for it. It’s ours. And we’re going to keep it,” thundered the Gipper. While he lost the fight for the Canal when the GOP establishment in the Senate lined up behind Jimmy Carter, the battle established Reagan as a leader who put his country first. Trump unapologetically seized upon the nationalist slogan that was most detested by our globalist elites, “America first!” He would build a wall, se-
cure the border, stop the invasion. He would trash the rotten trade treaties negotiated by transnational elites who had sold out our sovereignty and sent our jobs to China. He would demand that freeloading allies in Europe, the Far East and the Persian Gulf pay their fair share of the cost of their defense. But while there are similarities between these outsiders who captured their nominations and won the presidency by defying and then defeating the establishments of both political parties, the situations they confront are dissimilar. Reagan took office in a time of Cold War clarity. Though there was sharp disagreement over how tough the United States should be and what was needed for national defense, there was no real question as to who our adversaries were. As had been true since the time of Harry Truman, the world struggle was between communism and freedom, the USSR and the West, the Warsaw Pact and the NATO alliance. There was a moral clarity then that no longer exists now. Today, the Soviet Empire is gone, the Warsaw Pact is gone, the Soviet Union is gone, and the Communist movement is moribund. NATO embraces three former republics of the
USSR, and we confront Moscow in places like Crimea and the Donbass that no American of the Reagan era would have regarded as a national interest of the United States. We no longer agree on who our greatest enemies are, or what the greatest threats are. Is it Vladimir Putin’s Russia? Is it Iran? Is it China, which Secretary of Statedesignate Rex Tillerson says must be made to vacate the air, missile and naval bases it has built on rocks and reefs in a South China Sea that Beijing claims as its national territory? Is it North Korea, now testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles? Beyond issues of war and peace, there are issues at home — race, crime, policing, abortion, LGBT rights, immigration (legal and illegal) and countless others on which this multicultural, multiracial and multiethnic nation is split two, three, many ways. The existential question of the Trump era might be framed thus: How long will this divided democracy endure as one nation and one people? Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.”
Ill-informed, impetuous, reckless: The Trump Years Donald Trump’s goal is not to damage America or our allies. But that may well be the result of his illinformed, impetuous, reckless actions over the next four years. What can we do about this? Our fight is not to flee to Canada or South America. Our fight for the next four years is right here in the streets of America, where we can do everything legally possible to prevent Trump and his thugs from kidnapping our nation. Why does Trump even want the presidency? Trump’s golden ferret and presidential counselor, Kellyanne Conway, broke down and let the reason slip in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. The point in contention was a 35-page report of unsubstantiated allegations that Trump’s campaign had contact with Russian officials during the campaign. Cooper’s interview with Conway was marked by raised voices and people talking over each other. It lacked the insincere politeness we have come to expect from TV. Conway: Excuse me, but, Anderson, if you want me to talk -- I know CNN is feeling the heat today. But I was gracious enough to come on and discuss it. Cooper: I think you guys
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are feeling the heat. Later: Conway: CNN and BuzzFeed have a lot Roger in common. Simon You both were absoColumnist lutely convinced and told all of your viewers that Hillary Clinton is going to win this election. And that’s why — Cooper: You can’t stick to what we’re talking about now? Cooper later said, “I know you like to pivot. I get it.” And Conway later said: “Anderson, you can use words like ‘pivot,’ ‘distract,’ ‘red herring’ all you want. The fact is that the media have a 16 percent approval rating for a reason. It’s been earned. And it’s crap like this that really undergirds why Donald Trump won. In fact, you’re doing him a favor again. This was an anti-elitist election. It was a rejection of everybody who thinks they know better than people.” Then came the explosion. Conway said: “What are the standards here? ... Because I took a little peek at what the headlines about President-elect Obama were eight years ago. Whew, talk about the world’s biggest disconnect. It was basically ... Should President-
elect Obama go to Oslo now and pick up his Nobel Peace Prize, or should he wait until after he’s sworn in? We get nothing like that. We get no forbearance. We get nothing. We get no respect. We get no deference.” There it is — not the Rodney Dangerfield-like line about getting no respect but the following line, which shows how deeply wounded the Trump people are. It’s a line that shows how they have a raw, open injury that throbs and aches from the moment they wake up till the moment they go to bed: They get no deference. None. And it tears at them. Trump wants figuratively, if not literally, a nod of the head, a bend of the knee, a curtsy — a recognition that even though approximately 3 million more Americans voted for his opponent, he deserves not only our submission but our humble submission. Leave aside, for a moment, how much deference is due to a man who admits on tape that he has been a serial molester of women. That is yesterday’s news. That is news that Conway and her crew have managed to bury and keep out of the headlines (along with Trump’s tax returns). Some in the intelligence community say the evidence is solid that Russia tried to influence our most recent
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election. And John Lewis, a Democratic congressman from Georgia, said he does not believe that Trump is “a legitimate president” because of how the Russians tried to throw the election to him. Trump, showing his greatest skill as a propagandist, cleverly misdirected in his response: “Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart. ... All talk, talk, talk — no action or results. Sad!” It is important to keep in mind what is at stake here. As in 2001, America is about to inaugurate a president who does not reflect the will of the voters. In that sense, Trump is indeed not legitimate. And he will learn he does not have the vast powers he imagines he possesses. Americans should peacefully fight his actions whenever those actions will damage the United States and our allies. There should be no violence in our words, thoughts or deeds. We do not fight against the things we hate. We fight for the things we love. Do not hate Trump. Love America. And the next four years will fly by. Roger Simon is Politico’s chief political columnist.
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