I’ve seen the comment “all the Democrats had to do was not act crazy and they can’t even do that” several times on Instapundit. It’s completely accurate. The latest kerfuffle for Ds comes from the so-called “Squad”. Four of the newest representatives who are now presenting themselves as the face of the Democratic party: Ilhan Omar, AOC, Rashid Talib, and Ayanna Pressley. Omar is on record with multiple anti-Semitic remarks. She’s gone well beyond simply criticizing Israeli government policy as many have argued. She’s made flat-out anti-Semitic comments. Talib has said, on a radio show no less, that she is comforted by the thought of the Holocaust. Really?? AOC has compared the holding facilities at the southern border with the Nazi concentration camps. Problem with that comparison is that nobody in those holding facilities is a U.S. citizen who has been deprived of rights, property and liberty, and shipped off to a camp. That may seem like a fine line to some, but it’s a huge freaking difference if you’re honest with yourself and if you actually have an understanding of the history of WWII and the Holocaust. It’s disingenuous at best and disgustingly ignorant and yes, anti-Semitic, at worse.
Why do I bring this up? I’m teaching a class on genocide and politics in the fall and I have to teach American politics in the spring. I know these issues will arise and students will question things. It’s important to remember what happened in WWII and to never allow it to happen again. The detention centers on our southern border are most emphatically not “concentration camps.” Are they luxurious accomodations? No. Are they comfortable? Probably not that much. Are they necessary? Well, sadly, yes. I am not sure why both US citizens and those arriving on our border seem to expect that they can simply walk in and make themselves at home. No country allows that kind of immigration. Even Germany has returned to closed borders after the fiasco of 2015 when they allowed one million refugees into the country without any sort of vetting or processing. It was a nightmare. Go look up the rapes and assaults in Cologne and the comments by the mayor of that city (a woman) saying that women needed to be careful what they wear so that they don’t get assaulted. Victim-blaming at its finest.
The Democratic Party has tried to paint Trump as the perpetrator and cause of all the issues now confronting us, including the nasty political commentary and anything they can think of. The reality is that as Instapudit writers have noted, all they had to do was not act crazy and they can’t even do that. They have fallen for Trump’s rather clever Twitter trolling. They cannot resist the bait. The thing is, by responding, they are falling for his trap and are saying out loud what they’ve never said in sunlight before. They’re contradicting themselves every time he tweets.
Take the latest kerfuffle he generated with his tweet saying that some “Progressive Congresswomen” should go back to those countries they came from, fix them, and then come back here and let us know how they did it. Please note, he never named anybody, Dems did that. He did say “come back and show us how you did it”. Dems ran with the “all but one of those women were born here.” Again, he never named names…Dems did that. They fell for that hook, line, and sinker. Conservatives have checked their virtue boxes by publicly noting that they found the comments racist. They declared that he should have let them destroy themselves and not said anything and that now Pelosi was compelled to defend the Squad. They skipped over many of the same things…including the fact that Pelosi does NOT want the Squad to be the face of the Democratic Party. What Trump has done with his tweet and response has been to force Democrats to publicly, in daylight, either accept the crazy or deny it. They can no longer pretend it doesn’t exist.
Pelosi will have to do something if she wants to continue to lead her party. She will have to shut down the Squad or at least figure out a way to discredit them or even better (for her), allow them to discredit themselves. As it stands now, the Democrats are self-destructing in a most spectacular fashion.
As we move into the second half of 2019 and politics ramps up for 2020 (damn we have an insanely long lead time), I’m going to invest in popcorn futures and sit back and watch the show. It’s gonna be fun!
Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay
