“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
H.L. Mencken
Seriously: You couldn’t make this up. Less than 2-weeks after the election of Donald Trump, Republicans are demanding that they not be identified with the racism, xenophobia, misogyny, corruption and nepotism of their candidate.
THERE is a group of 10 friends in Charlotte, N.C., all women, all in their 50s, all white. They’re college educated with successful careers, and they have a message for The New York Times: Come visit us.
They voted for Donald Trump and don’t consider themselves homophobic, racist or anti-Muslim. But now, they say, thanks to The Times and its fixation on Trump’s most extreme supporters, most people think they are.
Right. They just prefer a candidate who happens to be all of those things to a candidate who is none of those things.
Pardon me if I’m detecting some eau de 60’s here, as in “We love our darkies!”
Sorry, ladies, but, bless your hearts, you knew exactly what you were voting for. Trump’s racist and ethnic hostilities, his lies, his shabby business conduct, his ignorance, his bullying, his degrading treatment of women, his overt hostility to America’s foundational ideals … those were front and center for 18-months. You can’t plead ignorance. Nor, after 7 separate Congressional investigations found no evidence of wrongdoing, can you plead Benghazi. And with Trump holding telephone conference with world leaders on an unsecured phone line, you’re going to look foolish if you plead e-mail.
Why do y’all think there has been such a terrible eruption of overtly racist bullying in schools? Because in spite of polite instruction to the contrary, you sat at the family dinner table and announced and defended your support for a man who does exactly what you tell your children not to do.
So your children, reasonably enough, concluded that your instruction about that crass and shameful behavior comes with distinctions, that it’s impermissible among people like us, but fine when directed against those others.
Wink-Wink.
Y’all aren’t kidding anybody but yourselves. You own it.