Comments@THE GUSS REPORT-Any fair-minded person knows that fighting racism (and other forms of discrimination) is an important pursuit. But people harm that effort when they label as racist those people who are not.
In October 2013, President Barack Obama made a great, spirited and fair challenge to the Republicans.
"You don't like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it.”
At the time, the Democrats had just lost control of the U.S. Senate. Several years earlier in his first term, they lost control of the House of Representatives. Despite that slide, the still-standing Obama courageously threw down the gauntlet.
Last night, with more help from the previously unknown campaign advisor Kellyanne Conway than from the Republican establishment, Donald Trump rose to the occasion and won.
Instead of acknowledging that Trump’s crystal ball had a better read on the American voting population than did Hillary Clinton’s, suddenly, sadly, but not unpredictably, some of those on (or disenfranchised by) the losing side of the scoreboard spent much of the night online labeling the outcome that which it is not: racism, misogyny and sundry other accusations.
From a friend: “We live in a racist country and now have a racist president. Next he'll go after Jews….Hitler got elected too.”
But the friend did not have an answer for this: Are you saying that the people who overwhelmingly elected Obama in 2008, and re-elected him in 2012, (except those who were too young to vote in those elections) suddenly became “racists” last night?
I guess, channeling Bill Clinton’s wordplay, it depends on your meaning of unfairness, discrimination, anti-Semitism, dishonesty, racism, sexism and misogyny.
- Was it unfair when former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, as proven by WikiLeaks, rigged the Democratic primary against Bernie Sanders?
- Was it discrimination or anti-Semitism when, as proven by WikiLeaks, the DNC plotted to use Sanders’ Judaism against him in the West Virginia and other primaries?
- Was it dishonest when Wasserman-Schultz’s successor, Donna Brazile, as proven by WikiLeaks, told Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly that she “did not receive any questions from CNN” that she leaked to the Clinton campaign?
- Was it racist when Brazile said in the same interview, “As a Christian woman I understand persecution, but I will not sit here and be persecuted because your information is totally false.
- Was it sexist when Hillary described Bill Clinton’s assault accusers as a “Bimbo Brigade,” or when her longtime ally James Carville described their motivations as “(when you)…drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find.”
- Was it appropriate for Hillary to embrace Beyoncé and Jay Z at their concert this weekend teeming with racist, misogynistic lyrics? What if that was a concert for Trump?
If what happened with Trump’s near-solo victory over Clinton was motivated by racism, how does one explain the Republicans’ simultaneously retaining control of the Senate and House? Many of those candidates ran away from Trump during the long campaign slog.
In fact, were the 59,581,587 million Americans who voted for Trump in cahoots, but the 59,787,604 million who supported Clinton were not? That would be one crowded chat room! (The Electoral College gives those in every state a balanced voice despite the popular vote. Those are the rules of the game.)
Take out of the equation those who do harbor racist beliefs, because they exist on both sides. What you have left is still have a mass of good people who overwhelmingly elected, and then re-elected, Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. When you power-wash off the tabloid stuff, they decided that things were not working out, and that significant change was better than more of the same. That is all it is.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a contributor to CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640 and Huffington Post. He blogs on humane issues at http://ericgarcetti.blogspot.com/. Follow him on Twitter @TheGussReport. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
Obama: ‘Go Out There and Win an Election’
