Shining a light on what America is today is Trump’s mission in 2016. And there is hardly anything more effective for that purpose than calling Hillary a bigot.
It doesn’t matter whether she’s a bigot or not. That’s debatable.
What matters is that Trump is calling her something that’s bad, in an imprecise, perhaps inaccurate way intended to put her on the defensive and do her political harm.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Everyone is caterwauling about that. I heard on Rush Limbaugh’s show this morning that in the days since Trump called Hillary a bigot, the most popular word-definition search online quickly became “bigot.” Thousands, millions of people are looking up “bigot” to see if Trump’s accusation fits the definition.
That’s the richest thing I’ve heard in a long, long time.
How many years have Democrats and left-wing media been calling everyone to the right of them a “racist,” with utter disregard for accuracy, honesty, or the exact definition of “racist” or “racism” – and getting away with it?
According to left-wing media and activists, and at least some Democratic politicians, Donald Trump, Mitt Romney, John McCain, George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan are or were all racists. (Bob Dole may be a racist too; I don’t remember specifically.) Virtually all Republican politicians are “racists,” according to a good half of the talking heads at MSNBC. Certainly all conservatives are.
Definitions and usage don’t have to make a lick of sense. Peanut butter and jelly is, somehow, racist. Wearing white is racist. National parks with trees in them are racist. Liking white meat is racist. Disagreeing with Barack Obama on anything whatsoever is racist.
Putting “black” and “white” in scare quotes because what does that even mean today, in a time when people are blessedly ever less concerned about race in marriage and childbearing, is racist.
And the cherry on top: the left calls everyone on the right a bigot, too. Oh, sure, it’s done in a way different from Trump’s. The left typically establishes – to its internal satisfaction – that particular actions are bigoted and racist. Then it attributes those actions, and the imputed motives behind them, to the right.
The highest-profile Democratic politicians mostly try to avoid saying outright things like “Mitch McConnell is a bigot.” But they’re perfectly happy to enjoy the political benefits of a forcibly corrupted opinion climate, in which everyone on McConnell’s side of the aisle, including McConnell, is silenced by the Scarlet B of bigotry.
Well, guess what. That whole charade is worth exactly what it’s worth when Trump calls Hillary a bigot. I.e., squat.
Ben Carson is reportedly asking Trump to stop calling Hillary a bigot. I urge Dr. Carson to let this one run its course. Trump is revealing something very important about America with his attack on Hillary.
He’s revealing the fathomless moral hypocrisy of our opinion leaders. These folks want to have the words “bigot” and “racist” to hold as whips over other people. But when someone whose microphone they can’t silence uses one of those intimidation words against them, they shriek and go running for the dictionary.
For crying out loud, don’t help them with their self-serving, one-sided pretense. This is a life-or-death struggle for the soul of America. Don’t shore up the failing defenses of political correctness.
Letting the pretense be exposed matters much more than trying to make Trump toe the line of linguistic hygiene.
This is what it takes to get the attention of our turbulent, hard-seared spirits. Let the lesson play out before us on a cosmic Jumbo Tron. Believe me, a lot of other people see it clearly, even if you don’t. Maybe it will just take you longer. The ways Trump and the reactions to him are exposing the truth about this country are more important than anything else in the presidential race right now.
