It was the height of the Reverend Wright controversy during the 2008 primary campaign. Candidate Barack Obama’s attendance at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago was portrayed by the conservative media as proof that he followed the sermonizing of its minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Some of Wright’s sermons pointed out the history of racism and inequality in the United States. In one sermon he stated “God damn America”. This statement was extracted from that sermon and repeated endlessly by Fox programming and news outlets. Barack Obama condemned the statement and resigned from that church. This, of course, was not good enough for the conservative MSM. In a 2008 debate moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, Mr. Obama was asked “do you renounce and reject” Reverend Wright and his statement.
At the time I considered it an over-the-top question. Obama had already condemned the statement in multiple interviews yet the moderators felt it necessary to ask him one more time. I was irritated at the question because John McCain had his own reverend problem. “Reverend” John Hagee the notorious homophobe and end-times fanatic, had endorsed Mr. McCain yet McCain was never asked the same question about Mr. Hagee. The double standard applied by the media to the GOP candidate vs the Democratic candidate was never as obvious as with this issue.
Since then, I have waited for media elites like George Stephanopoulos to phrase questions the same way for today’s Republican presidential candidates.
Every GOP candidate is trying to have it both ways: sound pro-American yet appeal to a base of voters who have been deluded into supporting anti-American ideology. It’s up to us to call them out. Please, in your letters to the editor of your local paper, call-in radio interviews, and twitter submissions to candidate debates and forums, use “ renounce and reject” in your questions. Here are three questions pertinent to the 2016 GOP candidates:
Do you renounce and reject acts of violence against American citizens based on different political opinions?
Do you renounce and reject those who commit violence against staffers and patients at Planned Parenthood Clinics?
Do you renounce and reject the multiple conservative Christian ministers who want to eliminate the separation of church and state as described in the constitution?
These are just a few examples of questions we need to ask. Citizens must be more vocal in their opposition to the Republican Party as it continues its ever more rapid descent into fascism. Asking precise questions is essential to this process.