After their election debacle in Virginia and the close call in New Jersey, Democrats are looking for what or who to blame. Initial targets are Critical Race Theory (CRT), something dismissed as “wokeness,” and Congressional progressives known as “the Squad” including the nefarious “AOC.” If Democrats accept the narrative that swing voters rejected “extremism,” they are doomed to lose big in 2022 and 2024.
Leading Republicans have not shied away from extremism or violence; in fact, they have embraced both. When Arizona Congressional Representative Paul Gosar tweeted animated videos showing him killing Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and attacking President Biden with a sword, Republicans in Congress overwhelmingly voted against censuring him. They blame Biden for the recent spike in COVID cases, while they actively campaign against mandatory vaccination and masking.
Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is promoting rightwing “Replacement Theories” that were behind the neo-Nazi Charlottesville rally. On Fox “Fake” News, Gingrich accused leftists of trying to “drown” out “classic Americans” and replace them with people who knew nothing of this country’s history and traditions because they want to “get rid of the rest of us.” Gingrich’s claims were repeated by Fox talking head Tucker Carlson who accused Democrats of trying to “change the racial mix of the country” so they could “reduce the political power of people whose ancestors lived here.”
Meanwhile, the Republican rank-and-file has been disrupting local school board meetings, denouncing school curriculum, library books, and efforts to combat the COVID pandemic. The New York Times reports a “disturbing spike in threats against school board officials” and “hundreds of intimidating messages to election officials in at least a dozen states.”
The Democrats lost in 2021 because they failed to a articulate a clear agenda that provides an alternative election narrative, internal bickering undermined legislative initiatives and made them appear incompetent, and because deep-seated white racism remains a real problem in the United States so that fictional claims that CRT is invading public schools have voter appeal.
In Kenosha, an overwhelmingly white jury acquitted a seventeen year old white male who brought an AR-15 style submachine gun to a Black Lives Matter rally where he killed two of the protesters because he thought he was defending himself from attack by his unarmed victims. That decision had nothing to do with CRT or leftwing “wokeness” and everything to do with white fear of Blacks. The decision was celebrated by white vigilante groups as justification for their behavior and Kyle Rittenhouse was proclaimed a 2nd Amendment hero by conservative politicians and rightwing news outlets.
On a recent CNN broadcast, host Chris Cuomo interviewed comedian/commentator Bill Maher about a supposed leftwing peril threatening the United States, feeding him a series of softball questions and responding with “Oh my God” facial expressions. After acknowledging “I’m not in schools” and “I have no interaction with children,” Maher announced that he has heard from people all over the country that “kids are sometimes separated into groups, oppressor and oppressed” and being taught that “racism is the essence of America.” He derided this practice as “just silly, it’s just virtue-signaling” and accused people advocating for curriculum revision of being “afraid to acknowledge progress,” a psychological disorder he alternately labeled “wokeness” and “progressophobia.”
I kept waiting for Chris Cuomo to ask Maher to provide an example, any example, to support his claims, but Cuomo never did and Maher never felt compelled to offer any evidence. On his television show, Maher promotes a group of contrarians that want to start their own college where they will be free to present offensive ideas and dismiss objections without having to provide supporting evidence or answer to anyone. Cuomo never asked Maher about that either.
The more serious problems for Democrats and progressives worldwide are new upsurges in the COVID-19 pandemic that have lead to closings, supply chain disruptions, and inflation spikes and the counterattacks on climate change initiatives. In Europe, protests against newly imposed COVID restrictions turned into riots in Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands and in Germany boosted rightwing vote totals. This has nothing to do with teaching CRT in U.S. schools and everything to do with international irresponsible rightwing mobilization and fear-mongering.
The other real problem is denial of the impending climate catastrophe and efforts to block restrictions on the production and use of fossil fuels. Global leaders sang “Kumbaya” together after the Glasgow Climate Conference and then returned home where they will implement inadequate or phantom measures. Wealthy GOP and fossil fuel industry donors in the United States are pouring money into the reelection campaign accounts of nominally Democratic Senators Manchin (WV) and Sinema (AZ) to influence them to stand firm in opposition to clean energy initiatives. Again, this has nothing to do with “wokeness” or the fictional claim that children are being indoctrinated into CRT in American schools.
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Media Watch with Hosts Bob Anthony and Eric Tait – November 29, 2021
Alan Singer guests as we do a Thanksgiving Report Card on the state of the USA today through the lens of a) the verdicts in the murder trial of the killers of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia (Guilty!) and Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin (Not Guilty); b) Political figures and certain media reactions to those verdicts; c) Eric Garner’s son calling out NY Black Lives Matter leader for “blood in the streets” and similar comments about Mayor-elect Eric Adams plans for resurrecting a revamped plainclothes unit; d) Rep.Lauren Boebert’s outrageous defense of Rep. Paul Gosar as he was censured by the House of Rep gets savaged by local Denver TV News Anchor in an amazing “Standup” Commentary. Worth noting; e) Why/how Bill Maher’s b.s.-take on Critical Race Theory “being taught in schools” got a total “pass” on Chris Cuomo’s CNN’s show and what that says about piss-poor journalism “passing” for real journalism today, and f) How this “CRT obsession” relates to the current national trend in Book-Banning.
