This commentary is by Walt Amses, a writer who lives in North Calais.
Writing in “The Hill” last week, Juan Williams said that Joe Biden was correct in suggesting the Republican Party is on the wrong side of history, with a decision to make, whether it’s “on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace … the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis.”
Although the president was referring to the GOP’s unanimous opposition to bills designed to protect minority voting rights, his frustration was likely exacerbated by apostates within his own ranks repeatedly scuttling the ambitious Democratic agenda.
The Republican response to Biden’s assertions was swift, with Mitt Romney suggesting the remarks had “sinister and even racist inclinations” and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, undaunted by hypocritical irony, calling it “a deliberately divisive” attack and “beneath his office.”
The faux outrage of the GOP, even as it goes about not only limiting opportunities to vote but making it easier for red states to circumvent final vote counts, is one more piece of cynicism clearly indicating where the party is headed.
Republicans want to legalize taking elections out of the hands of voters and determining the outcomes themselves, in homage to their deposed former leader who’s fast becoming a burr beneath their collective saddle.
While the rest of the nation celebrates Black History Month, Republicans struggle to acknowledge Black history at all and, if they must, they’re determined to rewrite it to their own specifications — that is, from a decidedly white, conservative point of view.
Consider legislation taking shape in Florida that essentially mandates that any classroom teaching or discussion must insure students are shielded from the “discomfort” that may be associated with past actions by their “race or sex.”
Mundanely worded, but vile in application, the bill mirrors a proposal by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in his “Stop WOKE Act,” a defense against Critical Race Theory, a problem that exists exactly nowhere in the state’s curriculum, but that has become a convenient political lightning rod.
The bill was met with fierce condemnation by African American legislators. State Sen. Shevrin Jones said: “This bill’s not for any other race; this was directed to make whites not feel bad about what happened years ago.”
Education Week reports at least four other states have passed similar legislation modeled primarily on the previous president’s ban on diversity training for federal workers, since rescinded by Biden. All are startlingly similar to 1984’s “Ministry of Truth,” responsible for misrepresenting historical facts into manufactured “truths” that better serve government purposes.
However absurd the Republicans’ delusional notion of American exceptionalism may be, providing a sanitized version of history, particularly regarding race, inches a generation of schoolchildren toward propaganda when what they desperately need is to learn how to tell fact from fiction.
Considering that 43% of Republican voters in a Monmouth University poll were opposed to teaching the history of American racism in public schools, it isn’t surprising that the GOP has been emboldened to all but whitewash the country’s racist past. At the same time, they’ve transformed a party once representing rugged individualism and “personal responsibility” into a bastion of “white fragility,” nurturing constituents far too delicate to emotionally survive a deep examination of uncomfortable facts. (See “snowflake.”)
Following through on a campaign promise, Biden reiterated his intention to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court when Justice Stephen Bryer announced he would be stepping down. The conservative response was telling, with Sen. Ted Cruz calling it “offensive” and “an insult to Black women.” Fox News TV dinner heir Tucker Carlson thought Biden’s promise would bring about “tribal warfare” and lamented, “He didn’t even tell us she was a nice person.”
Republicans’ stand on race has found them ditching dog whistles and pretense after the deadly celebration of white nationalism at 2017’s “Unite the Right” rally — infused with “good people,” according to the former president. Propaganda, exaggeration and outright lies have propelled the party into convincing its overwhelmingly white supporters that they — not African Americans — are the ones being discriminated against, as though an oppressed white minority, desperately in need of protection.
When a conservative cites “racism” in any context, you can bank on it referencing some perceived indignity inflicted on Caucasians.
We’ve reached the point where traditional debate over respective platforms in the lead-up to midterm elections has long since left the building, largely because the GOP doesn’t actually have a platform and the Democrats are hard pressed to convince anyone of anything (including some Democrats), given half the electorate is still steeped in the “Big Lie” — a number of Big Lies, in fact.
While believing the mythology of a stolen election remains a litmus test for entry into the GOP, a constellation of other fantasies fuels modern conservatism:
- Masking and vaccinations are a harmless personal choice.
- The Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol was a justified, peaceful demonstration.
- Any historical study of race in America should be focused through a white lens.
The ongoing Republican initiative to sabotage what should be a clear-eyed look at our history of racial discrimination — including slavery, white terrorism and the institutional racism they so vigorously deny, while simultaneously undermining minority voting rights — weakens the country every bit as much as attacks on democracy itself.
Exploiting and even encouraging differences that separate us is unconscionable, creating the terrible likelihood that softening, misrepresenting or denying this sordid legacy will doom us to repeat it well into the future.
