Left's War on People of Faith
Almost exactly one year ago today, January 18, 2018, NJ Senator Cory Booker used his position as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to force Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen to listen his “tears of rage” diatribe upon hearing Senator Durbin’s claim that President Trump described some nations like Haiti as “sh*tholes”.
So pleased was Senator Booker with his performance that he posted the video of his performance on Twitter with the words “When ignorance and bigotry are allied with power, it’s a dangerous force in our country. To not stand up to this; to be silent— is to be a part of the problem.”
The Democrats are indeed adept at not being silent when acts of bigotry target minorities. And they often do so without regard to whether these acts are real, imagined, or manufactured for partisan advantage.
However, when ‘the dangerous force of ignorance and bigotry’ rages not against people of color but against people of faith, Democrats often put aside their “tears of rage.” In fact, they are often more than “a part of the problem,” they are the problem itself.
Putting aside the false notion that President Trump calling Haiti a sh*thole is racist -- Haiti is not a race, and one can express contempt for a nation such as Haiti, Russia, Venezuela, and North Korea without being racist against the people who live in that nation -- one wonders why there would be “tears of rage” over an alleged diss of a Caribbean country when similar insults against other nations barely elicit a whisper of discontent.
For example, imagine if there was only one Black nation on Earth -- let’s call it Wakanda -- and that this nation was an important American ally, but there was a conservative movement to boycott and alienate this nation.
Imagine if President Trump walked out of a meeting with the president of Wakanda, forcing him to sit alone in a White House meeting room while President Trump had dinner with his family.
Imagine if the Wakandan president addressed Congress to plea against a deal that President Trump had engineered that would give an enemy nation a clear pathway to obtaining the weapons needed to bring about that destruction, and 56 Republicans refused to even listen.
Or imagine if President Trump and other prominent Republicans had an apparent friendly relationship with a rabid racist who leads crowds in chants of “Death to Wakanda!” and calls Wakandans “termites.”
One would think that if these scenarios were true President Trump and his fellow Republicans would be guilty of “ignorance and bigotry,” I’d imagine. One might even join Senator Booker in seeping "tears of rage.”
But didn't President Obama walk out of a meeting with Israeli President Netanyahu? Didn't 56 Democrats skip Netanyahu’s 2015 address to Congress against the Irani Deal? Haven't President Obama, the Congressional Black Caucus, and other prominent Democrats embraced Louis Farrakhan?
Furthermore, isn't there a BDS movement?
BDS -- Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions -- is a movement that calls for a boycott of Israel, those who do business with Israel, and even those who do business with those who do business with Israel. Purportedly it is designed to pressure Israel into better treatment of Palestinians, yet many see it as an anti-Semitic attack upon Israel to delegitimize it.
Given that there is ample evidence that Palestinians are treated relatively well by Israel, including the fact that the Palestinian population in Israel is rapidly increasing despite claims that Israel is committing genocide against them, and are certainly better treated than say Venezuelans are treated by Venezuela or Cubans are treated by Cuba, the latter point -- that it is a sign of anti-Semitism -- seems to hold. Yet, BDS is only concerned with the Jews, to put it bluntly.
However, BDS is becoming increasingly popular within Democratic party, one that is supported by new stars like Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, Andrew Gillum, Rashida Tlaib, Stacey Abrams, and Ilhan Omar.
T.his is primarily because the Democratic Socialists of America, which has been dominating Progressive politics, are themselves rabid BDS supporters.
And I’ll add that Congresswoman Tlaib confirmed the suspicion of many about BDS anti-Semitism when she tweeted that those who oppose a recent anti-BDS bill “forgot what country they represent.”
Given the history of American Jews being accused of being more loyal to Israel than the United States, this may be at minimum an example of what the Left tirelessly calls “a dogwhistle” to anti-Semites.
For more evidence of the anti-Semitism in the Progressive movement one need only witness the notoriety surrounding the Women’s March, whose most well-known leaders -- Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez, and Linda Sarsour -- are open supporters of Mr. Farrakhan and clearly hate Jews.
This account from Women’s March member Evvie Harmon of a conversation that involved Ms. Mallory, Ms. Perez and Vanessa Wrible, who is a fellow Women’s March member and is Jewish, is both disturbing and telling.
"I suddenly realized that Tamika and Carmen were facing Vanessa [Wruble], who was sitting on a couch, and berating her—but it wasn’t about her being white. It was about her being Jewish. ‘Your people this, your people that.’ I was raised in the South and the language that was used is language that I’m very used to hearing in rural South Carolina. Just instead of against black people, against Jewish people. They even said to her ‘your people hold all the wealth.’ You could hear a pin drop. It was awful."
Progressive anti-Semitism is not new. As Philip Spencer writes:
"This first became a serious problem on the left in the late 19th century, as antisemitism first became a political force in the modern world. Some on the left flirted with the response that there might be something progressive about antisemitism: that it was a kind of anti-capitalism, however crude."
Nor is Progressive antisemitism unique to the United States. Part of Hugo Chavez's campaign to be Venezuela’s president for life was an assault against Jews, who he called “descendants of those who crucified Jesus Christ.”
And, of course, there are some individuals on the right who are very likely bigots, such as the well-rebuked Congressman Steve King. (See here, here, and here).
However, it is unfortunate that our media rarely discuss bigotry from the Left, and do so primarily when they think they can use it as a hammer to bludgeon the right.
We witnessed such a bludgeoning on President Trump after Richard Bower’s killing of 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue. Numerous reports implied that Trump was responsible for this massacre.
These reports somehow ignored that President Trump has a Jewish daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, and is arguably the most pro-Israel president in history. The revelation that Mr. Bowers himself hated President Trump because he felt that he was too friendly with the Jews, as well as for “being insufficiently supportive of the white supremacists of the deadly Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally and of the Proud Boys, a violent alt-right gang.”
The Progressive war on people of faith is also not limited to attacking Jews. This assertion can be supported by the saga of Colorado baker Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop.
Mr. Philips famously won a religious liberty case when the Supreme Court acknowledged that he was within his rights to refuse to make a same-sex marriage cake due to his Christian beliefs.
Unfortunately this victory only inspired some to become obsessed with destroying him. In fact, almost as soon as this decision was announced, the Masterpiece Cakeshop was contacted by a lawyer-activist named Autumn Scardina who requested that Mr. Phillips sell him a custom designed cake to celebrate his ‘transition from a male to a female.’
David French of the National Review adds:
"Lest anyone wonder whether this request was made in good faith, consider that this same person apparently made a number of requests to Masterpiece Cakeshop. In September 2017, a caller asked Phillips to design a birthday cake for Satan that would feature an image of Satan smoking marijuana. The name “Scardina” appeared on the caller identification. A few days earlier, a person had emailed Jack asking for a cake with a similar theme — except featuring “an upside-down cross, under the head of Lucifer.” This same emailer reminded Phillips that “religion is a protected class.”
Masterpiece Cakeshop continued to be inundated with requests for lewd or Satanic cakes from Mr. Scardina, who either wanted to harass Mr. Phillips for his Christianity, or just really loves cakes shaped like sex toys and pentagrams. Only in the past few days has a federal judge allowed Mr. Phillips to sue the Colorado Civil Rights Commission which punished for refusing to make a trans-cake.
But the Democrat’s attack on Christians is not limited to pastries. It is endemic of the party’s core philosophy.
David Limbaugh writes https://www.timesexaminer.com/david-limbaugh/2937-the-democratic-party-s-christian-problem “Is its frequent disrespect for the God of the Bible, Christian home-schoolers and the constitutionally protected religious liberty of Christians indicative of something or just a matter of my imagination? How about Democrats' hostility to voluntary prayer in public schools, their selective excising of Christian history from public school textbooks, their allergy to Christian-themed hymns in public schools or their dislike of Christmas displays in the public square? How about leftist Hollywood's routine depiction of Christians as fanatical lunatics? Remember when the Democratic National Committee denounced God in three votes and took the word and concept of God out of the party platform at the 2012 convention?”
Archbishop Timothy Dolan adds this about the Democrats: “…[I]t saddens me, and weakens the democracy millions of Americans cherish, when the party that once embraced Catholics now slams the door on us.”
Even Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, adds to this her criticism of the Democrats for attacking the faith of judicial nominees, She writes in The Hill:
“Elected leaders engaging in religion-baiting are playing with fire. They are sacrificing the well-being, peace and harmony of our country to satisfy their own political ambitions for partisan political interests.”
Rep. Gabbard’s comments will be especially relevant if current rumors are true, and Justice Ginsburg retires within the next weeks, and the replacement nominated is Catholic conservative jurist Amy Coney Barrett.
While questioning Judge Barrett during her nomination to a seat on the 7th Circuit Court, Senator Feinstein said to her, “You are controversial. You have a long history of believing that your religious beliefs should prevail. … When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you.”
To Senator Feinstein, that Justice Barrett’s deep faith in the very Christian beliefs on which this country and its judicial system was largely founded makes her “controversial.” That Justice Barrett is a Person of Faith, that the Christian dogma lives loudly within her, makes her lesser qualified for the Circuit Court position for which she was nominated than a person of lesser or no faith - not just to Senator Feinstein but to a great number within the Progressive movement as well.
That view is a dangerous force in our country. To not stand up to this -- to be silent— is to be a part of the problem.
-- DK