Right On: Crying wolf

January 11, 2017 Utah Channel 3

OPINION – He’s a racist. He’s homophobic. He’s a misogynist. He’s anti-Latino. He’s Islamophobic. He’s ….

It’s obvious who I’m talking about, right? Well, not exactly.

The Democratic Party and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself) have applied these and similar epithets to George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney and most recently to Donald Trump.

These epithets appeared in Democratic campaign ads. Worse, they continue to appear in what are presented by the media as news stories.

Thoughtful observers on both sides of the political spectrum point out that these accusations have lost their sting. They have been so overused that they are largely ignored by voters from both parties.

Was George W. Bush a racist? Al Gore’s campaign ads said Bush was. Yet Bush included more African Americans in his cabinet than Bill Clinton or any other president before him.

Was John McCain a racist? Google returns over 1 million results for “John McCain racist 2008”. During the campaign, Obama strongly implied McCain was a racist but even ABC News disputed it.

Google returns over 12 million results for “Romney racist 2012.” Even the mildest criticism of Obama then and now has been deemed racist by Democrats. The public is numb to the claim.

Then came Donald Trump. As he continued to rise through successive Republican primaries, Democrats could only hope such a flawed candidate would be nominated. Democrats and their media allies took a back seat to the Republican Stop Trump movement.

But little noticed in the summer of 2016, thoughtful articles began appearing in both conservative and liberal media. These authors opposed Trump but realized that the public wasn’t hearing their cries of wolf.

Jonah Goldberg in the conservative National Review wrote in July, “Decades of smearing decent Republican candidates leaves (Democrats) without credibility on Trump’s demagoguery. Millions of Americans firmly believe that journalists are water carriers for the Democrats and will tune out much of what they have to say about Trump now that he’s the nominee.”

New York Times writer Frank Bruni belatedly picked up the theme in September. In his editorial, Crying Wolf, Then Confronting Trump, Bruni said:

Four years ago, Romney was a bloodsucking capitalist vampire whose indictment of Obamacare was ipso facto proof of his racism.

In The Daily Beast, (Romney) was called a ‘race-mongering pyromaniac.’ On MSNBC, (Romney) was accused, by a black commentator, of the ‘niggerization’ of Obama into ‘the scary black man who we’ve been trained to fear.’

Bruni then quoted Howard Wolfson who worked for Democratic presidential candidates in 2004, 2008 and 2012.

“I’m quite confident I employed language that, in retrospect, was hyperbolic and inaccurate, language that cheapened my ability — our ability — to talk about this (Trump) moment with accuracy and credibility,” Wolfson said. “We should take stock of this moment and recognize that our language really needs to be more accountable and more appropriate to the circumstances.”

In the conservative magazine “Commentary,” Noah Rothman wrote, “Honorable and decent men like McCain and Romney are reflexively dubbed racists simply for opposing Democratic policies. Today, (Democrats) point and shout ‘racist’ into the void, but (they) only have themselves to blame for the fact that so many are no longer listening.”

With all this angst about Trump, how much is fact and how much is left liberal over-the-top rhetoric?

Scott Alexander is a mental health worker and a liberal blogger. He believes Trump will be a terrible president and has had two patients express Trump-related suicidal ideation. Yet his blog post “You Are Still Crying Wolf” is eye opening.

The post is long and data-filled. I strongly suggest reading it before criticizing the following samples:

“There is no evidence that Donald Trump is more racist than any past Republican candidate (or any other 70 year old white guy, for that matter).

“All this stuff about how he’s ‘the candidate of the KKK’ and ‘the vanguard of a new white supremacist movement’ is made up.”

“(Trump will be) by far the most pro-transgender Republican president in history.”

But what about the following over-the-top campaign statement?

“We cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it. Washington talked tough but failed to act. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned the very next day to commit crimes again.”

Which candidate said that? Alexander quotes it word for word from Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign.

Alexander’s bottom line: Trump may turn out to be a terrible president but almost certainly not for the reasons given by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and repeated as news, not opinion, in the mainstream media.

Get over it, Democrats. You lost the election crying wolf. You created great anxiety among those naïve enough to believe you.

As Alexander says at the end of his blog post, stop, stop, stop.

And this writer says get back to the business of being the loyal opposition on matters of substance.

Howard Sierer is a developing columnist for St. George News. The opinions stated in this article are his own and may not be representative of St. George News.

Email: hsierer@stgeorgeutah.com

Twitter: @STGnews

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