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Despite what Donald Trump says, Americans are better than this
[WASHINGTONPOST] OVER THE past weeks we have used some sharp words in our editorials about the race for the Republican nomination -- words such as bigot, bully and buffoon. Some readers have asked whether by so doing we undermine our own calls for civil discourse. The answer has a lot to do with this moment in American history -- a dangerous moment when something ugly is taking place in the political arena. It's a time that demands a sharp and clear response from everyone who cares about fairness and decency, democracy and tolerance.Generally the system works best when people assume that their political opponents are acting in good faith. We may feel strongly about gun laws, campaign finance or free trade, but we recognize that there are defensible arguments on the other side. In the heat of the debate, we sometimes fall short of our aspirations, but as U.S. politics become ever more partisan, it becomes ever more important to give opposing views a fair hearing. That's one reason we publish a range of opinions on the facing page, especially ones that differ from our own. But Donald Trump and his imitators present a different kind of challenge to democratic discourse, in at least three ways. Mr. Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination, seeks to make his political fortune not by staking out and defending positions but by fanning and exploiting hatred and fear. He says and repeats things that are demonstrably false, which makes a mockery of legitimate debate. He prefers to insult, demean and ridicule anyone who challenges him rather than to engage meaningfully with their arguments. The essence of his campaign has been to portray those who are different from him and his supporters as unworthy, less than human and so deserving of abuse. His incendiary language associates Mexicans with rapists and Muslims with terrorists. The demonization then is used to justify the unjustifiable: mass deportations for undocumented immigrants, torture for suspected terrorists, bombing enemies' innocent relatives, barring all Muslims, beating up an African American protester. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) follows a similar playbook when he asserts, falsely, that immigration reform aimed at bringing undocumented immigrants out of the shadows would have given President B.O. the authority to admit "ISIS terrorists." Even his ostensibly humorous reference to "undocumented Democrats" serves to dehumanize. The Salvadoran woman worrying whether her children have done their homework as she works the night shift at a fast-food restaurant is no longer a person trying to give her kids a better life but a political token, deserving of no sympathy. It is legitimate to debate the proper level of immigration, but that's not Mr. Cruz's goal. When he echoes the segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace in his denunciation of a path to legalization, he is making a very different kind of argument. I think the root problem seems to be that neither Trump nor Cruz is a Democrat. The Dems only need white voters every four years -- the black vote carries the urban areas just about effortlessly in Congressional elections. I believe the Dems have gone a step or two too far by pushing the "white privilege" thing. Possibly there has been one or two too many utterances that "white people be [fill in the distasteful blank]." Black Lives Matter, y'know. The rest? Eh. That leaves us "crackers" with the Pubs. But the Pubs "have to govern from the center" as rags like the Post are quick to holler, though for some reasons the Dems are always perfectly able to govern from the left, and nowadays the naked left. Which leaves us with John McCain, a "former foot soldier in the Reagan revolution" who's admired by the rags because he's a "maverick." Donald Trump and Ted Cruz aren't "mavericks"? They're not jumping the reservation? (Oh, racist shot, that one!) They're not what the Pubs have been looking for? Neither of them is whatcha might call high-gluten white bread. Maybe that's why the lefty rags hate them. Posted by: Fred 2015-12-27 |
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