We’re in the middle of a painfully disingenuous election cycle. Can Democrats reconcile their inconsistencies, or is it all only as deep as the votes it can buy?
Human rights are a banner of the party but China is beyond reproach in the Coronavirus conversation.
Freedom is for identities and sexual expression, but not for economics or businesses.
Elections are vulnerable to Russian interference but not if in an envelope.
Oppression is allegedly everywhere in America, but can’t be fathomed in a socialist government.
The pro-choice crowd wants no choice in education.
It’s disingenuous.
What is the Democrat consensus on America right now? The Republicans, with Trump as their mouthpiece, have been quite clear. Holding America to its foundational aspirations is the solution to society’s ills.
Many Democrats see America as problematic. Outspoken activists call for the entire country to be rebuilt from the ground up and remade in the image of their ideology. Our uniquely free economy, they argue, should be replaced with a heavy-handed government system. The Electoral College, not suiting their needs at the current political moment, should be scrapped. Defunding the police is an idea accepted by part of the party, nuanced by others, and shunned by only a few. Not all Democrats may want to defund the police, but few have found it important to squarely condemn the idea.
And it’s disingenuous to pass the buck on the lawlessness of late.
Consider the peculiar idea that violent protests, looting, and arson belong to Trump.
The vast majority of radical protestors are leftists with stated leftist agendas. The protests rage in leftist cities, and continue because of a profound absence of response from left-leaning governors. Democrat VP candidate Kamala Harris petitioned the public to pay for protestors’ bail money.
Few acknowledge that the country was actually largely unified in their outrage after George Floyd. Then came the politicking and radicalization of the agenda.
Even fewer mention the disproportionate destruction of Black communities by the mob.
And for all the condemnation of hatred, hatred of the police is exempted.
Where is the full-throated condemnation of the vile police hatred that has left police officers of every ethnicity dead on our streets?
When the police-hatred becomes so bad that officers are gunned down in their patrol cars simply for being police officers; and when protestors block the responding ambulance in the hospital driveway with chants of “We hope they die,” it’s time to seriously examine the moment.
The rioting, burning, and police killings must not only be condemned, there must be some serious lines drawn as to what moves a conversation from bettering to hating the police.
The selective outrage, a product of disingenuous politicians, is having a deadly effect on our communities.
There has also been a profound sense of disingenuousness about the global pandemic.
There’s only one place the Coronavirus could have been stopped: Wuhan, China. Yet China’s role in lying about the Coronavirus and concealing its devastating effects from the international community are not priorities of the left, either.
Europe’s death toll has surpassed that of the U.S. But the talking point is of Trump’s unique failure. Or of Trump being too slow in shutting down the country.
With the Democrats’ previous three years of balking at Trump’s tightening of border restrictions, who can honestly believe they would have kept us safer?
On the foreign policy front, it turns out that the "experts" were wrong -- moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem did not make peace in the Middle East impossible. Likewise, Iran was not pacified with the Obama administration-led nuclear deal.
Under and with the encouragement of the Trump administration, Bahrain joined the United Arab Emirates in recognizing Israel and establishing pathways to peace. A truly monumental and historic moment.
This should be (and by all means, is) the biggest diplomacy headline of the decade.
Nancy Pelosi called the peace deals “a distraction.” Biden later claimed Trump’s foreign policy is “bad for Israel.”
These statements are painfully fake attempts at diminishing this incredible news.
Trump’s vocal concerns about the security of voting by mail has been warped into a campaign of disenfranchisement. Daily stories of vote by mail foul play have been treated largely as fantasy. Shouldn’t it matter if our votes are secure? Especially if election security was the height of everyone’s concern in 2016, 2017, and 2018?
Or is there no genuine concern for the elections at all?
And what could be more disingenuous than Mayor De Blasio or Governor Newsom looking upon the destruction they have wrought—the rolling power outages, the homelessness, the skyrocketing cost of living—and blaming Trump?
Elevate Black voices – unless they’re on the right.
Believe all women – unless they’re victims of the chosen elite.
It’s disingenuous.
Bryan Griffin of the London Center for Policy Research is a lawyer and author who specializes in American policy in the Middle East.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.