The Politics of Hate

John C. Goodman



One family canceled Thanksgiving dinner so they wouldn’t have to be with pro-Trump relatives. Another family canceled a Christmas reunion for the same reason. One couple changed the date of their wedding so that a pro-Trump relative wouldn’t be able to attend. Another couple chose to get married in Italy — a place too distant for their relatives to travel to. These are just a few of the ruptures that have followed the election of Donald Trump, as reported by The New York Times.

Are we a deeply divided nation? Maybe. But if we are divided the cause of that division comes squarely from the left, not the right. In virtually every case, the people who are canceling reunions and refusing to talk to their friends and family members are Hillary supporters. The Times reported not a single instance of a Trump voter shun.

What’s the cause of all this? I think it is identity politics.

Remember, the two candidates ran completely different campaigns. Trump’s campaign was an issues campaign, mainly economic issues. In every speech he gave, he complained about abandoned factories, lost jobs and low wages. Even if he was completely wrong about the cause of those problems (bad trade deals), his was still campaigning on issues.

Hillary Clinton, by contrast, ran a largely issueless campaign. Do you know what her position was on international trade? Of course not. What she said in private was the opposite of what she said in public. On the Pacific trade deal, as a candidate she contradicted everything she said while she was Secretary of State. Her confidants quietly advised worried Wall Street backers that they could safely ignore what was being said publicly on the campaign trail.

But none of that matters because Hillary wasn’t asking people to vote for her because of differences with Donald Trump over trade policy anyway. Or on corporate tax reform. Or school choice. Or safe neighborhoods. Or environmental policy. Or any other policy.

Hillary' s entire campaign, and the Democratic Party’s approach to elections in general, is based on appeals to people as members of racial, ethnic and sociological groups. Since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, the Democratic Party has approached people as groups, pitted group against group, and promised each to protect them from outsiders. In the Roosevelt era, the appeal was almost exclusively to economic groups.

Today the Democratic party has largely abandoned economic appeals in favor of identity politics. For example, they ask blacks to vote for them because they are black, not because of any policy differences they have with their opponents. And their appeals carry with them an assault on the opposition, either express or implied: The Republican candidate is anti-black. The same approach is used with Hispanics, women, the LGBT community, etc.

For example, here is Michelle Obama telling a black audience they had a duty to vote Democrat, no matter who is on the ticket. (And by implication, no matter what the candidate stands for or what he or she would do once in office.) Her husband was even worse. I have cited many examples in previous posts at Town Hall. (See “Which Is the Party of Hate?”) But you can check it out for yourself. Just Google the words “Obama” and “race baiting” and see how many links pop up.

Now if the election were covered fairly, it would be obvious that one side is talking about issues and the other is not. But as I pointed out last week, the mainstream media viewed the entire election the same way Hillary Clinton did. Even Fox News spent almost the entirety of election night talking about how many blacks were voting versus whites, or women versus men — as if demography were destiny at the polls.

An example of someone who has completely bought into the Democratic Party’s view of the world is Lee Drutman, who has a rather lengthy article explaining why the political fault line between the two parties are based on race and identity and why that is likely to continue for years to come. Much of what he says is correct. But it describes Democrats, not Republicans.

Identity politics works on some voters. I have heard stories of women who break down crying at the mere mention of the election results. Are they crying because NAFTA may be renegotiated? Or the pipeline may be built? Of course not. If elections are about identity, then elections are about you in a very personal way. If the other candidate wins, you have been personally rejected. I would probably cry too if I were naïve enough to believe all that.

As I pointed out last week, Donald Trump uttered not one word during the election that was anti-black, anti-Semitic or anti-gay. Although he may have been insensitive, he really never said anything that was anti-Hispanic. In fact, it’s just the opposite. See this post by Scott Alexander on what Trump really did say, along with the finding that Trump did much better among minorities than either Romney or McCain.

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President Trump’s Cabinet picks are likely to be easily confirmed. That’s because of Senate Democrats

Senate Democrats are not going to be able to block Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions bid to become attorney general. And they can’t do much to stop Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo from assuming the helm of the CIA.

And they have only themselves to thank for it. That’s because exactly three years ago, the Democratic Senate majority — led by Harry Reid (Nev.) — rammed through controversial rules fundamentally changing the way the Senate does business. They unleashed in November 2013 what’s called the “nuclear option” allowing senators to approve by a simple majority all presidential appointments to the executive branch and the judiciary, with a big exception for Supreme Court justices.

Democrats took the controversial step because they were so frustrated by what they saw as Republican foot-dragging on President Obama’s choices for his administration and federal judgeships. Under the new rules, it takes only a simple majority of senators to confirm such appointments instead of the 60 typically needed to force Senate action.

But now that Trump is in the White House and Republicans control the Senate, Democrats have lost their most powerful weapon to block his appointments. Democrats will have 48 seats in the new Senate.

The architect of the rules change, outgoing Senate Minority Leader Reid (D-Nev.), says he doesn’t regret his decision to go nuclear.

“Sen. Reid has no regrets on invoking the nuclear option because of Republicans’ unprecedented obstruction,” said Reid spokeswoman Kristen Orthman. “The nuclear option lets presidents show their true colors and guarantees a nominee a fair up-or-down vote. If Republicans want to go on record supporting radicals, that’s their decision and they will have to live with it.

Incoming Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) noted that he opposed the rules change in the first place.

“I wanted 60 for Supreme Court and Cabinet, but I didn’t prevail,” Schumer said in an interview Friday, in which he also expressed hope that Trump would nominate “mainstream” candidates.

“If it’s somebody who is out of the mainstream,” he added, “we’ll fight tooth and nail and use every tool we have.”

The problem is, those tools are now severely limited. It would fall to Republicans to join Democrats to stand in the way of any Trump appointment deemed objectionable.

“The most controversial nominees should attract Republican opposition as well as Democratic,” said Thomas Mann, a congressional expert with the Brookings Institution. “If they don’t, it’s speaking volumes about the Republican Party, and Democrats are relatively powerless to do anything about that.”

Republicans warned at the time that Democrats were making a mistake with what they called a “power grab,” warning they would be sorry about the change when they eventually found themselves in the minority.

Democrats defended the decision crucial to forcing action in a Washington gripped by partisan warfare.  “The important distinction is not between Republicans and Democrats, it is between those who are willing to help break the gridlock in Washington and those who defend the status quo,” Reid said in 2013.

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Creepy Billionaire Soros Trying to Buy Prosecutors Across America

Creepy Left wing billionaire George Soros is spending a massive amount of his ill-gotten fortune trying to amass an army of robot prosecutors all across the country he can activate to attack his political enemies at his bidding.

Soros is already well known for his underwriting of direct political “activism” like the Black Lives Matter riots and the recent anti-Trump violence he sponsored.

But a post election analysis shows how the shadowy billionaire is trying to put his globalist open border stamp on America by putting his political enemies in jail on trumped up charges.

Republican Matthew McCord was feeling pretty good about the $12,000 he had raised for his campaign for Henry County district attorney when he was blindsided by a September surprise.
New York billionaire George Soros dumped $147,000 into Georgia Safety & Justice, an independent-expenditure committee registered on Aug. 26, aimed at defeating Mr. McCord and electing his opponent, Democrat Darius Pattillo.

After recovering from the shock, Mr. McCord, a former prosecutor in Clayton and Newton counties, did what he thought was best for himself and the party: He dropped out of the race, allowing Mr. Pattillo to run unopposed.

“It was horrible,” said Mr. McCord, a lawyer in private practice in McDonough. “They rented space, they had a staff, they were using a Washington, D.C.-based PR firm. So what I knew was they could say whatever they wanted to say about me. It didn’t matter if it was true, and I would have no way to respond.”

He had already received a taste of things to come. “I’ve always been fairly centrist. I have a foundation that I started that has paid to send minority kids to school. And they [Soros campaigners] were already trying to paint me as a white racist,” he said. “It’s deplorable.”

Mr. McCord wasn’t alone. In 2015 and 2016 Mr. Soros, a leading Black Lives Matter funder, sunk more than $7 million into at least 11 local prosecutorial races in 10 states in an effort to implement criminal justice reform from the inside.

That’s a lot of money for a simple prosecutor position and for some phony “criminal justice reform” initiative from a billionaire known for ruthless investing and manipulation of the the political process to fatten his already considerable wallet.

Soros’s commitment to so-called reform was called into question when one of his bought and paid for robots was busted for his own brand of criminal justice reform:

Those concerns were heightened when one Soros-backed candidate, Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith, was indicted in September on charges of attempting to hinder the prosecution of two criminal defendants. He has pleaded not guilty.

The Mississippi Safety & Justice PAC spent about $56,000 to help re-elect Mr. Smith in November 2015.

Soros’s minions have taken control in many key jurisdictions over the past few years.  Expect plenty of politicized prosecutions from the Soros-bots in the near future.

What happens next is anyone’s guess. “Only time will tell if there was a specific policy he [Mr. Soros] wanted them to implement,” said Mr. Thompson. “But we’re keeping our eyes wide open.”

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