Racist

Over the past decade, but particularly over the past two years, the Left has become obsessed with characterizing anything and everything as "racist"—if and only if it's something that conflicts with their world view. A high school student smiling quietly as an native American invades his personal space banging a drum and chanting—"racist."* The suggestion that physical barriers (i.e., the "Wall") might help reduce the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States—"racist." Historical paintings of Christopher Columbus—"Racist." Anything that Donald Trump says or does—"Racist." It's a bludgeon designed to destroy anyone with an opposing view, and it often works.

Just the other day I saw a TV talking head pull out one of the old standbys, characterizing any attempt to institute voter ID laws as "racist." Here's a man-on-the-street video (obviously selective, but still ...) from 2016 that might be worth considering:

Hmmm.

That got me to thinking about the Left's vehement opposition to voter ID laws, and you know what—in the long tradition of the Left, I decided that their opposition itself must be "racist." It's the soft racism of low expectations. It implies that African Americans and other minorities are not capable of acquiring valid ID, that they are incapable of following simple government guidelines, that they are pawns who must be guided by their Leftist 'friends.' It's insulting, it's condescending, and yes, it is racist.

But, of course, that can't be, because the Left would never be racist. That label is reserved only for those who oppose their world view.

FOOTNOTE:
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*Richard Fernandez comments on this recent case of media bias and Leftist hysteria:

The roller-coaster reactions following a video purportedly showing Covington Catholic high school boys mocking a native American who claimed he was a Vietnam veteran elder began with a wave of outrage and ended with a whimper of embarrassment when unedited source video showed the shoe was on the other foot. The humiliating reversal culminated in a correction by the Washington Post that the elder was not a Vietnam veteran at all. "Correction: Earlier versions of this story incorrectly said that Native American activist Nathan Phillips fought in the Vietnam War. Phillips served in the U.S. Marines from 1972 to 1976 but was never deployed to Vietnam."

But by then it had involved the amour propre of literally hundreds of pundits and social media celebrities who simply couldn't admit to being so cringingly wrong. The quantity of barbecued crow was so great it was difficult to ingest. Some flatly refused. One journalist wrote after the exculpating evidence came out: "I refuse to read it, but from what I have read, Reason has found in a MAGA teen video their own Zapruder film but for 'disproving' white supremacy."

The urge to believe in something can be so great that people can sincerely see things that aren't there. The social media obsession with racism and toxic masculinity eventually turned the Covington boy's "smirking faces" into the new Evil Clown sighting of 2019.

It would be nice of the usual suspects learned from this incident ... but they won't.