While the United States has always been a nation plagued by white supremacy and its corrosive impacts on liberal democracy, there have been moments throughout our history when those impacts were more readily observable. Like in the 1920s, when the KKK saw a reemergence to national prominence, we are witnessing a rebirth of unabashed racist rhetoric by white nationalists and white supremacists. And that rebirth is being facilitated and undergirded by an array of conservative commentators.
For years Tucker Carlson has brazenly pushed back against the fact that there even exists a domestic threat posed to the nation by white supremacist groups across the country, despite the fact that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security have both warned of a danger. For years the conservative culture war fabricators have demonized social justice and attempted to paint Black Lives Matter protests as, at the very least, unpatriotic and the worst, inherently violent. Well, their deadly propaganda game continues.
On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, former President George W. Bush made remarks commemorating the events. In his speech, he took a moment to rightfully compare the external threat of radical religious fundamentalism with the very real threat posed within the country by our own born and bred flavor of radical religious fundamentalist & white supremacists. Bush said,
“We have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders but from violence that gathers within. There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But, in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit, and it is our continuing duty to confront them.”
For all his faults (and there are far too many to get into here), Bush is correct in his assessment. Which only proves that it doesn’t take a genius to recognize that domestic radicals are cut from the same cloth as those murderous maniacs who carried out the attack on 9/11. And further, we ignore them all at our great peril.
Enter Laura Ingraham, who has said on her nightly Fox News program things like,
“in some parts of the country, it does seem like the America that we know and love doesn’t exist anymore... Massive demographic changes have been foisted upon the American people, and they’re changes that none of us ever voted for, and most of us don’t like.”
Even in the softest and most charitable light, Laura Ingraham and her views are the oxygen that fuels the fires of bigotry and white supremacy in this country. And quotes like that aren’t a one-off. She continues to take up for white supremacists and white supremacy on an almost nightly basis. The latest moment is her attack on George W. Bush for his 9/11 remarks discussed above. She railed against the former president while an on-screen chyron categorized Bush’s remarks as “ugly.”
Specifically, she said, “Whoever wrote those remarks for Bush this weekend, and of course they were written for him, also in effect wrote them for Biden and former presidents Obama and Clinton, as well. On the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, how cynically clever of the Democrats, when Biden is on the ropes, to have a former Republican president slash at Trump and his supporters.”
So, Laura Ingraham is not only admitting that Donald Trump’s supporters are a dangerous group of radicals; she is also defending them against what was a clear-eyed and factual assessment from Bush. You see, Trump brought us back around to a moment in our history that is an analog to the 1920s when the KKK marched in public and swelled its numbers through recruitment. And it is people like Laura Ingraham and her colleagues who are the mechanism through which cover is given for these dangerous and pernicious attitudes and beliefs.
We must never let our collective guard down. Remain defiant and resolute in our opposition to racism and bigotry. Stand firm in our commitment to the time-tested principles that have carried our liberal democracy through these past centuries. And most importantly of all, remain aware of the very real existential threats that are posed by these newly emboldened white supremacists who are dedicated to the proposition of tearing down all that we have fought so hard to build.
I agree Jesse. I have agreed for many decades.
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