First there was Russia.
After Hillary Clinton’s shocking defeat in the 2016 presidential election, Democrats scrambled to find something … anything … to blame. Hillary herself started the “Blame Russia” canard, and the party followed.
But after nearly two years of investigation by a highly respected special counsel, the probe turned up nothing.
So, Democrats have moved on to their next culprit: white supremacy.
“White supremacy has always been a problem in our American story,” said 2020 candidate Sen. Cory Booker. “We need to be honest about not just who we are, but who we have been for generations and generations in this nation.”
“We have a president who actively demonizes racial and religious minorities, who coddles Nazis and Klansmen, and who wields white supremacy as a political weapon,” said fellow 2020 candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Another candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, told The New York Times that Trump backs white supremacy with a “wink and a nod.” “He has talked about white supremacists as fine people. He’s done everything he can to stir up racial conflict and hatred in this country,” she said.
Flagging candidate Robert “Beto” O’Rourke was asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper: “Do you think President Trump is a white nationalist?” “Yes I do,” O’Rourke said. “The things that he has said both as a candidate and then as the President of the United States, this cannot be open for debate.”
And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, apparently the new leader of the Democratic Party, went on a Twitter tear on Wednesday, saying we’ve all got to be talking non-stop about white supremacy.
“What this moment is asking of us is to discuss *white supremacy and racism* as much – or possibly more than – *white supremacists and racists*,” she wrote on Twitter.
She waxed poetic on the difference between “supremacy” and “supremacist,” arguing that for many Americans, that racism is merely lying “dormant.”
“There is a difference between white supremacists & white supremacy. White supremacy is like a virus. Supremacists are those who have been completely overcome by the disease, but supremacy — the virus — exists on a larger scale beyond just the infected. It also lays dormant,” she wrote.
White supremacy, she said, is America’s “original sin … It never went away. It was just dormant.” And she claimed that “perfectly normal, good people are capable of aiding racism & white supremacy.”
So, the Democrats — without missing a beat — have shifted from hyping alleged Russian collusion to hyping white supremacy. Once again, the aim is to divide Americans, but also to diminish Republicans — who Hillary famously called “deplorables.”
Just as they painted the Tea Party as racist in the early days of its evolution, Democrats are now seeking to label the entire Republican Party as white supremacists. With a dozen pressing issues facing the country, Democrats have decided to focus on white supremacy — the new Russia.
Last year, just before the mid-term elections, Gallup took a poll on the “Top Issues for Voters.” Below is the percentage that respondents rated “extremely important” or “very important.”
Healthcare — 80%
The economy — 78%
Immigration — 78%
Way women are treated in U.S. society — 74%
Gun policy — 72%
Taxes — 70%
Foreign affairs — 68%
Way income and wealth are distributed in the U.S. — 68%
The recent confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court — 64%
U.S. trade and tariff policies — 61%
Climate change — 53%
Investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. election — 45%
No white supremacy. And the other two top issues being pushed by Democrats — climate change and Russian collusion — came in 11th and 12th.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a savvy politician. She smartly has steered clear of backing the impeachment of President Trump. But some Democrats are demanding that the House cut short its summer recess so lawmakers can tackle “the threats posed by white supremacist terrorism,” a pair of freshman Democrats wrote in a letter.
We’ll see which way Pelosi goes, but if she’s smart, she’ll realize that Americans care far more about other issues than white supremacy.