Mary Sisney's Blog - Posts Tagged "aoc"

I spent most of last week making a point that should be obvious to anyone living in the real world and paying a little attention to politics: Democrats are the best behaved and the most criticized and demonized political party in the USA. When Chelsea Clinton tweeted that some of Trump’s deplorable cultists were outside her parents’ home shouting, “Lock her up,” one of the more polite Clinton critics (Chelsea received mostly positive support) said that the Trump family probably suffered the same treatment. I pointed out that Chelsea’s parents hadn’t mocked a disabled journalist, trashed a tortured Vietnam War hero (I didn’t add “even when he was sick and even after he had died” because I was on Twitter and had to limit my words), or mean-tweeted everyone except family members and Putin. They weren’t bullies. A Trump supporter and/or Clinton critic who must not know about me or he wouldn’t have responded to my tweet claimed that Hillary had mocked more people than Trump because she called Trump supporters “deplorables.” I explained to him the difference between an evaluation of bad actions and mocking. I explained why Trump supporters (uh, they supported a corrupt, self-confessed sexual assaulter but wanted to lock up Hillary) were deplorable and pointed out that Hillary didn’t mock Trump’s slow, fish-lipped walk down the West Point platform or his panting for breath like a catfish out of water stand on the White House balcony after he ripped off his Covid-filled mask (again, I used fewer words on Twitter) the way he mocked (at a 2016 rally) her fainting spell during the 9/11/16 ceremony. A day after that exchange, I read the editors’ opinion in my local paper (I forgot how conservative those opinion editors are and so will now have to stop subscribing to that paper) and felt my blood boil as they chastised the media-made “leader of the Democratic Party” AOC for saying that we should remember what the Republicans did and not let them walk away from their bad acts (I pictured Susan Collins as I read those words). The DAILY BULLETIN conservatives wondered how Biden could unite the country if the Democrats mistreated the Republicans. I wrote a brief (they have a 150 word limit, although some of the published letters seem longer) letter to the editor titled “Accountability Versus Demonization.” The letter opened with the following facts: “At least AOC didn’t say that Republicans eat children and/or drink their blood. She didn’t accuse Trump, who claimed he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes, of murder the way the Republicans have the Clintons.” Of course, the conservatives didn’t do what the more liberal and very anti-Trump opinion editors of the LA TIMES did: Devote a whole page to letters with opposing viewpoints. They published two letters that were mildly critical of their opinion, but for the second time didn’t publish mine. But this old black woman can’t be silenced. She not only has Twitter and Facebook accounts, but she has a Goodreads blog and knows how to use it. I’m going to use as many words as I need to point out why Democrats are demonized while Republicans are literally killing us: We hold better behaved people to a higher standard and/or use false equivalencies. Badly behaved people demonize the better behaved to justify their behavior and/or to feel less guilty. The badly behaved might also be projecting, distracting, and/or putting the better behaved on the defensive by demonizing them.

Conservatives aren’t the only media folks who attack Democrats while giving Republicans a pass. I spent several weeks in 2019 verbally spanking one of my favorite MSNBC anchors for badgering Nancy Pelosi and the very dignified Jim Clyburn, trying to convince them to impeach Trump. I let Ms. Joy Reid know that I trusted the people who gave us the ACA more than those who promoted media whore and crooked lawyer Michael Avenatti. I also pointed out that impeachment didn’t lead to the removal of the other two Presidents who had been impeached and that Nixon left voluntarily. I wondered why people didn’t attack the Republicans for not telling Trump to resign as the seventies Republicans did with Nixon or for not impeaching Trump during his first two years in office when they were in charge of the House. I also had to go after Hallie Jackson for interrogating one of the Democrats in Congress about whether or not he was being paid while the government was closed. Trump closed the government, not the Democrats. Why do we blame Democrats for not cleaning up the messes that Republicans made? The media and some Americans treat the better behaved party the way some bad parents treat their better behaved child, expecting that child to be perfect and maybe even to police the bad child(ren) who get(s) away with everything.

As “the Hillary mocks too” example shows, we also equate minor offenses by the better behaved party with deplorable actions by the evil party. The latest example is the attempt to compare what Gore did in 2000 (which was finally to concede when he should have kept fighting since he had a good case) to what Trump is doing now. Without looking at the way the Republicans cheated (Bush’s cousin declared he had won Florida on Fox, and the other stations followed his lead), we can easily see the difference. Bush “won” one state, the one where his brother was the governor and the Secretary of State was a GWB campaign chair, by fewer than 600 votes, and Gore won the popular vote. Biden has won both the electoral college and the popular vote in a landslide. Sometimes when the conservatives can’t find an equivalency, even a false one, they make one up. Since I didn’t watch Trump’s inaugural speech, I didn’t realize he had thanked Obama for his help during the transition. But I knew that Obama had graciously welcomed the man who had for five years accused him of lying about his place of birth, who had joined the racist birther movement and made it go viral, to the White House. Trump’s fourth press secretary in fewer than four years, the one who said she wouldn’t lie, claimed that the Obama-Biden administration had behaved during the 2016-17 transition worse than Trump and his minions are behaving now.

Of course, the most outrageous lie told by conservatives comes from the QANON cultists who I hope don’t really believe that liberals eat children. Because so many of the crimes conservatives accuse liberals of committing or planning to commit—voter fraud, killing babies (Tamir Rice and the many black babies who die in poverty or from ingesting too much lead), creating death panels (because of Covid)—I wonder if it’s possible that some of them are eating children or drinking their blood. Are the Republicans projecting again? They accuse us of being unpatriotic, yet they are the ones who are helping Putin to destroy our democracy. They rant about how much money is spent and how much debt is created when Democrats are in charge of the federal government, yet they run up the debt giving tax cuts to the rich. They call peaceful protesters anarchists and terrorists while donating millions of dollars to seventeen-year-old Killer Kid Kyle (he’s out of jail on a two million dollar bond) and not criticizing their “dear leader” for telling a truly dangerous terrorist group to “stand back and stand by.” Is it possible that these cruel politicians, who went home for Thanksgiving without providing aid to so many Americans who don’t have enough to eat and may not be able to pay their mortgage or rent, actually eat children? Who looks more like they eat children? Donald Trump, Bill Barr, and Mike Pompeo or Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and AOC? Who looks like he’s more likely to drink blood? The spooky looking man from Kentucky who happily calls himself the Grim Reaper or smiling, occasionally crying Chuck Schumer from New York?

The lies told by the Republicans are often used as distractions from their bad behavior and/or to put the Democrats on the defensive while they’re being offensive. The best example of that despicable tactic happened when McConnell, Graham, and the rest of the Republican racists in the Senate rushed through the appointment of racist mother of adopted black children ACB to prevent Biden from appointing a black woman to the Supreme Court. The Republicans actually tried to claim that the Democrats were discriminating against ACB because she’s Catholic. Fortunately, the media didn’t play their game, pointing out that Biden and Pelosi are both Catholics, and the court is already packed with Catholics, including a Catholic woman appointed by Obama.

Perhaps the primary reason Republicans demonize Democrats is the same reason white people demonize black people and family members demonize their better behaved spouses or siblings. They feel guilty, so they try to convince themselves that they’re better than the people they are hurting. White people don’t want to believe that good and decent humans were enslaved, raped, and lynched in earlier centuries and are being murdered by cops today, so they claim blacks are lazy criminals; we’re animals. The spouse who is committing adultery claims that the betrayed spouse is a drug addict and/or abusive. The siblings who neglect their elderly parents criticize the ones who are caring for them, suggesting they’re cold and mean or maybe they’re stealing from the parents. How can Republicans, especially evangelicals and women, justify supporting a thrice-married, sexist, racist, narcissistic adulterer, who was heard bragging about sexually assaulting women and was seen hanging out with a man arrested for operating a child sex ring, who encouraged his followers to physically assault protesters, and mocked and bullied everyone except Putin? Well, if the Democrats run a child sex ring, eat children, and/or drink their blood, then Trump doesn’t seem so bad. He is the lesser of two evils. And those of us who support the Democrats are more evil than his supporters are.

Like blacks and the more decent family members, Democrats have to fight back against the attempt to demonize them by their more evil counterparts. When the Republicans call us socialists, we should say, “If FDR, who gave us Social Security, is a socialist, then I’m a socialist. If LBJ, who gave us Medicare and fought the war on poverty much more effectively than he did the Vietnam War, is a socialist, then so am I. If BHO, who battled the demonizing Republicans, who screamed about death panels and pulling the plug on Grandma, to give us the now beloved by most Americans ACA, is a socialist, then I’m proud to be a socialist too.” Less verbose and steeped in history Democrats can simply say, “I’d rather be a socialist than a white supremacist.” When they call us baby killers, we can wonder why they care about a fetus only when it’s inside its mother’s womb. Why don’t they care about Tamir Rice or the two white people killed by Killer Kid Kyle? Why do their supporters tear down signs that say “Black Lives Matter”? We can ask them if they believe that all lives matter more than buildings and businesses. The Republicans are the pro-death, pro-corporate welfare, anti-health care, anti-education, anti-democracy white supremacist party. They are the party of Grim Reaper Mitch McConnell and racist malignant narcissist Donald Trump. We are the party of empathetic Joe Biden and civil rights icon John Lewis. We may not be saints, but they’re definitely the demons.

When former Trump friend Donny Deutsch said on “Morning Joe” that socialism was the most unAmerican term, I rushed to my I-Pad to tweet that it’s too bad white supremacy is not the most unAmerican term. In fact, it may be the most American term. After the media-generated, lock up the Jews and blacks METOO movement started, I contrasted the treatment of the mostly white women activists in that movement to that of the black women who started the BlackLivesMatter movement. Even when that movement went viral last year after the on camera knee-to-neck murder of George Floyd, it was still being demonized by vile white supremacists like Donald Trump, William Barr, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson. The peaceful protesters were being called anarchists and terrorists, and the destruction, looting, and violence caused by white supremacists posing as antifa and opportunistic thugs were blamed on them. Long before 1/6/21, I contrasted the treatment of the unarmed, peaceful BlackLivesMatter protesters, who were being beaten, gassed, and shot with rubber bullets by rioting police officers, to the treatment of the armed white “Liberate Michigan” terrorists who stormed that state capitol. But again the insane white supremacist who finally left the White House has been our best weapon against racism. When he unleashed the mob that I called TRASH (Traitors, Racists, Anarchists, Seditionists, Hoodlums) in my last post (1/17/21), he made violent white supremacy go viral and led President Biden (I love saying that phrase) to declare war on white supremacy and white supremacists. I’m ready to join that battle. In fact, I was battling white supremacy when our new President was hanging out with white supremacist and father of a daughter by his mother’s sixteen-year-old black maid Strom Thurmond during the last three decades of the 20th Century. I know how we can win this battle and make white supremacy the most unAmerican term. We need to define, demonize, silence, and purge white supremacists.

First, we need to distinguish between racism and white supremacy. Racism is a condition like mental illness or asthma; white supremacy is an ideology like socialism. As the anti-racist authors have made clear, all of us are biased, and depending on how we define racist (some suggest it has to involve power), all of us might be racist. I would argue that some of us are racist against our own people. But most racists don’t believe that only white people (some would say only white men) should vote and run our country. Most don’t believe that slavery was okay or a necessary evil or that people of color aren’t real Americans, no matter how long their ancestors have been here and how they came, that they are foreigners. Whether they identify as white supremacists or not, the following Americans, whatever their race, believe in white supremacy: 1) birthers 2) voter suppressors who think black folks and other people of color are cheating when they vote and that a President who doesn’t win the majority of white votes is not a legitimate President 3) people who think slavery and segregation were good for blacks 4) people who think this land was and still is white folks’ land and never belonged to the Native Americans 5) people who think that all brown and yellow people are foreign, and all black people are unpatriotic haters of America.

While some white supremacists like the so-called Proud Boys wear the name proudly, most try to hide their ideology (see the 10/11/20 post) and become incensed when anyone suggests that they could be racist or a white supremacist. I loved seeing Tucker Carlson, who demonizes BlackLivesMatter protesters and defends white supremacists, looking hurt and whining when President Biden declared war on white supremacy. He wanted to know exactly what the President meant by white supremacy and who was a white supremacist. As one social media comic said, “Look in the mirror.” To battle white supremacy, we need to make the term even more toxic so that we can use it against racist conservatives the way they use socialism against progressives. We can do that by contrasting the out of the closet white supremacists to socialists and BlackLivesMatter activists. Socialist AOC and new member of the Squad, BlackLivesMatter activist Cori Bush, can be contrasted to QANON believer, anti-masker, pro-gun rights, white supremacist Marjorie Taylor Greene (my new favorite state Georgia’s one big mistake). The Squad members wear masks to protect themselves and their fellow humans from Covid and don’t carry guns in case they decide to execute a political opponent. AOC has never advocated murdering Bloomberg, Trump, or the Koch brothers, and Representative Bush never shouted “burn the pigs in a blanket.” (Some white supremacists are anti-cop, and they’re the ones who want to kill and cremate police officers. They did kill one Capitol police officer by beating him on the head with a fire extinguisher and injured many others during the 1/6 insurrection.) There are no films of AOC, Bush, or any of the Squad members harassing a teenage mass murder survivor the way Greene harassed gun control activist David Hogg. And nothing they’ve said is as crazy as almost everything Greene has said (a laser started a wildfire in California, for instance). We can also contrast the sometimes armed white supremacists who stormed the Capitol to the peaceful BlackLivesMatter protesters, who didn’t shout “Hang Pence” or leave urine and feces on the White House grounds. White supremacists are clearly crazier, trashier, and more dangerous than socialists or BlackLivesMatter activists, and we have the pictures and videos to prove that point.

The white supremacists are also more dangerous (although not necessarily crazier) and destructive to our culture and democracy than Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and all the men who have been METOOed since 2017. We need to treat them the way we’ve treated powerful, successful, but apparently raunchy, men like Mark Halperin and Matt Lauer. I was outraged when Halperin’s former partner John Heilemann interviewed white supremacist and indicted for fraud (this happened before fellow white supremacist Trump exercised his pardon power) Steve Bannon on Showtime’s political show “The Circus.” Halperin helped create “The Circus” and seemed to be the star, but he hasn’t appeared on the show since it was revealed that he was what my mother would call “a dirty dog,” sexually harassing women behind the scenes. Yet Bannon can be welcomed on the show and allowed to spread his poison? The folks on television need to follow the lead of Twitter and Facebook. Silence the white supremacists. Send them to Parler, Fox, and wherever else vile white supremacists are welcome. Then demonize those media outlets for promoting white supremacy.

If powerful men like Cosby, Weinstein, Halperin, and Lauer can be purged from our culture because of private sexual misbehavior, why can’t we purge white supremacists like Hannity and Carlson? Bill O’Reilly was the highest rated cable news star, but he lost his job on Fox because of his sexual misbehavior behind the scenes. Hannity and Carlson fly their white supremacy flags on camera! Why are they still on television? It’s not enough for them to lose sponsors; they can find new sponsors like that stupid pillow guy. They need to be cancelled. There should be no place for white supremacists on any respectable news media outlet. TIME, NEW YORKER, NBC, ABC, CBS, and all of the other media outlets involved in the 2017 METOO lock up the black and Jewish men movement, demonize white supremacists and demand that they be cancelled. Congress folks who used the METOO movement to get rid of elderly, cognitively impaired Civil Rights icon Representative John Conyers and supporter of women and 2020 presidential frontrunner Senator Al Franken, demand that the white supremacists (Cruz, Hawley, Greene, Jordan, Nunes, Brooks, etc.) resign or at least lose all committee assignments. Military leaders, ban white supremacists the way gay and transgender folks were banned until the progressives ended that discrimination. State, local, and federal agencies, make all new employees (after you purge the old ones) take an oath swearing that they are not white supremacists (that includes people of color since we can be white supremacists just as women can be sexist against women) the way I had to take an oath in 1965 swearing that I was not a Communist before I could work as a temporary federal employee at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. I don’t remember taking such an oath when I was hired to teach high school in Illinois in 1971, and I know I didn’t take that oath when I taught at USC, Tufts, and Cal Poly Pomona in the late seventies, but a friend remembers having to swear she wasn’t a Communist when she was hired to teach at a Los Angeles area elementary school, probably in 1970. All teachers, professors, firemen, and especially police officers need to take an oath swearing that they are not white supremacists before they are hired.

The United States of America was founded on white supremacy. It was written into the Constitution with the dehumanization of my people (3/5 human) and Native Americans. We may never completely eliminate that vile ideology, but Trump and TRASH have made this moment our best chance to defeat it so that no sane American will ever again proudly claim to be a white supremacist. If we define, demonize, silence, and purge white supremacists, they may not “disappear like a miracle,” but they will never again be able to gain so much power and attack our culture and democracy.

I like the way the news media and some politicians refer to Trump’s “the election was stolen” delusion and/or con as “the big lie.” Of course, the former Pathological Liar-in-Chief built his campaign for President on an equally big lie—that our forty-fourth and first (half-) black President wasn’t born in the USA and therefore was illegitimate. In fact, other than racism, big lies and the people who tell and believe them are the greatest threats to our culture and country. The following are the ten biggest lies about our nation and our political system:

1) Our nation is a democracy. Last week, I heard the Capitol referred to as the temple or citadel of democracy. Nonsense! If we were a democracy, Wyoming wouldn’t have the same number of Senators as California and Texas. If we were a democracy, there would be no electoral college, which at this point exists only to rig the presidential elections against urban people of color and for rural, mostly white folks. As some conservatives have pointed out in social media debates with me, we are a republic, not a democracy. Initially, only white men with property could vote, and the candidates for President were more likely to be picked by fellow politicians than by the people. Until every vote counts the same—the Republican vote in California counts the same as the Democratic vote in that state, the Democratic vote in Wyoming counts the same as the Republican vote in that state, the votes for Senators in California count the same as the votes for Senators in Wyoming—, we will continue to be a republic, not a democracy.

2) The biggest threats to our so-called democracy are “dirty money,” extreme partisanship, and thirsty for power politicians. As the 2016 Presidential election and the 1/6/21 insurrection showed, the biggest threats to our democracy are racism, white supremacy, and big lies.

3) There are too many illegal voters—dead people, “illegal aliens.” Bigots promote this lie because they don’t want people of color to vote. White supremacists believe that only white people should vote; some believe that only white men, maybe even rich white men like Trump, should vote. The problem with our electoral system is not enough eligible voters register to vote, and too many registered voters don’t vote in every election. Our government will be more like a democracy when more people vote, and the politicians are not allowed to pass barely disguised voter suppression laws.

4) The current electoral system favors Democrats. I’m not sure if Trump’s claim in 2016 that the electoral college favored Democrats was a lie or just another ignorant delusion. (That fool might have actually believed that Pence could overthrow the 2020 election.) If the electoral college favored Democrats, Al Gore and Hillary Clinton would have been President since they both won the popular vote. If the electoral college favored Democrats, Biden, who beat Trump by more than 7 million votes, wouldn’t have won the same number of electoral college votes as the two-time popular vote losing, twice-impeached electoral college President, who lost the popular vote in 2016 by almost 3 million. If our system favored Democrats, we would have more Senators and more Representatives since many more people vote for the congressional Democrats than for the Republicans.

5) The mainstream (and pop culture) media is liberal and favors Democrats. See the 12/1/13 and 6/9/19 posts, which debunk that “alternative fact.” At least the NATIONAL ENQUIRER has now been exposed as conservative (a fact I figured out during the George W. Bush administration when the Clintons were still the target). Even though it no longer features glowing articles about Trump, the tabloid still attacks Democrats and their families. Hunter Biden was a recent target.

6) The most dangerous people in the USA are Muslim terrorists, undocumented immigrants (or as bigots call them “illegal aliens”), and black men. The most dangerous people in our country are white men carrying guns (most mass murderers are white men) and (as the FBI director testified, and the 1/6/21 insurrection confirmed) white supremacists who think this country belongs to them and only their votes should count.

7) The false equivalency lie. Democratic politicians are as partisan as Republicans, and the extremists on the left are as lawless, dangerous, and unpatriotic as the militia groups and white supremacists on the right. Democrats will tell each other to resign at the first sign of trouble; they go high when battling Republicans like McConnell and low when they want to get rid of a frontrunner for the Presidential nomination like Al Franken or a civil rights icon suffering from dementia like John Conyers. Republicans will support an insane white supremacist who opportunistically used their party to gain power, more fame, and money, and when he lost the 2020 election, literally tried to kill them. As for extremists, I tell the fools who call me a socialist that I’d rather be a socialist than a white supremacist. AOC and Bernie Sanders haven’t stormed the Capitol, planning to hang Pence and shoot Nancy Pelosi, attacked the police, killing one, and left behind feces and urine (nor has BlackLivesMatter activist Cori Bush). Bernie is fighting for a $15 minimum wage, and AOC recently collected millions for the people of Texas and went there to help distribute food and water while one of their Republican Senators (looking at you, Cruz) went to Cancun to escape the cold and then to a conservative conference where he continued to support the man who called his wife ugly and his father an assassin during the 2016 election.

8) The Republicans are pro-life and pro-law and order. They believe that blue lives matter. Republicans are pro-death and not just because they’re more likely to be pro-capital punishment. They actually donate money to murderers of black people and their allies. Trayvon Martin’s murderer George Zimmerman is probably jealous of Killer Kid Kyle, who collected two million dollars while old George made under two hundred thousand. But then Kyle killed two people and injured a third. As 1/6/21 demonstrated beyond any doubt, the Republicans, like their insane leader, are lawless murderers and rioters, who love cops only when they are killing and beating black and brown people. By “law and order,” they mean people of color should stay in their place— jail or rat-infested ghettos for black folks, in Mexico or cages for the brown folks, on reservations for the red folks, and back to China, Japan, Korea, or Vietnam for the yellow folks. By “blue lives matter,” they mean “black lives don’t matter.” Some white supremacists actually tore down signs that said Black Lives Matter.

9) The white supremacists supporting Trump are working-class folks from the South and rural areas of the Midwest. They drive trucks and are uneducated. “The View” host Sunny Hostin, who is usually the smartest commentator on that show, promoted that big lie recently. There is a Forever Trumper household near me. I haven’t seen what the people in that house drive, but the home is more upscale than mine. It’s probably worth at least $800,000. Immediately after the 1/6 insurrection, someone in that house whited out Pence’s name on a Trump/Pence yard sign. In addition to having two Trump/Pence signs in the yard (one still has Pence’s name) and a Trump/Pence No More Bullshit flag hanging from the garage, they recently hung a Biden Is Not My President banner on the gate. Quite a few people who were arrested after the insurrection were from California as was the woman who was killed. The most common characteristic among the insurrectionists was their police and/or military background. The white supremacist cops didn’t just come from Virginia or other Southern states; they were also from New York and California.

10) Because of affirmative action, women of color are the most protected Americans. I tried to debunk that big lie during my years as an unprotected black woman in a predominantly white, sometimes hostile university. One white man thought I had an advantage because I could sue. Who the hell wants to sue because the white men are being protected by their brothers while we black women are being worked harder and ranked lower? The treatment of Maxine Waters, AOC, and other members of the Squad prove that we women of color are the least protected Americans. White California Representative Katie Porter wasn’t as frightened as AOC on 1/6, not because she’s a somewhat older, tough single mom but because (despite her relatively high profile) she has received fewer death threats. White women who gain too much power like former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State, and People’s President Hillary Clinton and current Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be demonized by the media and become death threat targets, but a woman of color only has to be visible to be viciously attacked.

These ten big lies wouldn’t be so dangerous to our country and us if there weren’t people willing to believe them. I’ve written other blog posts (see 10/11/15 and 3/26/17 posts) about why we believe outrageous lies. Clearly, fewer Americans would have died if everyone believed that Covid was a real disease that was killing people (of course, some people did believe in the deadliness of the disease but hoped it would kill mostly people of color and therefore help stop the browning of America). We believe what we want and need to believe. That’s why big lies are as dangerous to our country and culture as are white supremacist terrorists.

When a clueless conservative called me a snowflake in one of my Facebook forums, I quickly set him straight, letting him know that I’m too dark and tough to be a snowflake. While some conservatives use the term to attack all liberals, most apply it to what I call the PC police and whiners. But (to paraphrase Trump after Charlottesville) there are whiners and easily offended people on both sides. Who has whined more than the unpatriotic insurrectionists surprised to find themselves in jail after their 1/6 attempt to “stop the steal”? And who clutches their pearls more than the so-called patriots who think we should all stand, put our hands over our hearts, and sing the national anthem loudly (even if we don’t know the words) when a few athletes take a knee to protest the cold-blooded murders of unarmed black people? My definition of snowflake is different from the conservative one. Liberals (or conservatives if any exist) who become upset over the oppression of other people, whether through actions or by what they perceive as inappropriate language, are not snowflakes. They are compassionate, empathetic citizens who are more sensitive than the average American. The snowflakes are the folks who become upset when people make them uncomfortable by violating a rule that they believe in or by making them face a truth or reality that they don’t want to believe in. Appropriately, snowflakes are more likely to be white and are always privileged, living in a world where only their feelings and comfort matter.

Bill Maher, who used to be a favorite comedian and who I called a missionary in THE BRONZE RULE, and his latest favorite conservative blonde (he used to like Ann Coulter) Megyn Kelly, who called whiners “cupcakes” in her book and then (as I pointed out in my review) whined herself, changed my Friday night viewing habits two weeks ago when I caught the end of their complaints about a black person protesting racism. When Megyn walked out in her sexy black dress and Bill started complimenting her looks (I guess he’s not that worried about METOO), I switched to Don Lemon’s show and listened to his guest host until I thought the blonde “bombshell” was gone. She wasn’t, but I was so astounded by the two privileged white folks’ self-righteous discussion of a black person “gaslighting” when she complained about racism that I forgot to return to CNN. As I pointed out in tweets to both snowflakes, Ms. Megyn’s tarnished reputation was somewhat polished by a movie that focused on her as a sexual harassment victim while Maher actually performs a skit on his Friday night HBO show (which I will no longer watch) where he complains about how long it has taken to have his solar panels installed. They’re whining snowflakes, whining about a black person complaining or protesting about what she perceives as racist oppression. I called Bill a missionary in my second book because he tries to convert everyone to his way of thinking about religion. He pushes his atheism more than most religious people push their religions. Only Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons are in our faces about their religion as much as Bill is about his atheism. He’s also a missionary when it comes to the legalization of drugs and to healthier eating, openly calling people fat like the bully that too many missionaries become. But I didn’t mind that behavior because I saw the often very funny white comedian who frequently thinks like me as a true friend of black people, willing to call out racism as he did with the former White Supremacist-in-Chief. But then one night he used the now forbidden n-word and was subsequently PCed. Some black folks weren’t amused, criticizing him (in some cases) to his face, and as racist whites tend to do, he turned on all of us. As one black woman said on Twitter after the show featuring racist snowflake Megyn, “I guess Bill doesn’t want to fight racism anymore.” Apparently. He also might be one of those white so-called liberals who are like blacks (and possibly other people of color) who want to be the only (or at least the best) black person in the room. Maybe Bill is jealous that there are some white folks willing to do more than call Trump the son of an orangutan to fight racism and be our friend. Maybe he doesn’t feel so special now that so many white folks are at least temporarily woke after the on camera, knee to neck murder of George Floyd. His blonde guest, of course, is not one of those newly woke white folks. The so-called racial awakening just made Ms. Megyn double down on her racism, even attacking the partially black, but looks white Duchess Meghan Markle on British television for complaining about racism. No one sneers like Ms. Megyn Kelly when she’s in full anti-anti-racism mode. She’s announced that she’s taking her children out of the private school they attend (yep, she’s entitled and proud) because the teachers are forcing them to learn about racism. Ms. Megyn wants her children to believe in the America of Christopher Columbus discovering a new country and white pioneers conquering the West while battling savage Indians. She’s the Queen of Snowflakes.

But she has some competition in another Snowflake Meghan, who changed my weekday 10 a.m. viewing habits when she returned from maternity leave and started whining about being the only conservative (Ana Navarro is there on Fridays but apparently doesn’t count either because she’s brown or is unapologetically anti-Trump) on “The View,” who is always being criticized and blah, blah, blah, boo hoo. Before she left for maternity leave (to my delight), I was kicked off Twitter for 24 hours because I tweeted to her (not the show) that she’s a rich white bitch. Did I lie? I don’t care if she’s being paid to play the role of the stupid blonde, sometimes racist conservative on “The View,” when she lies about the BLM protesters being violent and destroying property, and the liberals don’t correct her, I become enraged. This Meghan doesn’t sneer the way Kelly does, but she has a resting bitch face that doesn’t look good on an ice-cold blonde, as I once helpfully advised her when I thought she was less annoying. As with most conservative women, including the more consistently racist Megyn, bitch face Meghan and I usually agree on the METOO whiners. Maybe because she knows that women flirted with her father, she’s not as willing to say that we must believe every woman who claims that a powerful man has made her uncomfortable with his looks, touches, or compliments as the liberal hosts (although not my contemporary Whoopi) are.

I’ve said that I’d like to see Meghan debate my least favorite blonde (although I don’t think she’s a snowflake; she has to be tough to have dealt with her crazy father’s joking about how sexy she is for so many years) Ivanka Trump. But maybe she should debate brunette METOO missionary Michelle Goldberg. Ms. Goldberg is such a devout METOO promoter that she once interrupted Snowflake Bill’s New Rules segment to attack Al Franken as having been accused by other women besides the conservative comedian who was the original accuser. Last week she was on Joy Reid’s show wistfully suggesting that these latest METOO whiners would not be able to get rid of Cuomo (she might be underestimating the willingness of the dirty Democrats to go low against each other) because people were comparing this attack to what happened to Franken. She ended her interview with Joy by saying that the charges against Cuomo were serious, sending me to Twitter to ask if they were as serious as the 1/6 insurrection or the killing of unarmed black men and women. Did Cuomo kill one of these women? Did he pepper spray them? Beat them with a flag? Snowflakes like Michelle Goldberg, supporting women who are clearly being used as weapons against a powerful Democrat, literally make me sick.

But there are snowflake men who are even more sickening. After his Cancun stunt and sycophantic appearance at CPAC, I wished Ted Cruz was a Democrat so some snowflake METOO whiners could cancel him with some fake “he made me uncomfortable with his unwanted kisses (and who would want a kiss from Cruz) and compliments” whines. Cruz is such a snowflake that he escaped to Cancun when Texas became too cold for him, but when he realized he would be criticized, rushed back home and blamed his daughters for the trip. He was being a good daddy, y’all. Even the biggest snowflake in America—the former Bully-in-Chief, who can’t admit he lost an election or that he ever did anything wrong, couldn’t top that stunt.

“The liberals are snowflakes” is another big lie that has gaslit too many Americans. While Ted Cruz was snowflaking, petite, young, very feminine and liberal AOC was collecting money for his constituents and flying to Texas to help distribute food and water. Although she was frightened as any sane person would be by the insurrectionists hunting her on 1/6, she didn’t leave Congress or lower her profile. She and the other members of the Squad regularly receive death threats, but they don’t whine about it. They are too busy fighting to raise the minimum wage, to pass the voting rights act, and to reform the criminal justice system. And there are some tough white female liberals fighting beside them. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom the white supremacist insurrectionists were hunting so they could shoot her in the head, and 2016 People’s President Hillary Clinton, who withstood almost thirty years of demonization by the conservatives and the media, aren’t snowflakes. Nor were the white mothers who faced down the “rioting” police in Kentucky and Oregon, protecting the BlackLivesMatter protesters. Among my favorite scenes from the racial awakening summer of 2020 were those featuring white women from my home state Kentucky, linking arms and staring down the police. They were ready for the pepper spray and the batons! “Bring it,” those white Kentucky mamas seemed to be saying.

Snowflakes are selfish whiners who care only about their own comfort. Donald Trump’s insurrectionists prove that point. They participated in a seditious riot that led to five deaths, including a murdered police officer. More than 140 other police officers were injured, some of them badly, but they don’t want to stay in jail. They’re complaining about the roaches and the food. They want to go home to their mamas. I wish John Lewis was still around to set those snowflakes straight. Lewis was beaten and jailed multiple times. Did he whine? Let’s hope that conservative and liberal snowflakes will melt soon, that they will disappear like a miracle. Then America will be a stronger, less selfish, and more compassionate nation.