A Study In Hypocrisy

Does anyone today remember the name of Orval Faubus?  He was governor of Arkansas -- a Democrat -- from 1955 to 1967.  He was elected in reaction to the SCOTUS' decision on Brown vs. Board of Eduction, the one which de-segregated public schools.

In response to the SCOTUS decision there was a large opposition campaign by civilian organizations -- primarily the KKK -- which supported continuous protest demonstrations by day, supported by various mayors and governors, that quite often turned into destructive riots after dark.  In 1957, when the law was applied to schools in Arkansas, Faubus defied the order and sent the state's National Guard to prevent Black children from entering Little Rock Central High School, and put in a personal appearance to help block the school-house doors himself.  He also -- through his fixer, Jimmy Karam -- stirred up civilian mobs to threaten any Black children who tried to come near the school, mobs too big for the state police to control.  Then-President Eisenhower -- a Republican -- first federalized the Arkansas National Guard and ordered them back to their armories, and then sent part of the 101st Airborne Division -- real federal troops -- to protect the children and enforce de-segregation of the school.  Ike later commanded the state National Guard to take over that duty.  Orval Faubas then shut down the state's public schools for the next year, and wailed in public about the federal government's "usurpation of power".  Liberal Democrats, however, cheered for Eisenhower's actions and loudly denounced "states' rights" for the next decade and more.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Cut to 2020, 63 years later.

In response to a particularly stupid incident of police brutality, there is a large opposition campaign by civilian organizations -- primarily the BLM -- which supports continuous protest demonstrations by day, supported by various mayors and governors, that quite often turn into destructive riots after dark.  When the federal government insisted that the mayors and governors of particularly afflicted states -- primarily Oregon -- quell the rioting and make some efforts to protect federal buildings and property, Oregon governor Brown defied the order and threatened assorted actions against the federal government.  President Trump -- a Republican -- then sent in federal Homeland Security police and US Marshals -- police, not military troops -- to arrest visibly criminal members of the rioters.  Brown responded by accusing the federal police of "making the situation worse" and ordering them to leave the state, even threatening to call up the state's National Guard to keep the federal police away from the rioters.  Brown has also shut down the public schools for the rest of the year -- and wailed publicly about the federal government's "usurpation of power".  This time, Liberal Democrats are denouncing Trump's actions and noisily defending "states' rights". 

Now what's the difference, aside from the federal government's much milder response to the riots -- police making arrests instead of troops forcibly scattering and threatening -- and that this time the rioters are supposedly pro-Black instead of pro-White?

The real difference is that in 1963 the Democrats may have been annoyed at having a Republican president, but they didn't (or politically couldn't) noisily and publicly hate Eisenhower.  He was, after all, a highly successful general (he had led the US troops to victory in World War Two), had been a very popular President, and was already safely into his second term.  He was pretty well impervious, and Democrats felt it a better use of their time and money to concentrate on who would be his successor.  Besides, Ike presented no great threat to Democrat entrenchment in the federal bureaucracy or the party's general strategy and tactics.

Not so Trump.  The ultimate outsider and interloper, with no political experience, a near-incoherent speaking style, and the manners of a bull in a china shop, he was never expected to win the 2016 election -- not even by himself.  The Democrats were so sure they had the election sewn up, that their propaganda division was perfect, and their strategy department had the voters properly manipulated, that Trump's election came as a horrid-horrid shock -- because he proved them wrong.  Trump's upset election showed that the Democrats didn't really understand the electorate at all and couldn't manipulate it as thoroughly as they'd thought.  Years of warning that the natives were restless, that a lot of them thought the government was "broken", that the government had lost touch with the average American, hadn't warned the Democratic National Committee enough to break through its smug insularity.  Above all, the Democrats couldn't believe that the citizens were voting not really for Trump but against them.

The shock was followed by denial.  No-no-no, the Democrats couldn't be that wrong, no.  The truth simply had to be that Trump appealed to White supremacists -- and there had to be a lot of them.  That meant that America really was largely racist-sexist-xenophobic-transgenderphobic-homophobic-Islamophobic and...and...well, just anti-democratic.  That's the story they've been telling themselves, their allies, and everybody else ever since. 

To support their story, when they weren't trying to impeach or at least slander Trump, they built up a "grassroots" campaign to convince the majority of voters that they were all White supremacists and terribly-terribly guilty -- and for that they carefully cultured both Antifa and BLM, and pushed them together, starting with Charlottesville -- which, as I've mentioned elsewhere, was carefully manipulated by clearly professional provocateurs (and is also where the AntifaBLM foot-soldiers got their peculiar taste for attacking statues).  As the election drew closer, the campaign heated up;  all the Democrats needed was another crisis to exploit.  Trump's bumbling reactions to the Covid-19 virus would have been enough to go after Trump's working-class base by damaging the economy, but it didn't support the precious Bigoted America story that the Democrats had so carefully built up. 

If the George Floyd killing hadn't been so thoroughly televised, it would have been just another case of thuggish cop versus obstreperous Black suspect.  In fact, had the case not fitted the DNC's needs, and advertising, people might have started asking questions -- such as why, if Floyd's throat was so thoroughly compressed, where did he get the air to keep struggling and talking, or why it took him more than eight minutes to die when only 30 seconds of compressing the carotid artery is enough to knock a man unconscious and less than 3 minutes will kill him.  As it was, the case was good enough to justify literally months worth of protests that reliably turn into riots.

But the problem with the you're-all-racists story is that it can readily backfire.  For one thing, a lot of the victims of the riots have been Black people themselves, which has made the majority of Black voters disenchanted with BLM, let alone Antifa.  For another, BLM's claims to speak for all "people of color" does not sit well with Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, or people of other colors.  For a third, the excesses of the protesters/rioters and their political apologists have begun to seriously annoy the majority of the voters -- of all colors.  Finally, the Democrats' ludicrous demands to defund/disband the police has actually engendered sympathy for Trump's attempts to restore order by bringing in the federal cops. 

The Democrats must realize that they've overplayed their hand -- again -- and are going to lose in November, or else they would't be making such incredible moves as to start lawsuits about an election that hasn't been held yet, or to claim that Trump will try to stay in the White House even if he loses.  Such hysteria makes voters more willing to vote against the Democrats, even if that means voting for Trump. 

And for those of us who bother to remember or study history, it makes the hypocrisy obvious.

--Leslie <;)))><