OPINION:
Barack Obama, the former president most think is serving a third executive administration via his whisperings in the ear of the current commander-in-chief, Joe Biden, threw down the race card while talking about Sen. Tim Scott’s patriotism and views of America, chiding the 2024 White House hopeful as hopelessly unschooled for daring to suggest this country isn’t systemically racist.
Democrats and their cries of racism: It’s like listening to those yappy dogs that just won’t quit, even after you’ve passed their yards — even after you’ve turned the corner — even after you’ve disappeared from view and gone on with life. Yap, yap, yap — racism, racism, racism.
Can’t we just quit it already?
Tossing down the race card is so — 1900s. America wants something different; something besides the same old tired “you hate me ‘cause I’m black” argument. It kind of stopped being catchy and snappy and useful when white America elected a black president — twice.
Take a memo, Dems.
Sending out the black guy to cry about American racism isn’t such a surefire path to political win any longer. It comes off nowadays as nothing short of desperate.
Scott, a black senator from the southern state of South Carolina — there’s a message in itself about racism, right? — said this in a written statement aimed at Obama: “Let us not forget we are a land of opportunity, not a land of oppression. Democrats deny our progress to protect their power. The left wants you to believe faith in America is a fraud and progress in our nation is a myth. The truth of MY life disproves the lies of the radical left. We live in a country where little Black and Brown boys and girls can be president of the United States. The truth is — we’ve had one and the good news is — we will have another.”
Yes. We’ve had one. Obama won in 2008 in an election where whites made up more than 76% of the 131 million who voted, versus blacks, at just over 12%, and Hispanics, a bit more than 7%, according to Pew Research Center. That doesn’t mean all whites voted for Obama. But it does mean that enough of them did that gave him the win. In other words: Obama couldn’t have won in 2008, mathematically speaking, without the support of white voters. It was the same for Obama’s second win in 2012, when whites comprised 72% of the voting block for that election, versus 13% blacks and 10% Hispanics. Obama couldn’t have won without white support.
A country with systemic racism populated by inherently racist people wouldn’t vote for a black man for president. It just wouldn’t happen. It’s stupid to argue otherwise.
Well — here’s Obama. Here’s what Obama had said that set Scott on edge. Here’s what Obama said that was oh-so-tired-and-tiresome-talk-of-racism.
He said, in a podcast interview with David Axelrod, as The Hill reported: “And so if a Republican, who may even be sincere in saying, ‘I want us all to live together,’ doesn’t have a plan for how do we address crippling generational poverty that is a consequence of hundreds of years of racism in this society, and we need to do something about that. If that candidate is not willing to acknowledge that, again and again, we’ve seen discrimination in everything from … getting a job to buying a house to how the criminal justice system operates … If somebody’s not proposing, both acknowledging and proposing, elements that say, ‘No, we can’t just ignore all that and pretend as if everything’s equal and fair — we actually have to walk the walk and not just talk the talk,’ — if they’re not doing that, then I think people are rightly skeptical.”
The “somebody” to whom he was referring, of course, was Scott.
The same Scott who was just chided by the white woman Joy Behar on “The View” that he “doesn’t get” how systemic racism works.
And we laughed, and we laughed, and we laughed.
That is, until we didn’t — because to Democrats, racism isn’t really a problem to solve; even they know, it’s hardly systemic, it’s largely illegal and more than once, it’s been smacked down by courts. But rather, to Democrats, racism is a tool to wield in the war called Get Republicans. And for a while, it was a wonderful tool. Democrats for years could simply suggest the r-word and Republicans would run scrambling for the nearest donor envelope for the black cause of the day. But its power is waning. Its efficacy is sputtering. And rightly so; oh, how rightly, about time, so.
Most sane, level-headed and traditional, patriotic Americans operate in the world where competence, skill, experience, talent, drive, ambition, intelligence, creativity and the like matter — where an individual with determination and persistence can become whatever dream may come to that individual. This is America, after all. This is land of the free; nation of opportunity; country of the Constitution and God-given right. In this world, skin color rarely comes into the realm of considerations.
Democrats, on the other hand, occupy a land called Entitlement, populated by people who are driven by emotion, not critical thinking, and usually those emotions are fueled by angry, socialist-slash-Marxist jealousies combined with lazy, low-ambition desires. These are the people who see nothing wrong with scarfing from tax payers so they can stay at home and play video games. These are the dregs of society who believe it’s incumbent on the doers to provide for the do-nothings; and to do so graciously and obediently, smiling with every forced equity step, nodding happily with each mandated diversity march. These are the scum who want handouts and provisions and freebies and free, free, free from cradle to grave and then some.
Democrats are always dividing by demographics so as to justify their cries for more, more, more and to conquer politically. But playing the race card grows wearisome.
Obama, with his racism, racism, racism rhetoric, sounds like a relic from a long-ago past — a 1960s flower power activist who can’t stop ranting about “the man” — a rebel without a cause raging against a cage that no longer exists. Let it go, dude. Enjoy retirement — enjoy a cushy tax payer funded retirement complete with Secret Service protection and countless, boundless opportunities to schmooze with the wealthy cats the Democrat Party continues to claim to despise — and let it go.
When a black man wins the White House and goes on to become the most powerful person in the world, not just once, but twice; with the support of whites, both times; and who then goes on to commandeer public speaking fees that hit in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to address audiences that, yes, include white people; and whose wife, a black woman, reportedly sells 10 million-plus copies of her book to readers of all skin colors, yes, even white — well, then, it’s high time to realize that crying about foundational racism in America is about as low-information as it gets. Only the ignorant buy that line. Only the socialist and Marxist and communist sing that tune.
America is great because Americans, by and large, don’t care about such inconsequential matters as skin color.
America is great because in the end, it’s the spirit, it’s the soul, not the physical, not the material, that matters most.
Only Democrats say otherwise. And they do that because they want to use and exploit the very skin color of people they claim they’re protecting and helping and saving.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.