Walls and Nooses

The declaration of a National Emergency by Donald Trump and the discovery that Jussie Smollett likely fabricated his story that he was assaulted by two white men in MAGA hats, appear to be two unrelated stories.  But they are not.  They are very much related and symptomatic of a society that is in a pathological state.

First, let me put on the table that I do not support Trump’s declaration of a National Emergency to fortify our border.  Allocating funds for such things properly rests with the legislature in our system.  Trump’s executive overreach will be challenged in the courts and once again, it will be a battle to be resolved by the judiciary, where it does not belong.  It will be recalled that Obama dealt with DACA, not through the legislature, but through an executive order (a Constitutional power that he earlier asserted that he did not have). The judiciary then refused to allow Donald Trump to reverse this executive action.  I am confident that the Founders never intended unilateral executive action to be permanent.  But here we are again, stuck with a dysfunctional tug of war between the executive and the judiciary because the legislature cannot or will not develop a rational approach to immigration and border security.

A friend of mine contends that a nation is comprised of three elements—border, language, and culture.  To those, I would add a third--- a coherent narrative.

This week, we saw clearly that two of these four elements came under attack.

We often see countries that have border disputes with their neighbors.  Pakistan and India.  Israel and the Palestinians.  China and India.  Greece and Turkey over Cyprus.  But we are having a fierce border dispute with ourselves.  The more radical wing of the Democratic party represented by Beto O’Rourke, AOC and Kirsten Gillibrand don’t want a border or enforcement of one at all.  That does not bode well for us as a nation.

The second element that is under siege is our nation’s narrative, and nothing captures it more than the fabrication put forward by Jussie Smollett.  The narrative that most of us adhere to is that the United States is “land of the free, home of the brave,”  that the U.S. is a beacon of freedom and a “land of opportunity.”  Yes, we suffered through the stain of slavery and Jim Crow, but the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act, along with various other anti-discrimination laws have wrung out much of racial inequality.  Racism, while it still exists, is relegated to isolated pockets.

The Left, especially the New Left, has a competing narrative.  It is advanced by people like Michael Eric Dyson, Ta Nehisi Coates, and broadcast loudly by outlets such as the New York Times.   That narrative assert that is we are fundamentally and deeply a racist, oppressive nation, and a colonial power that not only oppresses minorities at home but also exploits resources and peoples abroad.  The New York Times has gone so far as to publish op-eds that support blacks not wanting the be friends with white people and claiming unconscious racism even if a person does not manifest it (therefore it can NEVER be eradicated).

It turns out that real demonstrable racial animus has been difficult for the New Left to find, so we’ve been subject to fabricated stories beginning with the Duke lacrosse team scandal (since disproven). 

And immediately on the heels of the incident between Nathan Phillips and the teens at Covington in which the videotapes conclusively disproved Phillips’s story, Smollett made his claim that he was attacked in Chicago.  And just as they did just a few weeks earlier, the MSM and several politicians reflexively swallowed Smollett’s story whole, even though it sounded a little fishy from the start.  Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Rashida Tlaib, along with the MSM decried this “modern day lynching,” and, of course, part of the narrative was the MAGA hat.

The problem is that it never happened, just as “Hands up. Don’t shoot” never happened, and the harassment of a Native American by the Covington kids never happened. But the New Left is so wedded to its narrative of pervasive racism, that it sticks to it, even when incontrovertible evidence says otherwise.

These faked hate crimes (whether there should be such a designation is a separate argument) are arguably worse than actual hate crimes.  And it is not simply because they divert law enforcement resources.  Hate crimes injure a single person.  Fake hate crimes are aimed at tearing at the fabric of our entire country.  They are intended to destroy the narrative that we are a melting pot and a basically tolerant society.  They aim to exploit fabricated divisions by race, and make us suspicious of each other. 

Fortunately, those that perpetuated the lie of the Covington incident will be sued.  Smollett may be prosecuted for his lies.  We are beginning to see that there are consequences for doing this and that provides a little hope that destructive incidents like that can be deterred.

But It is troubling that of the four elements that make up a nation---- language, border, culture, and narrative, two were subject to a full frontal assault last week.