Some people use elections to advance their politics.
Other people use tragedies.
Before the blood is dried, or the electricity is restored, the talking points are out. Tragedies don’t get mourned, they get exploited, put to the task of advancing the progressive agenda.
That’s what Maria teaches us. That’s what Mandalay Bay teaches us.
While America sits heartbroken and sick, the Democrats are making hay.
This time, last time, next time – every time.
Not the Main Street Democrats, but the K Street Democrats. The ones for whom politics is a business, a blood feud, a war against anyone with a different point of view or set of values. The ones who never met a camera they didn’t want to hiss into, or a Republican they didn’t want to curse.
Those are the ones who, while thousands of civilian and military aid workers swarm Puerto Rico, denounce the relief effort as incompetent and insincere. The ones who sneer that it’s about skin color and bigotry and an evil president.
The ones who are echoed by a national press with all the independence and objectivity of an army of sycophants.
The ones whose political future hinges on promoting as much division and resentment as possible, whose coalition of the disaffected requires fresh meat and fresh anger to hold itself together.
And so they curse Trump over the reconstruction of Puerto Rico in the wake of a hurricane, and they curse gun owners and their representatives in the wake of a slaughter of innocents. There is no grief in their message, only rage. It is always about rage. About settling some score, throwing off some oppression, condemning some inferior.
Those too stupid or too bigoted to embrace the progressive gospel.
And so it was yesterday that the columns rolled forth and the press releases issued and the congressional remarks were made. And the National Rifle Association was blamed and the Republicans were blamed and the gunowners were blamed and once again America was reminded that all would be well if only the Democrat agenda was implemented and obeyed.
Then America would be a disarmed, peaceful and sane paradise, like the cities currently ruled by Democrats. Cities which, if they were removed from the national crime statistics, would leave the United States well below the global average for violence.
Instead of accepting that the nation had been victimized by the violence of a criminal, the Democrats insisted that America had been wronged by the policies of a party. It wasn’t a savage’s fault, it was a philosophy’s fault. Don’t blame the guy pulling the trigger, blame the guy voting Republican.
The Democrats used one more tragedy for one more condescending scold of the half of America they hate. It was a prime publicity opportunity and they made sure to milk it for all it was worth. It was a chance to enslave people with the chains of their own pain, to insert and insinuate themselves into every corner of American life – even that sacred place we go when our national heart is broken.
Just like always.
And as America scurries to bolster and rebuild Puerto Rico, to lift it out of the bankrupt and corrupt inefficiency that sadly predominated before the hurricane, the Democrats condemn the effort and those undertaking it. What must it be like to be one of the thousands of federal workers and military members clearing the roads and delivering the relief, and to hear the leaders of the Democratic Party criticizing and condemning your effort? Or what impact must characterizations of Republicans as uncaring and racist have upon Republican contributions to the relief effort?
It is a sad demonstration of the fact that there is no “us” anymore in America’s politics – at least not in the conduct of this party’s leadership. There is never a time when we stand together, there is no emotion that can bind us or cause us to join hands, everything is played to advance the party’s interests, to attack its enemies, and to whip up those who can be whipped up.
That’s what yesterday reminded us of.
The real people – of every party and no party – were joined in grief and brotherhood.
And the Democrat bosses were selling division.
Maybe that’s why the American people decided not to put Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in charge.
Things are not always bad. People who disagree with you are not always evil. Not everything is about politics. Some things are just about being American – like helping your neighbor in need, and mourning with those who mourn.
Without whoring the whole thing out to advance your partisan political agenda.