The wonderful thing about progressives is that they always seem to find worthy causes to rally behind. Racism? They have a solution* for that! Economic inequality? You bet they can fix** it!
The latest cause the progressive establishment has chosen to rally around involves the unpardonable crime of…adding a former president’s name to DC’s local airport? You better believe it!
Progressive social action group CREDO has a bone to pick with Republican leadership over the recent renaming of Mount McKinley to Denali. Their self-professed desire to “beat back right wing assaults” has manifested in an attack on Ohio-native John Boehner over his opposition to the renaming; and they’ve decided to hit back by demanding the Speaker revert the name of “Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport” back to “Washington National Airport.” According to the petition, “John Boehner and his fellow Republicans in Congress weren’t so hesitant to remove a president’s name from a public landmark when they decided to rename Washington National Airport after Ronald Reagan.”
The shame of a nation, ladies and gentlemen.
From the petition:
For generations, Alaska’s Native Americans have called it Denali, meaning “the great one,” while its official American name of Mount McKinley has had nothing to do with the mountain or its history – it was named Mount McKinley by an American explorer in the late 19th century, before William McKinley had even been elected President.2The honoring of this mountain’s original name, and the native people who have inhabited that land for generations, was long overdue. But that hasn’t stopped John Boehner and fellow Republican members of Congress from staging political outrage and fomenting right-wing anger.That’s why it’s helpful to send them a reminder that, in a brazen political act at that time, Republicans in Congress themselves pushed through legislation renaming an airport already named after America’s first president, George Washington. And unlike President Obama’s decision, which honors the local people and culture surrounding that landmark, the renaming of Washington National airport was met with resistance from local Virginia residents and leaders. It was also strongly opposed by airport workers themselves, given President Reagan’s role in breaking the air traffic controllers’ union and mass firing 11,000 workers.3, 4 Renaming the airport also resulted in significant costs that were left to local government in Virginia to cover.5Given Speaker Boehner’s current outrage and disappointment at President Obama’s decision to rename Mount McKinley, it’s time to give him the opportunity to make up for his own past mistakes. Sign the petition and tell John Boehner he needs to be consistent when it comes to naming America’s landmarks.
This obviously has nothing to do with the right wing menace; CREDO is trying to prove a point by piecing together a brilliantly stupid non sequitur. We can laugh at this, but at the time of this writing, the petition had gathered almost 69,000 signatures.
The left may adhere to some troubling dogma, but you have to admit—they know how to rally the base.
This story was originally reported by local DC blog Prince of Petworth
*Their solution is violent and divisive.
**By “fix” we mean “destroy the economy.”
Follow Amy on Twitter @ThatAmyMiller
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