The blackface scandals involving Virginia’s Democratic Governor and Attorney General have prompted Rep. Al Green (D-TX) to renew his calls for the impeachment of President Trump.
The Hill reports:
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) said the refusal of both Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam (D), and the state’s attorney general, Mark Herring (D), to resign after admissions of wearing blackface in the past “is but a symptom of a greater syndrome that currently plagues our country as a result of not acting on President Trump’s bigotry.”Green argued that the pair has been emboldened “to a great extent because the Trump presidency has sent a message that you can be immune to the consequences of bigotry, by daring those with the authority and power to constitutionally remove you from office.”
Say what?
Virginia Democratic party candidates swept into office in a blaze of glory in 2017 because of their anti-Trump views. That election, we were told, was a sound repudiation of the president himself and his policies.
So what does Trump’s alleged bigotry have to do with the fallout from the admissions by Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring that they did racisty things back when they were in college?
Nothing. And here’s why:
Northam, for starters, took back his admission just a day after he apologized for it – even though he revealed he did a Michael Jackson blackface one time back in the day, but that was supposedly harmless and not at all like the clearly racist photographs revealed on his yearbook pages. He even floated the possibility of using facial recognition technology to show it wasn’t him in those awful yearbook photos.
Even though he’s gotten calls from high profile Democrats to resign, he’s fighting back by saying I have nothing to resign for and I’m going to prove it.
As for Herring, he admitted a few days after Northam’s bizarre presser than he once wore blackface as rapper Kurtis Blow for a college party. Herring has not ruled out resigning, saying, “Honest conversations and discussions will make it clear whether I can or should continue to serve as attorney general.”
In both situations, these men were elected without voters knowing of the racial baggage that has been revealed about the two of them in the last week. Had their pasts been deeply investigated (hint hint, media), Virginia voters would likely have rejected them.
In Trump’s case, not only is he not admitting to any bigotry he’s alleged to have engaged in as president or prior-to, but all of his pre-presidential dirty laundry was aired out by a press hungry to get Hillary Clinton into office. Unlike with Northam and Herring, Trump voters knew what they were getting in voting for him.
And if a president’s impeachment is going to be based on policy stances perceived as racist, then every Republican president we have from here on out will be subjected to such proceedings – because to Democrats, racism is the primary motivation for nearly every position a Republican takes on any given issue.
So why does Green believe the Virginia scandals and the allegations of bigotry against Trump are remotely comparable?
Answer: He doesn’t, and he revealed it in his very next sentence. Again, via The Hill:
“We no longer stare bigotry down; bigotry now stares us down,” Green said in a statement, released late Thursday night. “Further, an argument that Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring should resign will subject us to accusations of political hypocrisy if we refuse to take on a bigoted president.”
In other words: If Northam and Herring must be sacrificed by Democrats, then Trump must be sacrificed by Republicans.
Watch Green vow to make his third attempt at impeaching Trump in the clip below:
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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