On Monday, Nancy Pelosi was smiling at her news conference as she described how she and some of her congressional colleagues knelt for eight minutes and 46 seconds, the amount time that a police officer in Minnesota kept his knee on the neck of George Floyd, who lost his life on May 25.
Actually, it is so distasteful how Democrats these days turn everything — even a national tragedy — into a tool to gain political advantage. The important point, though, is how artificial the sentiment expressed by the Democrats gathered around a podium really is. An additionally important matter is how easy it has become to see through this staged political imagery that looks so insincere even at its core.
Author Obianuju Ekeocha wrote on Twitter about the saccharine display: “Excuse me, Democrats, don’t treat Africans like we are children. These fabrics and these colorful things that we have within our culture and tradition, they all mean something to us. I know you look at us and say, ‘Oh, Africans are so cute in all your colorful dresses …’”
There is one goal here for Democrats, and that is to defeat Donald Trump in November using everything at their disposal, whether real or imagined and no matter how absurd, to achieve that objective. The real human tragedy of what it means to have a precious life lost becomes obscured when people like Pelosi and Minority Leader Senator Charles Schumer see everything as subject to political manipulation.
This is an overt illustration of what it looks like to pander in a most offensive and condescending way. In addition to so-called “taking the knee,” the members of Congress wore African garb around their necks as shawls or scarves as a way of showing how they identify with the African American community. Can you imagine the reaction if a Jew were murdered in Israel by a terrorist or some similar miscreant and we had to endure the image of Chuck Schumer and his cronies donning tefillin and tzitzis and shuckeling from side to side as a way of communicating to us that they are identifying with some Jews? Please, Chuck, give us a break.
Fortunately, some prominent African American leaders see it for what it is: degrading and insulting. If you are genuinely concerned about white privilege, you need no further examples than Mr. Schumer and Ms. Pelosi. There is absolutely nothing in their lives that would enable them to feel the pain of the Floyd family. Sure, the optics are there for people who are easily deceived but rest assured — it’s all fake.
There are the tragic deaths and associated business restrictions from the coronavirus pandemic that have paralyzed a significant portion of this country for the past three months. As time goes on, with the spread of the virus abating, the Democratic Party’s effort to prolong the crisis so as to damage the president in any way possible is off in its timing and, thankfully, failing.
Once again, the Democrats saw an opportunity to exploit tragic death — this time, the deaths of more than 105,000 Americans — in an effort to gain a political advantage.
While initially it seemed that while many states had to virtually close down their economies, the timing was such that the country and the administration would be able to mount a recovery and comeback, which we are currently witnessing.
While it is great news that the curve has been dramatically flattened and the stock market is booming, there is still a significant amount of time until election, and who knows what other crisis leading Democrats are cooking up as you read these words.
Exploiting deaths — whether an individual like George Floyd, who was buried on Wednesday, or the more than 100,000 who were victims of the coronavirus — should be something that we are all critical of and reject.
There are some events that should naturally bring a country together. But it is clear that Democrats reject that idea of national unity and prefer to exacerbate the schism.
I suppose if you read this far you can come to the conclusion that this is a pro-Trump reelection essay. We can talk about Mr. Trump in a moment. But first, the real question is: How can you deal with or accept the extreme hypocrisy that defines today’s Democrat Party?
And then there is the matter of Trump and the U.S.–Israel policy. The reality of his approach to Israel, especially after the eight years of Barack Obama’s awful attitude toward Israel, simply cannot be neglected by any supporters of the Jewish state, Jews or non-Jews.
Let’s take a few steps ahead and wonder what the Democratic agenda will look like in the post-Russian collusion, impeachment, pandemic, and American racial crisis period. Don’t be surprised if Democrats — should they win in November — fall back to their old comfortable positions of a two-state solution, dividing Jerusalem, and moving the U.S. embassy back to Tel Aviv.
Former VP Joe Biden has always been a supporter of Israel and indeed has a good and close relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders.
Unfortunately, if Biden is elected, in all likelihood he will be a figurehead president surrounded by political leftists and other radicals who, despite whatever other serious matters need to be dealt with on the national or international stage, always have targeting Israel in some fashion at the top of their agenda.
And as in the past — just as in the Obama administration — if all else fails, Democratic leaders will turn their attention to propping up the failed Palestinian Authority, pumping in billions of dollars that is customarily distributed exclusively among the leadership, and the same old story gets repeated as it has over the last 30 years.
Donald Trump has weaknesses and drawbacks, but who doesn’t? His priorities are in the right place, with the main goals being peace and prosperity. Mr. Trump will not be donning a kente cloth or a dashiki anytime soon. Right now, he is busy moving our economy back to where it was, which means many jobs for minority groups and so much more.
Final Chance to Vote
Governor Cuomo issued a reprieve the other day that allowed registered voters in District 15, the Lawrence Union Free School District, to submit ballots until Tuesday, June 16. Previously all ballots were due to be submitted by June 9.
There was, however, a quirk in the governor’s executive order that extended the deadline. And that is that you can no longer request or procure an official ballot, but if you have one at home, that can be submitted until the 16th.
The incumbents, board president Murray Forman and Dr. Asher Mansdorf, are facing two token candidates including Asher Matathias. The Nassau Herald, in their endorsement of Forman and Mansdorf, noted that Matathias’ approach was trite and annoying. The Matathias candidacy — now the seventh in a row — is not considered serious in any way. The other candidate, Amil Virani, is a college student who has shown interest in school board affairs but is very new to the stage.
The mail-in vote is a dramatic departure from the usual standard type of election procedure that many of us are accustomed to participate in here over the last few decades. Dr. Mansdorf points out that up until this week he heard from many people who told him they were looking forward to voting for him and Mr. Forman and were surprised that they could not vote in person.
Many may have received the ballot at home but disposed of it, unaware of what it was or how vital their vote really is. For now the key is that if you did set aside the ballot envelope at home, you have until 5 p.m. on June 16 to deliver the ballot to the high school office on Reilly Road in Cedarhurst.