While US President Donald Trump loosens regulatory bindings on business, an icon of the left attributes his election to racial bigotry.
Calling Trump a “fraud” and a “thin-skinned bully,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Apr. 19 told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow his election partly reflects an “ugly stew of racism.”
After campaign comments offensive to women and ethnic groups, published boasting about promiscuity, revelation of sexist commentary, and behavior characteristic of—yes—a thin-skinned bully, how Trump became president remains an interesting question.
But racism?
A better explanation comes from Trump supporters. Before and after the election, consistently and clearly, they said and say they’re angry. But why?
Well, being called racist for expressing conservative opinions will make a person angry.
Sure, racism exists. It exists in all political parties and among all ethnic groups.
But the racist smear is long past tiresome, usually indefensible, and strongly suggestive that liberalism has lost potency.
Trump supporters might have been driven to anger, too, by a president who for 8 years could not defend his positions without mocking anyone who might disagree.
That was Barack Obama’s style. It was as divisive as Trump’s impetuous tweeting—but subtler and overlooked by reverent media. And Obama employed his personal unilateralism on behalf of an expansionist agenda too liberal for most Americans.
Voters responded. According to a Mar. 4, 2016, report by National Public Radio, Democrats lost more congressional, state legislative, and gubernatorial seats during Obama’s presidency than during any prior administration.
Obama pushed ahead anyway, resorting to executive orders and administrative activism after Democrats lost Congress and as the economy barely grew.
Americans had good reason to be angry.
Trump’s administration swiftly relaxed some of the business squeeze and recently took comments from manufacturers suggesting further deregulation, especially by the Environmental Protection Agency and Labor Department.
Warren and other liberals will conjure threats to nature and workers and probably accuse challengers of some character flaw—misanthropy perhaps.
That’s their habit. It’s maddening.
(From the subscription area of www.ogj.com, posted Apr. 21, 2017; author’s e-mail: [email protected])