By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
Guest Column
If you are mildly informed and conversant with the woefully sad state of political discourse and affairs as it regards the raging, but false phenomenon known as the “cultural wars” initiated by the GOP, you will notice the following converging streams of events that should give you much pause for concern:
(1) The “cultural wars” are fictions of certain GOP politicos and their fan bases and news organs like FOX NEWS(?) which are creating a Frankenstein monster of lies, distortion and duplicitous literature that portrays people of color (and others, but primarily Black and Brown people) as less than American.
(2) The “cultural wars” have the intent and purpose of degrading and impugning the motives of minority journalists and their allies by telling a false narrative that such undertakings as the 1619 Project is being done by “woke” (whatever that means) people who want to destroy America.
(3) The cultural wars and their warriors want to scare the living “heebie-jeebies” out of white folks so that they are fearful of even having their school age kids engage with children of color due to the false narrative that all Black children are inherently “dangerous” and thus should be avoided as playmates and classmates.
(4) The cultural wars and the support of warped far right news outlets want to give the impression that people of color are, in fact, socialists and demagogues and are victims of the nebulous far left political machine. This false narrative wants to gain traction by attempting to tie the aspirations of people of color to a senile President Joe Biden.
(5) Former President Donald Trump, a con and grifter of the first order, smugly promotes this divisive rhetoric when he publicly calls out the Attorney General for the State of New York, Latisha James. as a racist for pursuing possible criminal charges against him!
As you also may know, the hype of the cultural wars has resulted in dozens of states passing legislation that would forbid the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) on grounds that it teaches white children to hate themselves and that they are oppressors.
It does not matter, fact wise, that such a curriculum is not being taught in the lower school grades, but why let facts get in the way of a good boogeyman story doing its job?
By using CRT as a cudgel, the feckless GOP has sold its soul for a mere pittance in return for the rewards of being in power, regardless of the cost. The GOP has described its present day crusade as saving the very soul of America from these marauding infidels who seek to remake America in an image that white folks are terrified of.
The lying purveyors of CRT, with bushel baskets of dark money to spread their poison manure, are nigh gleeful at the thought that if they can bum rush the 2022 election polls and take over the House and the Senate, they will win their fabricated cultural wars.
If such duo wins were to occur and if it were also the occasion in which dozens of Trump wannabee GOP clones were to take power, watch out, because the cousin of Jim Crow would be leaving his swamp pit and heading for the US Capitol.
Assuming that if the GOP and its zombie Trump followers were to take the levers of power in the Capitol, you would have a massive stand off because President Joe Biden would be practically left alone with his veto power to try to stem the deluge of regressive legislation that would flood his desk.
This is legislation that would hamstring and turn back the clock on voting rights, environmental rights of clean air and water, women’s rights and the entrenchment of the monied class of billionaires owning more of Congress with their dark money donations.
If you believe that money is the milk of politics, a takeover of the House and Senate by politicos whose first love is Trump, Trump and more Trump, America would return to an era where the cousin of Jim Crow would feel right at home, roosting in the comfortable nest feathered by the likes of Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Gozar, Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, Rick Scott and Tom Cotton, et.al.
Make no mistake about it, an America where the voices of Q Anon and other radical right wing fringe groups are given a widening listening ear, it would change the political conversation from that of what is now toxic to that which is deadly.
And no, the US Supreme Court would not be a dependable ally and bulwark against extremisms, given its current makeup of Trump sympathizers.
In the current divided political context of blue states v. red states, logical arguments and Fair political give and take in Congress would be jettisoned for a longing of Americans (white America) wanting to return to a lifestyle that is calmer and without the jolting headlines of the George Floyd type.
Jim Crow, when it was the law of the land, took no small measures in suppressing people of color by both legal and extra-legal methods (including lynching and biased criminal sentencing) to make sure that “colored” people knew “their place.”
Jim Crow survives, in some forms, because it has the unspoken stamp of permission from a populace that threw overboard the dictates of the US Constitution and a US Supreme Court that handed down edicts which were blatantly racist and reactionary.
Jim Crow was temporarily disabled, and it hobbled off the scene but with a prophetic last word that it would be back when the pendulum swung its way again, ushered in by an agent provocateur who would stir up in the country the suppressed feelings that America needs to return to the good ol’ days typified when Ozzie and Harriet and Leave It To Beaver were the top running TV programs in America (don’t know those programs?…. try You Tube).
And that cousin of Jim Crow? That agent provocateur who has read the suppressed racial tea leaves of too many Americans, and has adroitly reopened Pandora’s Box?
That man of destiny who disdains all matters moral, legal and civil and holds in contempt anyone who does not kiss his ring finger and pledge undying homage to him? that smirking and duplicitous cousin of Jim Crow? Donald Trump and his feckless minions.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at tolliver@juno.com