By Edward Chang
Friday, July 19, 2019
Into the third year of his presidency, it still isn’t
clear whether Twitter is a blessing or a curse for President Donald Trump. In
the latest controversy, it’s been a curse.
On Sunday morning, Trump tweeted that four far-leftists
in Congress — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota,
Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts — should “go
back” to the countries from which they came, help fix their problems, and then
return and “show us how it is done.”
The controversy, of course, is that of the four
individuals at which he directed his comments, only one, Omar, is foreign-born.
This immediately led to charges of racism and a predictable uproar across the
media landscape, which presented the tweets as proof that Trump is every bit
the horrible person he has often been accused of being.
Racism Accusations Run
Rampant
Like many of his tweets, the one in question was
ill-advised and not well thought out, to put it mildly. No native-born
Americans need ever to be told that they should return to the “places from
which they came.” For Trump to continue making such statements at a time when
achieving “normalcy” should be a priority is self-destructive for himself and
the country.
The tweet was also typical Trump: He got things very
wrong, but he didn’t say what his worst critics accuse him of saying, either.
The insinuation from the left and the media that he told the quartet known as
“the squad” to simply “go back” isn’t accurate.He made a mistake in suggesting
all four women were foreign-born, but his remarks were more of a challenge to
back up their smack talk — if their view of America is that disdainful, perhaps
they ought to seek greener pastures and then make an argument about who exactly
gets it right more than the UnitedStates does.
In a palpable irony, “the squad” spends a
disproportionate amount of time leveling one egregious accusation after another
against the country and the administration. While Trump badly botched an
attempt to defend the country and his administration from such charges, it’s
rather hypocritical to suggest the country and the president must subject
themselves to such harsh accusations and are racist for having the temerity to
respond.
Even if the president hadn’t tweeted something so ignorant,
the left still would have accused him of racism simply because he dared to
criticize Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Tlaib, and Pressley. Even Democrat Nancy Pelosi
learned this lesson the hard way last week when Ocasio-Cortez accused the House
speaker of racism for attempting to restrain intraparty criticism and keep it
behind closed doors.
Allegiance Is a Choice
But most unfortunate is the emerging notion that “the
squad” members are merely doing their duty as patriots in characterizing their
country in such flagrantly demonic terms. The fact is that nothing is keeping
them in America except their own volition.
Like many of their adherents, “the squad” has decided
living in the United States is beneficial. They simply cannot bring themselves
to relinquish it. One of those benefits is the ability not only to level such
charges against their nation freely, but to be practically rewarded for it.
Nobody’s suggesting these congresswomen don’t have the right to say what they
say, but that hardly makes it “patriotic” or reasoned in any sense.
Citizenship is, after all, not merely legal status nor
the exercise of particular rights. It is also about what’s in someone’s heart
and how he feels about the nation to which he’s sworn allegiance. It makes
little sense to swear allegiance to a country that’s not only guilty of such
horrendous atrocities but continues to perpetuate them.
Ocasio-Cortez recently tweeted, “The country I come from,
& the country we all swear to, is the United States.” But talk is cheap
when much of her platform, along with that of her compatriots, is based on
undermining America’s own nationhood. Ocasio-Cortez and company have leveled
some outrageous allegations against law enforcement tasked with protecting the
U.S. border, the most bizarre being that detainees are being forced to drink
out of toilets.
The New York freshman congresswoman insists the Trump
administration has “destroyed the border” with its policies, implying that the
mere act of attempting to control borders and the flow of immigration is what’s
undermining the borders. Never mind that the situation at the border is
something any country would find difficult to manage. It’s a preposterous
notion but fully consistent with the left’s shift toward embracing an
open-borders policy, something they’ve vehemently denied, although the logical
conclusion of their policy positions and propositions clearly point in that
direction.
Then there’s Omar and Tlaib, who make no mistake of their
sympathy for America’s sworn
enemies.
Omar is a particularly curious case. Unlike Tlaib, she was born in war-torn
Somalia and rescued by the United States, where she now sits as a
representative in Congress.
Yet, as someone recently observed, “She was taught to
despise her country.” Omar has a long history of characterizing the United
States in most resentful terms, going so far as to criticize the American
troops who, along with other nations’ soldiers, attempted to rescue her native
Somalia from chaos, starvation, and war. It’s one thing to criticize policy
decisions; it’s another to antagonize, and Omar excels at the latter.
Meanwhile, Tlaib has hosted avowed anti-Semitic,
pro-Hezbollah activists and has accused U.S. senators of dual loyalty, making
her reaction to Trump’s tweets all the more ironic. It’s hypocritical to level
such accusations over a policy difference, only to balk when a similar tactic
is used against her. As for Pressley, she went on a bizarre, racially charged
rant the same day as Trump’s tweets.
Patriotism Supports the
Nation, Not the Government
Mark Twain once said, “Patriotism is supporting your
country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” But according
to the new generation of congressional representatives, the country itself
cannot be supported all the time. It was founded in and embedded with racism,
sexism, and white supremacy, and only revolution can deliver national
salvation.
Drawing such a stark line in the sand creates an
us-versus-them mentality, a nation divided between the “woke” and those who
perpetuate the injustices that define the country. This mentality is neither
becoming nor sustainable and isn’t a formula for patriotism but for hostility
and national self-loathing.
Trump attempted to defend America’s honor and laid an
egg. Disconcerting as it is that we can’t trust the president with this
critical task, this is exactly why it’s important, more than ever before, for
all patriotic Americans to engage in the battle of ideas and challenge the
cynical and nihilistic narratives that have seemingly assumed a commanding
posture.
The grand question of our time may very well be the
simple one of whether the United States deserves not only to be defended but
preserved. Those who believe the answer to be “yes” must be willing to
resolutely and resoundingly defend the nation’s honor. Unless, of course, you
want Trump to tweet about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment