By Todd Lassa
Forced to search for any one issue on which conservatives and liberals agree, it is that they both believe the opposition is trying to take away freedom and liberties.
Liberals are concerned about an authoritarian wing of the Republican Party that would make it difficult for minorities to vote, and would restrict immigration from predominantly non-white and/or non-Christian countries.
Conservatives are wary a liberal Democratic “nanny state” wants to restrict everything from sugary soft drinks to assault weapons, take down monuments to founding fathers and force vaccinations and masks. Much of Donald J. Trump’s success as a populist politician is his defiant rejection of this type of political correctness.
“Woke” liberalism suffered a defeat last week when “America’s most liberal city,” San Francisco, recalled three school board members, including its president and vice president, for voting smack in the middle of the COVID pandemic, in January 2021, to remove the names of historical and current public figures from 44 of its schools rather than focus primarily on the needs of children in remote schooling.
Names to be removed included those of dead presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, as well as very much alive Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). Six of seven school board members voted to remove her name and others from schools because Feinstein, as mayor there from 1978 to 1988 with high approval ratings, had replaced a vandalized Confederate flag that had long been part of a display of flags in front of City Hall, according to a January 27, 2021 report in The Guardian.
Only three of those six who voted to remove the names had served long enough to be eligible for recall. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that 72% of the turnout voted to remove board President Gabriella Lopez, 69% voted to recall Vice President Faauuga Moliga and 76% voted to recall Commissioner Allison Collins. Democratic Mayor London Breed, who supported their recall, said the board was distracted by “political agendas,” and should be concentrating on handling school reopening during the pandemic and addressing the school district’s $125 million budget deficit.
It's not the first warning of progressive Democrats’ control of their side of the culture wars. When Judy Woodruff asked James Carville, best known as the strategist who helped Bill Clinton win the presidency in 1992, how Republican Glenn Younkin won his upset victory in last November’s Virginia gubernatorial race, he responded: “Stupid wokeness.”
Carville also pointed to losses and close wins last November in New Jersey, Buffalo, Minneapolis, Seattle and on Long Island. “I mean, this defund the police lunacy, this take Abraham Lincoln’s name off of schools, that – people see that.”
One of the nine executive orders Gov. Youngkin issued January 15, the day he took office banned the teaching of “inherently divisive concepts, including critical race theory” in K-12 public schools, FiveThirtyEight reports. This is the flip side of political correctness of the left, and it comes during sweeping efforts by parents’ groups mostly in “red” states across the country to ban certain books from K-12 public schools. Teaching CRT [which has not been proposed for any schools below college level: [https://thehustings.news/critical-race-theory-facts-dont-matter/], the argument goes, will make white students ashamed of their heritage.
Is the left too “woke”? Is the right’s response too “anti-woke”? We asked our pundits to consider the question from both sides. Become a “citizen pundit” and email us your remarks to editors@thehustings.news and please let us know whether you consider yourself “left” or “right.”
(SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2022)