Reacting to the first
African American Republican woman being elected to Congress, the lynchpin of liberal
political and cultural commentary, the Huffington
Post, published a column by Darron Smith, Ph.D., creepily titled:
“She Looks Black, but
Her Politics Are Red: What Mia Love's Victory Means for the Face of the GOP.”
The implication is
that Congresswoman-elect Mia Love is not really
black. As Mr. Smith writes, she only “looks black.”
Rational Americans
might ask, what could that possibly mean and does anyone take this tripe spewed
by a smarmy radical leftist seriously?
Some leftists might respond
that being black is not simply a matter of skin color. It’s every bit as much a
matter of ideology. If your skin color is black and you embrace the hard left agenda, you’re legitimately black. If your skin color is black, but you support principles
of limited government, then you’re not a legitimate African American.
It’s the left-wing
equivalent of Todd Aiken’s infamous “legitimate rape” comment, only it’s not
universally mocked and derided. Just the opposite: it’s celebrated and
inexorably advanced across the liberal media landscape.
The stark reality is
that this one Huffington Post column
is not an anomaly. It’s the new normal.
Once confined to
niche left-wing publications, fringe political movements, and ultra-liberal
university faculty lounges, radical leftist dogma is now embedded in the
liberal media establishment.
Terms like
"white privilege" and "cultural appropriation" pervade
mainstream media outlets. They’re no longer considered fringe or controversial
on the left. And anyone—including people of color—who dares question the merits of
these ideas will be bizarrely vilified as a benefactor and purveyor of “white
privilege.”
In short, radical
leftist views have been mainstreamed by popular websites like Gawker, The Daily Beast, and the Huffington
Post.
It’s as if in a cruel twist of fate the radical left
has won the civil war against the liberal establishment many thought it had
lost in the 1960s. This victory over the relatively moderate liberal establishment
is evidenced by the fact that The New York
Times, The Washington Post and
other standard bearers of mainstream liberalism don’t dare counter radical
tripe, such as the notion that American institutions are inherently and
irreversibly racist. Occasionally, they even publish these diatribes in their
op-ed pages.
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the mainstreaming
of the leftist school of thought is that scores of apolitical and ideologically diverse
readers regularly visit the Huffington
Post, Gawker, et al. for
celebrity news and entertainment, not for politics.
But when those outlets do delve into politics
directly or indirectly, they invariably infuse their columns with leftist
ideology, such as the notion that all white Americans enjoy genetic privilege.
This is a far cry from the time when only ideological readers browsed The Nation.
By targeting audiences seeking entertainment or soft
news and then hitting them with leftist propaganda, these outlets cultivate far
more influence than their fringe predecessors.
It is supremely ironic that the counter culture failed
so spectacularly to mainstream their ideas during the glory days of left-wing radicalism
in the 1960s, yet today, when left-wing radicalism is no longer a credible
political movement, their ideological successors enjoy mainstream status.
