The equally lame Politicon has likewise become the newest geek gala of social media stars on parade. This was evidenced with admirable clarity when Daily Wire’s social media heavyweight Ben Shapiro obliterated The Young Turk’s heavyweight Cenk Uygur in a livestreamed debate a couple weeks ago. It’s basically just the new wave of Jon Stewart vs. Bill O’Reilly live debates. Everyone is cashing in.
Even race-hustling Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison is trying to get in on the action with “NetRoots Nation 2017”. It went down today and it was a horror show. I’ll only post one clip below, but trust me…it was a tough decision picking out which one summed up the sheer stupidity of the event as a whole, but I think I got the best one which splices together enough of the worst moments.
There were a handful of very lucid moments emerging, but the panel just didn’t seem to get it. In one moment, Congressman Ellison spoke glowingly about how great the Democratic Party was for blacks in the 1960’s, and NOBODY bothered to mention the strong ties between the Southern Democrats and the Klu Klux Klan. It was unbelievable. There seemed to be some smart people on the panel, but they either all flunked 8th grade History or they all collectively gave Ellison a pass. My guess is ignorance, which reinforces the ugly stereotype that even educated blacks don’t know the racist history of the political party that claims to represent them.
Another surreal moment occurred when panelist Dante Barry pointed out that areas that have leaned heavily Democratic for decades have worsened, crippling the black urban communities. EVERYONE AGREED. Logically, this opens up two very important topics of discussion: the first topic could and should have been to deliberately lay out a black Democrat agenda with which to hold Democrats accountable to the black community. It should be the most important topic and the entire reason for organizing NetRoots Nation in the first place. The other reasonable topic could have been to organize and collectively appeal to The Republican Party, if for no other reason than to force the Democratic Party to take serious actions in heavily black urban Democratic areas where the constituents have always been let down by the Democrats elected to represent them. Instead…Dante Barry absurdly called for urban blacks to continue to blindly support the Democratic Party, completely muffing the opportunity for true and intellectual political discourse. What a joke.
Another notable sideshow attractions at this farce were a token Puerto Rican woman (no idea what her name is) rambling about a bizarre racist cocktail involving toll roads, Riker’s Island, and immigration reform. It made zero sense, and the uneven applause betrays that the audience likewise did not follow her. The strangest and most noticeable problem with her rant was that she annunciated the words “Latina”, “Latino”, and “Puerto Rican” in a token Hispanic accent that sounded wildly out of place. As a genuine rule, I don’t play the race card, but I always cynically point out dumb tactics that are used to pander to minorities, and obvious selective accentuation is one of the all-time cheapest. Again, it seems to me that the audience certainly noticed the selective accentuation and were made uncomfortable by it, especially considering the supposed purpose of the event. The irony is bewildering.
But the real shame lies with Congressman Ellison. Ellison is already damaged goods because of his anti-Semitic past, but he took racism to a whole new extreme when he was caught rolling his eyes at a female in the audience that questioned why no “indigenous persons” (i.e., Native Americans) were on the NetRoots Nation panel. It’s an interesting question why Democrats don’t pander to Native Americans, but a boring answer. Native Americans do not like ANY politicians. Many have already conveniently forgotten that Faith Spotted Eagle received an electoral vote from one of the five faithless electors that refused to cast their electoral vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Native Americans are an extremely small constituency, and Ellison rolling his eyes at the question reveals his thoughts: Not only does Ellison not care one whit about Native Americans, but he thinks that any young female black Democrats that do care about Native Americans are dumb.
The grand finale, of course, was Congressman Ellison making the ridiculous statement that murderous and fascistic North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, whom had recently threatened to attack US Naval Base Guam, was behaving more responsibly than President Trump. This statement is a genuine career-killer that can’t help but attract widespread condemnation from both sides of the aisle. For those wondering where the line is and what exactly is “crossing the line”, I’ll spell it out: character assassination, no matter how baseless, is fine. But anything resembling a compliment to the leader of a fascistic regime or a terrorist organization crosses the line and earns widespread condemnation. Even Ellison knows it was a stupid thing to say since he coughed up a meek apology immediately after the event.
Mark my words: That comment will prove to be very costly for Congressman Ellison. Even though he was defeated in his bid to be Chairman of the DNC by Tom Perez, the DNC appeased him by inventing a meaningless “Deputy Chairman” post for him to impotently occupy. I think Ellison is going to quietly resign this post before he is asked to step down. Congressman Ellison is just too much of a loose cannon for the DNC to continue to promote, and I recall Minnesota turning purple during the 2016 election, narrowly going Hillary Clinton’s way while the rest of the Rust Belt (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania) swung for President Trump. Between Ellison’s history of anti-Semitism and now sympathy for Kim Jong-un, he’s becoming too much of a liability for the DNC regardless of his affiliation with Bernie Sanders. Even worse, the fact that he was baited into making such a stupid comment reveals that he just isn’t that bright. He’s just another dumb race-hustler.
Most nightmarish about the whole event was that nobody at NetRoots Nation 2017 was even smart enough to call him out for his North Korea comment. Everyone there was just as dumb as Democrat race-hustler Keith Ellison wanted them to be, which is the final and most bitter irony of all.