Implicit Civil War

After General John Kelly called out Frederica Wilson by name he called her out by implication:

 I'll end with this: In October -- April, rather, of 2015, I was still on active duty, and I went to the dedication of the new FBI field office in Miami. And it was dedicated to two men who were killed in a firefight in Miami against drug traffickers in 1986 -- a guy by the name of Grogan and Duke. Grogan almost retired, 53 years old; Duke, I think less than a year on the job. Anyways, they got in a gunfight and they were killed. Three other FBI agents were there, were wounded, and now retired. So we go down -- Jim Comey gave an absolutely brilliant memorial speech to those fallen men and to all of the men and women of the FBI who serve our country so well, and law enforcement so well. 

There were family members there. Some of the children that were there were three or four years old when their dads were killed on that street in Miami-Dade. Three of the men that survived the fight were there, and gave a rendition of how brave those men were and how they gave their lives. 

And a congresswoman stood up, and in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there and all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building, and how she took care of her constituents because she got the money, and she just called up President Obama, and on that phone call he gave the money -- the $20 million -- to build the building. And she sat down, and we were stunned. Stunned that she had done it. Even for someone that is that empty a barrel, we were stunned.

There is a further implication to be drawn, and I have to wonder if it occurred to the general. There is a cruder style in black politics as in black life, a certain obliviousness. You're not supposed to notice three commonplaces in America: black mediocrity, black malice and black buffoonery. There is also an unspoken rule that criticizing any of these in an individual black person is asserting the existence of one or more of these. The general dares to glance upon two of three--and the lady's hat covers the buffoonish angle already. In calling out the congresswoman's ability along with her decency the general enters a moral free-fire zone. But he's armed with his story, and it's powerful. Trump is fighting back in areas where it wouldn't have even occurred to previous Republican or conservative politicians.

Of course he doesn't necessarily see it that way. But it doesn't matter. In framing Trump as essentially racist the left has made every engagement with him a racial controversy--especially a row with such as the congresswoman, whose street cred appears solid. When she sallies forth to engage it has to be seen as an assault by black America on white privilege. Previous Republicans thought there was no winning such engagements. Trump sees there's no losing them.

It's on.

Sorry, black America. It's just not cute any more.
There has been a cost to our condescension. Humoring black America has necessitated the degradation of standards of behavior culturally and politically, and is inseparable from the other strands of the Narrative choking out the last of our common decency. I suspect the general, like a lot of us, is making these connections too:

It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me. And I thought at least that was sacred. You know, when I was a kid growing up, a lot of things were sacred in our country. Women were sacred, looked upon with great honor. That's obviously not the case anymore as we see from recent cases. Life -- the dignity of life -- is sacred. That's gone. Religion, that seems to be gone as well. 

Women and life don't get a lot of respect in the black community. Respect, for that matter, doesn't get a lot of respect there, where disrespect drives the daily carnage.

The Trump Administration continues to stun the left by fighting back. How fitting and proper that George W Bush would show up today of all days. His real cowardice is revealed in the fact he fought back politically everywhere but in the rigged game of racial resentment--and here he was invoking it.

Posturing as a tough guy by sending American boys to Iraq was nothing--and forgiven, as we see. Says an awful lot about the continuing power of the black privilege narrative.