I never thought I’d see the day I’d be defending Mitt Romney. But I feel that I must after learning that Romney got slimed for taking a courageous stance against Donald Trump and his cowardly (at best) response to a request to denounce the Ku Klux Klan. Apparently in the eyes of two prominent conservatives, speaking out against racism makes you a liberal.
Within hours of Trump saying that “it would be very unfair” to denounce the Klan because he didn’t know enough about them, Romney joined the bipartisan crowd denouncing the Donald.
A disqualifying & disgusting response by @realDonaldTrump to the KKK. His coddling of repugnant bigotry is not in the character of America.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) February 29, 2016
Well, that didn’t sit too well with Tucker Carlson:
Obama could have written this. https://t.co/JQpNDSYYHY
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 1, 2016
Or Laura Ingraham:
Is this Mother Jones? https://t.co/uKjzWceRxa
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) March 1, 2016
The message from Carlson and Ingraham was obvious. By speaking out against Trump and his failure to unequivocally state that racism had no place in his campaign, Romney was being a mealy-mouthed liberal squish.
So let’s see if we’ve got this right. By Carlson and Ingraham’s logic, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Marsha Blackburn are just bleeding-heart liberals because they rushed out to condemn Trump almost as quickly as Romney. And Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are RINOs at best and closet liberals at worst for speaking out against Trump on Tuesday. You see where this is going? Apparently in the world of Carlson and Ingraham, if you have even an iota of basic decency, you’re nothing more than a far-out liberal.
When I saw this, I couldn’t help but think back to “The Help.” In both the book and the movie, Skeeter gets labeled a liberal troublemaker for wanting to help black maids in Mississippi speak out about their ordeals. Indeed, seeing Ingraham’s tweet brought back an image of Hilly threatening to tell Skeeter’s mother that her daughter had turned into a “hippie.” I have to wonder if Carlson and Ingraham went to sleep during history class in high school. That’s about the only reason I can think of for why those two would even think of tweeting out something this ignorant.
It’s a sad day in this country when having basic decency is considered partisan. Romney deserves nothing but applause for having the guts to do what Trump wasn’t willing to do.
