The American Conservative Union would like you to believe that axing Milo Yiannopoulos from the Conservative Political Action Conference was an act of courage and principle. But it was amply demonstrated that this was not a courageous act at all. After all, the ACU allowed the man who created him, Steve Bannon, to stay on the schedule. And they didn’t mind Donald Trump speaking there despite his numerous outrages on the campaign trail–particularly how he reveled in degrading women and was hardly repentant about it.
It’s hard not to conclude that the ACU dumped Milo because it was the bare minimum step to keep the Gaylord National Resort from running them out on a rail. If there was any doubt this was the case, it was erased when CPAC’s last speaker took the stage–Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke. Watch here.
Clarke’s speech was relatively nondescript, at least by both his standards and CPAC standards. He offered a paean to Trump, saying that “we have chosen a leader.” He also slammed liberals for not having the guts to “do what is morally right.”
The one problem with that speech was the fact that Clarke was even there in the first place. Apparently the ACU has a very short memory. Just a month earlier, Clarke spoke at the DeploraBall and declared that he was not interested in working with Democrats unless he had the chance “to grab one of them by the throat!” If that wasn’t enough, he effectively bragged about it by posting the video to his Twitter.
While I was inside at DeploraBall, DC police were outside doing a hell of a job keeping creep a-hole agitators away. https://t.co/xL5AzkZnh5
— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) January 20, 2017
The fact that video is still available on Clarke’s feed should tell you what kind of person Clarke is. It should also tell you that he is not morally fit to clean the sheriff’s office, let alone run it. And he lectures us about not wanting to do what’s morally right? I’d like to know where Clarke shops, because I don’t know of any store in the Milwaukee area–or anywhere in Wisconsin, for that matter–where you can buy cojones that big.
Remember how the ACU board was prepared to revolt if ACU chairman Matt Schlapp didn’t rescind Milo’s invite? Well, unless I’m very wrong, this is the response from the ACU board when Clarke was announced as a speaker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UggFIxKtSUk
So apparently the ACU finds it acceptable for elected officials to use this kind of language when referring to their opponents. But then again, that’s to be expected. After all, they seem to have no problem inviting a guy who plastered a private cell phone on social media, mocked the disabled, condoned violence at his rallies, degraded women, and has waged open war on the press and the judiciary.
The closest parallel I can think of on our side to Clarke is Jackson, Mississippi city councilman Kenneth Stokes, who openly called for cops from other jurisdictions to be greeted with rocks and sticks if they chased suspects into Jackson. It would have been nothing short of an outrage if a liberal conference, like Netroots Nation, invited Stokes to speak. It’s no less of an outrage that the ACU kept Clarke on the schedule.
To be sure, Clarke has a laundry list of outrageous and embarrassing remarks on his ledger. He actually defended the Bundy gang’s takeover of an Oregon wildlife refuge, wanted to add an AR-15 to the Great Seal, and called for “a Lexington-Concord moment” to stop marriage equality. But if any remark should have absolutely, positively disqualified him from speaking at any conference run by anyone with an iota of decency, it was when he effectively declared he wasn’t willing to do his job when he said he had no interest in reaching out to his opponents. If the ACU considers this acceptable behavior for an elected official, then there can be no doubt–bouncing Milo was not an act of courage at all.
More importantly, it is yet more evidence that the party of Abraham Lincoln no longer exists, and a far-right party has taken its place. That’s not good for democracy in the long run. Just look at what happened in Germany–the “mainstream” right-wing party for most of the Weimar era, the National People’s Party, was actually a far-right party.
I realize that there are a number of conservatives who think having basic standards of decency doesn’t make you, in the words of Trump’s alt-right followers, a “cuck.” In fact, I count quite a few decent-minded conservatives as my friends. Well, guys, you have a major clean-up job to do on your side. And for the country’s sake, you’d better get on it. After all, the Stokeses, Clarkes, and Trumps on both sides are standing in the way of getting things done.
(featured image courtesy Clarke’s Twitter)
