AMAC Exclusive – by Seamus Brennan

For a party that claims to hold concepts like “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “racial equity” as their most sacred guiding principles, Democrats’ sneering contempt for black Americans with whom they disagree has proven particularly hypocritical in recent years. Nowhere has that been more clear than in California, as Larry Elder, a black Republican gubernatorial candidate, continues to surge in polls and threaten Governor Gavin Newsom’s bid to remain in office. But Elder’s unusually hostile treatment is only the latest in an alarming trend of figures on the left trying to “cancel” black conservatives.

Nearly all leading black voices on the contemporary right—including Justice Clarence Thomas, Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, and political pundit Candace Owens, just to name a few—have seemingly been scorned for their political views by members of the media and others on the left.

Most notably, MSNBC’s Joy Reid recently referred to Justice Thomas, the Supreme Court’s only black justice, as “Uncle Clarence” (evoking the racial slur “Uncle Tom”), while Amazon, without explanation, removed a documentary about the Justice during black history month. Following Senator Scott’s rebuttal to President Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress, the phrase “Uncle Tim” trended on Twitter for hours. Rapper Cardi B accused Candace Owens of having an “identity crisis” and subtly characterized Owens as a traitor to her own race.

Unsurprisingly, Elder has found himself at the center of the latest series of race-based attacks from progressives. In August, the Los Angeles Times published a column castigating Elder as the “Black face of white supremacy”—a slander that has since been repeated at Newsom’s campaign events. Elder, the piece contends, has resorted to “willful blindness” and “overly simplistic arguments” to “whitewash the complex problems that come along with being Black in America.” Out of an “insatiable need for attention,” the piece continues, “Elder opposes every single public policy idea that’s supported by Black people to help Black people.”

The piece goes on to quote several California-based activists and politicians on the supposed danger Elder poses to the lives and well-being of black Californians: activist Najee Ali, for instance, argued he would be a “disaster for Black voters,” labelling him as “the Black Trump.” Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, went so far to claim that “everything that he’s pushing, everything that he stands for […] is advancing white supremacy.” In an especially lamentable statement, California State Senator Sydney Kamlager, in reference to Elder’s candidacy, remarked that she is “not interested in going back to Jim Crow.”

Despite the column’s attempted fearmongering and Democrats’ frantic push to establish Elder as an existential threat to black America, his platform is hardly radical, and instead contains common sense policies likely to be popular with most Californians – exactly the type of reasoned, level-headed approach Democrats fear most. His campaign strategy is primarily rooted in reversing many of Governor Newsom’s radical policies that have led to what Elder calls “the decline of California.” Among his top priorities are easing Covid-19 restrictions, reopening schools, cutting spending, cutting housing regulations, and clamping down on crime. Yet, according to the left, these policies ought not be taken for anything other than an advancement of “white supremacy.”

His views on race present nothing particularly out of the ordinary, either. Rather than blaming issues that disproportionately affect black Americans on “systemic racism,” as much of the left does, Elder points to reduced police presence in high-crime locations and disproportionate black-on-black crime. “Rising crime? [It’s] because of this phony narrative that the police are engaging in systemic racism and cops are pulling back,” Elder noted. “When you reduce the possibility of a bad guy getting caught, getting convicted and getting incarcerated, guess what? Crime goes up.”

Whether or not Elder ultimately prevails in the September 14 recall election, he will almost certainly not be the last to face this tired and overwrought sequence of attacks from progressives. But in their unremitting campaign to discredit Elder as a “face of white supremacy” and somehow racist against his own race, Democrats have shown their true colors: race only matters to them when it can be weaponized for ideological and political purposes. “Diversity” and “equal representation” only matter so far as the left’s extremist agenda is adequately accounted for; but when it is not, black Americans like Elder become both their biggest threat and their biggest target.

As political commentator Heather MacDonald writes, the reason progressives are so vehemently opposed to an Elder governorship is that “he’s speaking the truth.” And as the truth continues to reach more and more black Americans whose votes are taken for granted and who are being abandoned by the left, progressives have every reason to be frightened.

Democrats, the liberal media, and every other institution of power hijacked by progressive activists know that these great Americans have proven themselves time and again to be champions for average Americans and traditional American values. Left with no other options, they shamelessly resort to the very type of disgusting race-based attacks that they falsely accuse Republicans of engaging in. For the sake of California and the country, we can only hope voters see past these lies.

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