A ‘DIVISIVE’ SPEECH?
Only if you don’t Believe in America By Katrina Pierson
I
t was a late Friday evening and then-candidate Barack Obama was fatigued following a full day of campaigning. It was May 30, 2008, and Obama was in South Dakota visiting Mount Rushmore, a monument dedicated to four presidential giants of America’s past. The New York Times, in its report that weekend, described the massive sculpture as a “granite visage” and the “Pride of South Dakota.” Obama even joked with reporters that his ears were too large to be added to the massive wall face. A dozen years later, President Donald Trump made a Friday night visit of his own to the impressive monument, on the eve of America’s 244th birthday – the Fourth of July. The president delivered an inspirational, inclusive message rooted in the American ideals of life, liberty, and self-determination. He spoke of our shared belief in equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal treatment for citizens of every race, background, religion, and creed. The New York Times’ report on this president’s visit to Mount Rushmore was strikingly different than its report on Obama’s visit 12 years earlier. Following the president’s address, his usual detractors, including the Times, attacked his message as “divisive.”
So, what led to such a mischaracterization? The answer, I’m afraid, isn’t very nuanced. The Democrat establishment and its media allies have chosen to elevate the radical left’s hatred of America in order to achieve its short-term goal of defeating Donald Trump in November. The president’s message could only be interpreted as divisive by individuals who do not love America, and who do not believe in the idea that the great American experiment continues to march toward a more perfect union despite inequities of the past. The president highlighted the famous words enshrined in the Declaration of Independence that declared “all men are a created equal,” words he described as setting into motion the “unstoppable march of freedom.” The Democrat Party and its media allies don’t’ see it that way. They see an America that is dark, evil, and irredeemable. The radical left, now being fully supported by the Democrat establishment and many in the mainstream media, are stoking tensions, fear, and destruction by mobs. They celebrate what Lance Morrow, writing in the Wall Street Journal, calls “ideology as performance” and “outage with a touch of holiday.” g
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