https://www.newsweek.com/mike-pompeo-opposes-multiculturalism-says-it-distorts-glorious-founding-us-1562691
I am proud and happy to be a progressive Democrat. Our people and our party are committed to the idea that everyone should be judged on the content of their character as demonstrated by their actions. - not their place of birth, or skin color or religious affiliation. We try to include as many people as possible, because everyone should get a piece of the action and everyone should get an even break - opportunity and fairness.
We are not perfect in doing all these things. But it is a characteristic of our people and our party as demonstrated by our actions. And you can see this clearly in our record of “firsts”.
What are the “firsts”. It is our record as a party in being first to put people who are traditionally outsiders into positions of power and responsibility.
We were the first to elect a nonwhite man president: Barack Obama (a black man, to boot). We just celebrated the election of our first female Vice President: Kamala Harris (black and Indian - two groups usually on the outside of things). The first openly transgender woman, Rachel Levin, has just been appointed to be the assistant secretary of health by Joe Biden (and don’t even think about challenging her qualifications).
https://illinoisnewsroom.org/senate-confirms-avril-haines-as-director-of-national-intelligence/
There’s more. Avril Haines has just become the first woman ever to be the director of national intelligence (Joe Biden again - clearly this guy knows lots of smart women and is not afraid to use them). And Pete Buttigieg is the first openly gay man to have a cabinet level position: secretary of transportation.
At the time of her election Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was the youngest woman ever elected to congress. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib were the first Muslim women ever elected to the same legislative body. All three got reelected. Jon Ossoff is the first Jewish Senator to represent the state of Georgia (deep in the Bible belt, no less). And Chuck Schumer is the first Jewish leader of the Senate. And the first women to ever run for president was ….. Shirley Chisholm (way back at the dawn of time in 1972).
The record of “firsts” for Democrats is not of recent origin. The first Catholic politician to run for president was Al Smith (back in 1928). The first man to integrate the armed services was Harry Truman. The first politician to recognize the state of Israel? Harry Truman again. The first catholic to win the presidency was John Kennedy.
The Republicans are not without their own “firsts”. Donald Trump is the first man elected to the office of president with no prior political experience (kind of explains the ineptitude of his administration). Donald Trump is also the first president to be impeached twice. Richard Nixon was the first president to be forced to resign from the presidency.
When you look at the the conservative Republicans in the congress and the senate, what is there? It’s a whole sea of white faces, with but a few brown (Latino) faces to break up the white blizzard affect. It is mostly just white, middle age men looking back at you. No “firsts” likely to come out of this bunch.
As I have said in the past not all Republicans are Reactionary racists, but that is the strongest force animating the party. They are not like Democrats - they don’t really like people who are not like them. By them I mean white, American born, conservative evangelical (or perhaps conservative Catholic) Christians whose ancestry is from a handful of white, Christian European nations. They don’t like diversity, they don’t like people who are different and they don’t like people who are weird (and they have a very large definition of who is weird). There are very few “firsts” among the Republicans because nobody in their party is different enough to be a “first”.
What’s worse, they really think that our country was founded on the idea that diversity was bad, and that the founding fathers abhorred the idea because it made us weak and vulnerable.
https://www.newsweek.com/mike-pompeo-opposes-multiculturalism-says-it-distorts-glorious-founding-us-1562691
Don’t believe me? Just listen to the words of Mike Pompeo, former secretary of state under Donald Trump, former congressional representative from Kansas, first in his class at West Point. In a tweet dated January 19, the day after we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. day (most of us, anyway) Mike Pompeo explained the Reactionary Republican belief about multiculturalism:
“Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms ——- they’re not who America is. They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid Republican. You are either incredibly ignorant of our founding as a nation and the people who brought it to life, or you are just lying.
The truth is that our founding fathers were very tolerant. And they certainly believed in having all kinds of “isms”: that’s why they tolerated people who practiced Catholicism, Calvinism, Lutheranism, and all kinds of nationalities and their various “protestantisms.” Why, they were so tolerant of multiculturalism that they even allowed …. Judaism (a really big deal back in the day when much of the world was still sore at the Jews because - they killed Jesus!! Now that’s some tolerance).
Immediately upon establishing a functioning government and becoming a true nation the founders sent emissaries to the major foreign countries of Europe - even England. And they didn’t just draw into themselves and try to avoid the wider world. They established international trade!! Seems that the founding fathers had a strong belief in “internationalism.”
The founding of our country was glorious, made so by the exceptionalism (oh my, is that another “ism” Republicans hate?) of our founders and their tolerance of different people and their beliefs.
And as for our enemies stoking these divisions to make us weaker? The only people who do that are Reactionary racists Republicans who are either ignorant of the contributions made by people of different “isms” or just don’t want to accept anyone who is not like them.
Progressives are the future and the hope of this country. We must fight the Reactionary racists Republicans and their bigotry in the sacred name of “intelligentism.”
The next blog post will be devoted to the bloated fool of a Republican secretary of state and his/their idiot ideas.
Live progressive, vote progressive, succeed progressive.