‘Trump can evidently find no greater achievement than working for him, in service of his goals…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Leave it to the deranged press to turn the life of a musical pioneer into a story about Trump.
While many eulogized singer Aretha Franklin, who died on Thursday at age 76, the condolences that President Donald Trump paid Franklin prior to a cabinet meeting threatened by Friday to eclipse any coverage of the Queen of Soul’s actual life.
In context, Trump’s offhanded remark “she worked for me on numerous occasions” seemed to support his anteceding statement that he knew Franklin “well” on a professional level.
Trump continued by saying, “She’s brought joy to millions of lives, and her extraordinary legacy will thrive and inspire many generations to come.”
Yet, to the liberal dog-whistle mindset, the idea of Franklin working for Trump under any circumstances was intolerable.
“Trump can evidently find no greater achievement than working for him, in service of his goals,” wrote Vann Newkirk in The Atlantic.
Naturally, even that was not enough.
Newkirk also felt compelled to place Franklin on a continuum of black women affronted by Trump that included Omarosa Manigault Newman, Maxine Waters, and other media and political opponents who have engaged in personal rivalries with the president.
“[B]lack women elicit the most bellicose and vulgar insults from him when they cross the line from associate to adversary,” Newkirk wrote.
Conveniently, Newkirk neglected to mention that the same holds true of anyone, regardless of race or gender. To arbitrarily lump the distinguished Franklin in with Trump’s adversaries, thus, is to reduce her accomplishments to a demographic and lower the bar on all that she achieved.
However, the media couldn’t stop there. Once the race-baiting reflex had run its course, there was the obligatory ‘fact-checking.’
In an article titled “Aretha Franklin ‘worked for me,’ claims Trump. Did she?” Washington Post writer Isaac Stanley-Becker detailed the various casino openings that Franklin attended with Trump while steadfastly asserting her left-wing bona fides.
Meanwhile, The Daily Beast, citing anonymous sources, pointedly insisted that “Though she largely refrained from publicly criticizing Trump … she was repelled by the Republican standard bearer.”
Apart from her powerful vocals, one thing that made Franklin’s music stand out was her delivery. She mastered the concept of reading between the lines—that sometimes it is the notes and syncopation left un-played that matter as much as the ones you play.
Likewise, her class stemmed from the fact that she could leave certain things unspoken and let her actions and music do the talking.
While in life, Franklin sought to transcend petty political squabbling, the “chain of fools” on the Left now will ensure that her legacy remains shackled by it.