(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Democrats may have been the party of the Confederacy, the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow, but their shameful legacy of discrimination doesn’t end there.
They also, under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, were the party responsible for interning Japanese–American U.S. citizens as prisoners during World War II.
Although the fog of war may be used to justify many things, the mass detainment of innocent civilians with little to no due process, based only on their identities and affiliations with a particular cultural group, has never been a forgivable offense for a free nation. Conservatives in the Biden era can certainly relate.
Yet, despite the party’s dubious history, it was no surprise when, during the COVID-19 pandemic, left-wing activists openly began courting Asian Americans in what they hoped would be a parallel movement to the Black Lives Matter riots as part of their coalition to take down then-President Donald Trump.
Beyond the obvious identity politics ploy, there were other factors at play:
- Since at least the Bill Clinton era, Democrat elites had been actively forging relationships with Chinese backers; and party leaders like the most powerful Democrat at the time, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., (through the investments of her husband, Paul) had deep financial connections to the CCP. As we now know, the Biden family also has extensive business ties to the Chinese government. And during the Obama administration, President Joe Biden’s eventual Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, even helped facilitate the visas of Chinese donors as part of the GreenTech scandal involving ex-Clinton cronies Terry McAuliffe and Tony Rodham, the brother of Hillary Clinton.
- China-linked companies are known to have funded BLM activism and likely played a more direct role in funding Democrats’ 2020 election efforts through dark-money channels.
- Trump’s criticisms of China—first over trade imbalances and later its role in covering up the origins of the pandemic—fed into a convenient leftist narrative of xenophobia and oppression, their go-to weapon for fearmongering, even though the criticisms have proven to be entirely justified.
With climate czar John Kerry becoming the third top Biden official in the span of a month to visit China, following current Secretary of State Tony Blinken (who received Chinese funding while working at the Penn Biden Center) and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, it would stand to reason that Biden and his Cabinet are continuing to take their marching orders from Beijing.
And yet, even as they remain beholden to Asia, there are several indications that, politically speaking, Democrats seem poised to throw Asian Americans under the bus.
COURTING TROUBLE
Clearly, in the wake of a Supreme Court decision in which Asian–American students victimized by pernicious affirmative-action policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina helped bring down the longstanding practice, they are now the personae non gratae of the Left’s intersectionality taxonomy.
Can’t wait until she reads that you gladly carried the water for white supremacy and stabbed the folks in the back whose people fought diligently for Asian American rights in America. https://t.co/JA1iTp6A6I
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) July 1, 2023
Recent stories in far-left outlets like The Nation have emerged framing Asian-identifying conservatives as the new yellow faces of white supremacy.
In an unforgiving diatribe by writer Promise Li, even the oft-invoked left-wing trope that the poor, marginalized minorities were being outfoxed by the sly and crafty deplorables into acting against their own interests and being used as “pawns” was roundly dismissed.
“[W]e must be clear about one thing: Asian American anti–affirmative action activists have not been simply ‘used’ by white activists and duped into this white supremacist policy,” Li wrote.
“They are active, militant co-conspirators with white conservatives,” he continued. “They are building a key flank for the right wing across the nation, and the left must urgently recognize that right-wing politics precisely gain power by recruiting conservative ideologies among communities of color that overlap with, but retain distinct aspects from, white supremacy.”
However, as The Federalist noted on Monday, the Left’s hot takes were boundless and targeted Asians from every direction like dive-bombing kamikazes.
“The woke left’s anti-Asian bigotry reflects their panic over the fact that their radical policies, from defunding police to eliminating meritocracy in education, have alienated many racial minorities,” wrote the conservative news site’s Helen Raleigh.
White Supremacy is more diverse than Harvard. pic.twitter.com/9fkra4Gi6N
— Noam Blum 🚡 (@neontaster) July 7, 2023
CHINA: THE NEW RUSSIA?
The bitterness that spurned leftists have felt following the dissolution of their marriage of convenience with Asians and other identity groups gravitating rightward extends well beyond the Supreme Court.
Although former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki may have migrated from the briefing room to the DNC’s cable channel of record, MSNBC, she remains, first and foremost, a shill for the Democrat party, with any accidental acts of journalism being merely an afterthought.
So when Psaki pulled a page out of the 2016 playbook over the weekend by attempting to smear House Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., as part of a vast Chinese conspiracy, not only was the irony richer than a syringe full of foie gras with truffles, but it was a telling indication of where Democrats intend to take their rhetoric in the foreseeable future.
Comer responded to the latest talking points by noting that Republicans don’t have any say in the matter beyond their investigation of it.
Gal Luft was paid by CEFC, the same CCP-linked company that paid the Bidens.
In fact, Hunter claimed his father was in the room when he demanded payment from a CEFC associate.
We didn’t choose the Bidens’ associates. The Bidens did. https://t.co/Sq3aUad014
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) July 16, 2023
Yet, there was another telling indicator that Democrats were eager to cut bait with Asians, and it came in the form of a glaring omission while attacking one of their very own presidential candidates.
BIOWEAPONS VS. RACE CARD
During a bizarre and freewheeling private dinner last week that included several members of the Manhattan media and one notable outburst of flatulence, a second headline was simmering on the back-burner due to comments by political scion and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the COVID-19 virus may have been genetically engineered to attack specific populations while largely bypassing other ethnic groups.
“COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people,” Kennedy said. “The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
As an “Ashkenazi jew” I have never had COVID. You know what else? I got the vaccine and the booster.
RFK Jr.: “The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
Why does RFK Jr. bother to even discuss conspiracy theories which have no hard data to back things… pic.twitter.com/5Czpp8KS6D
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) July 15, 2023
Some rightfully criticized Kennedy’s lack of data to support the claim. Anecdotally speaking, New York City, which has an above-average Jewish population, was among the first places where the virus spread after making its U.S. landfall.
And while China claimed to have much lower numbers than the global average, that might be attributable either to its draconian lockdowns—or, more likely, to its efforts to downplay the data, just as American officials, perversely, opted to torque up their own COVID mortality numbers for political purposes.
Interestingly, there are some indications that one religious group did emerge from the pandemic significantly unscathed. Despite ignoring many of the lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, the Amish may have had a mortality rate 90 times lower than the U.S. average, Slay News reported.
Isn‘t that something !!
Unvaxxed Amish Death Rates 90 Times Lower Than Rest of America – Slay News https://t.co/2yao2oertA
— LionessHeart (@BettinaNow) July 13, 2023
Fortunately, Kennedy spared us his Mennonitophobia.
At the same time, he highlighted a valid field of concern in the area of bioweapons research and development—one that the Chinese are, undoubtedly pursuing as a potential avenue in the event of future conflict with the West.
People say @RobertKennedyJr fueled an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, but he didn't. China has indeed been researching ethnically-targeted bioweapons. What's more, Kennedy triggered a long-overdue debate about how to rein in the dual-use research that has spiraled out of control. pic.twitter.com/AWHnspaTFD
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) July 15, 2023
But the accuracy and validity of his claims notwithstanding, Kennedy’s fellow Democrats took a much different approach to criticizing the political thorn spoiling their dreams of a second Biden term.
A TIMELESS SMEAR TACTIC
Many—including Kennedy’s own sister and nephew—echoed the party line by accusing him of anti-Semitism.
My uncle’s comments were hurtful and wrong. I unequivocally condemn what he said.
— Joe Kennedy III (@joekennedy) July 17, 2023
I STRONGLY condemn my brother's deplorable and untruthful remarks last week about Covid being engineered for ethnic targeting. https://t.co/9YCag7JtHm
— Kerry Kennedy (@KerryKennedyRFK) July 17, 2023
Meanwhile, the vast majority seemed to sweep under the rug the China criticisms and fixate only on the alleged anti-Jewish aspect.
Headlines from the New York Times, The Atlantic, NBC News and others all ignored the apparent Sinophobia that went alongside it.
RFK Jr’s sister, Kerry Kennedy, condemned his anti-Semitic comments.
RFK Jr’s nephew, Joe Kennedy, condemned his anti-Semitic comments.
RFK Jr’s brother, Joseph Kennedy, condemned his anti-Semitic comments.
If his own family can condemn him, why can’t Republicans?
— Harry Sisson (@harryjsisson) July 18, 2023
In some cases, the condemnation of RFK Jr. led, once again, to an uncomfortable lack of self-awareness, as with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who has routinely brushed off other instances of blatant anti-Semitism coming from the Left, including from members of his own family.
My statement on the use of a vile antisemitic trope and xenophobic conspiracy theory by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pic.twitter.com/muLLDvfD5H
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) July 16, 2023
The China snub also marked a dramatic about-face from just two years ago, when Democrats, in their own anti-Semitic fervor, were quick to condemn attacks on Asian Americans while ignoring those on Jews.
Yet, it exposed the cynical, politically driven motives that underlie the entire process of Democrat messaging.
Kennedy is an inconvenience to the party. By advocating traditional liberal values, he has strayed far off message and now threatens the Democrats’ ironclad hegemonic order, which for now maintains that the incumbent Joe Biden will be the 2024 presidential nominee.
Although such a smear attack against a strong conservative, like former President Donald Trump, might only strengthen his resolve to persevere, such a crushing allegation against RFK Jr., as he tries to slay Democrat corruption from within, is likely to be the death knell—an inescapable stigma that may be trotted out at a moment’s notice without any sort of logical rebuttal or disproof.
The spirit of defeat was palpable in his efforts to respond to the unwinnable feeding-frenzy attack.
How devious are the MSM attack dogs? Here is the question @nypost @LevineJonathan asked my press office: “What do you say to critics who might think saying coronavirus was a bioweapon made to kill white and black but spare Jews — might be antisemitic?”
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 16, 2023
As for Asian Americans, while they are apt to be embrraced, once again, by the Left when it deems them useful or necessary in the future, they, too, have currently fallen out of grace.
In the face of such duplicity, as the Left devours its own and exposes one layer of hypocrisy after another, there is only one thing for conservatives to do: Grab the popcorn.
“I love my popcorn. movies. popcorn.” — tom cruise, 2023 pic.twitter.com/m0zkcR56J0
— cee (@rogueshunt) July 12, 2023
Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.
