Stirring up racial resentment. Creating false narratives about race and politics. Dividing us racially for political purposes. No, I’m not talking about Al Sharpton. I am talking about our Attorney General, head of the the Justice Department, Eric Holder.
Mr. Holder said Wednesday in a speech to the Council of Black Churches. Voter ID laws and white discrimination, he added, mean that “some of the achievements that defined the civil rights movement now hang in the balance.”
That’s right. The two most powerful men in America are black, two of the last three Secretaries of State were black, numerous corporate CEOs and other executives are black, and minorities of many races now win state-wide elections in states that belonged to the Confederacy, but the AG implies that Jim Crow is on the cusp of a comeback.
Holder knows this isn’t true. He is well aware of the fact that Black voter turnout increased in Georgia and Indiana after voter ID laws passed. But that doesn’t stop him from continuing this false narrative of voter suppression to the Council of Black Churches. Where do you think they will hear the truth? They won’t. They will listen to our Attorney General, and believe him. How does Eric Holder sleep at night, knowing he is comparing voter integrity, the simple act of showing your ID to prove who you are before you vote, to the ugly suppression and terror that Blacks had to suffer through during the civil right’s movement? It is beyond shameful. He should be fired for this alone.
Americans, so far, aren’t buying his lies.
As for public opinion, an April 2012 Fox News survey found that a majority of Democrats (52%), Republicans (87%) and independents (72%) support voter ID laws. This is no doubt because Americans understand intuitively that ballot integrity is as important as ballot access to democratic credibility. Everyone’s franchise is devalued if an election turns on the votes of the quick and the dead.
But we know how the drum beat of lies creates belief. And Eric Holder holds a powerful position. Thomas Sowell puts it this way:
This is truly world-class chutzpah, by an Attorney General who stopped attorneys in his own Department of Justice from completing the prosecution of black thugs who stationed themselves outside a Philadelphia voting site to harass and intimidate white voters.
That’s right. Men holding black batons and wearing uniform like clothes does not intimidate voters, but asking for their driver’s license does? Truly mind boggling. Not to mention that Holder’s insistence that requiring photo ID for voting is pretext for discriminating against blacks and other minorities is completely insulting to blacks. He implies that they cannot figure out how to get an ID.
Americans realize that we have to show ID for almost everything in this country. There is everything right, and nothing wrong, with showing ID for our most sacred right to vote.
The last line at the WSJ article says it all:
It’s worse than a shame that America’s first black Attorney General is using his considerable power to inflame racial antagonism.
–