OPINION:
President Trump is in trouble again with his moral superiors. His problem, of course, is that he cannot throttle his baloney detector. Mr. Trump, it seems, at some point in life acquired a baloney detector that has usually served him well. It certainly served him well during his long years in business and during his brief time in politics. Now, however, it is problematic.
The detector sounds an alarm when it perceives baloney, and during the Charlottesville disruptions it went wild. Every time the mainstream media or a political figure (usually a Democrat) began vituperating against only one side in a manifestly two-sided conflict, Mr. Trump’s baloney detector could not be ignored. Frankly, if I were the president, I would have thrust the device under the bed or asked the Secret Service to take it outside for a walk. Instead, President Trump heeded its alarms, and said there was blame on “many sides.” Kaboom!
It was a faux pas, but that did it. Ever since, he has been abominated wherever his moral superiors gather. Of course, entre nous, he was right. Anyone watching the televised chaos could see armed fighters confronting each other. There were the thugs of the right with helmets, weaponry and even guns confronting the thugs of the left, who were pretty well-armed themselves with helmets, weaponry and even guns. These thugs on the left even had women carrying guns. I think gun-toting women is a first for American street brawls. You have come a long way, ladies.
Yet our moral superiors in the media and the Democratic Party only reported the violence on the right. Most of us watching in the comfortable vicinity of our television sets saw the two-sided violence, and some of us reading our newspapers saw pictures of the ladies with guns. However, Mr. Trump capitulated to his baloney detector’s alarms yet again and declared that “both sides” were responsible for the violence. Kaboom, again!
It was another faux pas. He should have acknowledged only what his moral superiors saw, which apparently were various species of right-wing fanatics who are about the only political fanatics his moral superiors ever see. Though such freaks as Klansmen, neo-Nazis and members of the alt-right (a recent innovation) have for years been almost as rare as the Abominable Snowman, the mainstream media and the Democratic Party keep hauling them out from oblivion, and so they were numerous enough to show up at Charlottesville. Now our moral superiors see America crawling with right-wing fanatics.
What is to be next? Well, of a sudden there is a campaign to eradicate Confederate monuments from the republic. That will allow numerous opportunities for further violence of the kind we saw in Charlottesville the other week. Moreover, the defilement of America’s past is not going to end with the Confederacy. There are plans afoot to go after the Founding Fathers. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have been mentioned. There is even evidence that Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, is not exempt. Some days ago in Chicago, some peace-loving protester disfigured a bust of old Abe.
So now it is apparent that a full-court press is being made against most of America’s history. How does one explain this hatred of the American past? Well, I think one has to consider what is being taught in American schools. Only that can explain such a broad-based movement as the move first against the Confederacy, then against the Founding Fathers, and finally against old Abe. The American educational system from grammar school to high school to college is full of poison. Though most of it is paid for at taxpayers’ expense, Americans have got to get around this cancer within our borders.
Fortunately, our Founding Fathers provided a way, to wit: federalism. Right now alternate schooling is being financed throughout the states. All over the union — even in New York, even in California — alternative schools are turning out bright students untouched by the poison of political correctness. In North Carolina, for instance, so far in this decade there are more than 116,000 new students, the majority of whom are not going to traditional public schools. Enrollment in North Carolina’s traditional public schools has actually dropped by 5,562 his year. Meanwhile, charter schools, home schools and private schools have increased by 23,880.
The trend is spreading all over the republic. “It time to rethink the idea of public education,” Timothy Hall recently told the News and Observer of Raleigh, N.C. Mr. Hall is the director of academics at North Carolina’s Thales Academy. He is part of this healthy trend that will only speed up in the years ahead.
President Trump, do not despair. Our Founders had our back 230 years ago.
• R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is author of “The Death of Liberalism,” published by Thomas Nelson Inc.
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