They talk tough – some of the time – but at the end of they day they are simply cowardly conservatives.
Conservative pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and so-called politicians like Donald Trump talk a mean game, building their reputations through their alleged “straight talk.”
However, as The Atlantic point out, they are nothing but cowardly conservatives at the end of the day.
Peter Beinart reports for The Atlantic, that although these “crusaders against ‘political correctness’ like to portray themselves as being brave, put them in front of a group of people they vilify and it’s a completely different story.
“They deride others for knuckling under to left-wing orthodoxy, for being too afraid of African Americans, Latinos, feminists, and gays to speak the truth,” but “They’re most comfortable confronting PC orthodoxy when the people they’re confronting aren’t around. Once they actually encounter African Americans, Latinos, and other minority groups, they become a lot less brave.”
For example, take the bigoted billionaire – Donald Trump. He waged a public war with Fox News host Megan Kelly for weeks but sit him down for a one-on-one interview?
As The New York Times reports, it turned out to be “a convivial, easygoing interview” to include a cordial Trump declaring that “I like our relationship right now.”
Trump entered the presidential campaign last June with a “bizarre speech insulting Mexican immigrants,” but as Beinart reports,
Two weeks ago, he met with his Hispanic advisory council. According to media reports, he was “humble” and “conciliatory.” Did he call for deporting the undocumented immigrants already in the US, as he has repeatedly promised his overwhelmingly white crowds? Nope. According to Jacob Monty, who attended the meeting, Trump said “deporting them is neither possible nor humane.”
Trump flew to Mexico City in August to meet President Enrique Peña Nieto, but the subject of Trump’s beloved wall was not discussed. [As Beinart explained, both sides agree beforehand that the subject would be off-limits; but when Pres. Nieto broached the subject anyway, he was quickly shut down by Trump’s traveling companion Rudy Giuliani, who cut him off.]
The Washington Post reports that when Trump appeared publicly with Pres. Nieto he called it a “great, great, honor” to be invited to the country he has repeatedly insulted and boasted of his “tremendous feelings” for the “tremendous” Mexican-Americans.
However, as The Washington Post continues, Trump abandoned his “subdued and cooperative tone” while addressing a mostly white crowd later that evening in Arizona and “returned to the aggressive tenor that has defined much of his campaign. Repeatedly raising his voice to a yell, he said that ‘anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation.’”
As Beinart concludes,
Trump isn’t alone. Put Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, or most of the other conservatives who have made a career of being anti-PC in a small room with Latinos, African Americans, or Muslims and I suspect their rhetoric would dramatically soften, too. It’s harder to speak bluntly and nastily about people when they’re staring you in the face. It’s also harder because when you actually listen to them, they often defy your stereotypes. Up close, their grievances become harder to dismiss.
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