Goodbye, Ben Carson
The whole Goodbye series on Slate today is outstanding.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/goodbye-ben-carson.html
It seemed odd that you, an allegedly devout Seventh-day Adventist, would willingly tie your credibility and reputation to a hedonist like Trump. It seemed wrong that you, a believer, would shrug off the many credible allegations of sexual assault against Trump. When asked in October 2016 if you thought the women were lying, you said, “It doesn’t matter if they’re lying or not. What matters is that the train is going off the cliff. We’re taking our eye off of that and we’re getting involved in other issues that can be taken care of later.”
You weren’t just incompetent. You were malignant. You tried to eliminate a number of HUD programs meant to help poor Americans, or veterans, or Native Americans afford housing, and tried to get rid of fair housing regulations meant to fight discrimination. What you couldn’t eliminate, you attempted to cut to the bone. Trump—whose first mention in the New York Times was in a 1973 story about the Department of Justice suing him for discriminating against Black tenants—surely appreciated having you, the only Black member of his Cabinet, around to cut housing benefits to low-income people of color. And you never gave up in your quest to slash protections. In June, in one of your final acts, your department proposed a rule to scrap the Obama administration’s 2016 guidance requiring single-sex homeless shelters to accept transgender people.
In a country where few Black men are widely exalted, you improbably scaled that pedestal. You probably thought you’d remain there forever. But wondering what happened to you doesn’t mean I thought you were on the right path to begin with. You often railed against athletes and celebrities, and once told an audience that you discovered during your 25th high school reunion that the “really cool” people from those years were now dead. Two years before you announced your candidacy, you let your bigotry slip into public when you compared same-sex marriage to pedophilia and bestiality. You were no hero of mine. But jumping on the Trump train was something I didn’t expect.
More than five years ago, I wrote about your quixotic quest to enter politics, wondering if it would destroy your legacy. I wasn’t so sure then. But today, the answer is clear. You should hope that you’re forgotten.
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... for proclaiming that Trump was ordained by God to lead this country.
Thanks a lot, Ben Carson! NOT!
