WA Post's Rubin: Cory Booker delivers an impassioned and impressive speech in Charleston.

[pnwmom]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/07/bookers-moment/

On Wednesday morning, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) went to the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., where, four years ago, white supremacist Dylann Roof fatally shot nine people at a Bible study class. (Roof is not insane. He was found guilty of murder and has been sentenced to death.) Booker delivered a speech addressing white nationalism and gun violence in sweeping, often poetic terms.

Booker began by talking about the “profound contradiction” at the founding the country — the establishment of a democracy at time blacks were counted as three-fifths of a person. But his intent was not a history lesson; rather, he wanted to strike an uplifting and unifying message in tone and substance evocative of President Barack Obama, who spoke at the church in the wake of the killings in June 2015.

Obama is a hard act to follow, but Booker certainly hit his stride on Wednesday. For a candidate whose frequent references to “love” and 'unity" seem misplaced in a time of political acrimony, he was able to tie that message to the demands of the moment. It is not enough, he said, to not be a racist. One must be "antiracism," he said. In that sense, silence is unacceptable and “to be passive is to be complicit."

SNIP

His argument, moreover, is essentially that Trump is unfit to lead because he is incapable of loving and serving all Americans (unarguably true), and that Republicans, the right-wing media (including Fox News), conservative apologists and the rest do not get off scot-free by proclaiming they are not racists. They are plainly part of the problem, a critical part of Trump’s support system. And to the larger audience — politically nihilist voters who say both parties are the same, or mainstream media that treat Trump as a normal president — Booker’s words should hit home. They, too, are part of the problem. You are either invested in throwing out Trump and combating Trumpism, or you are enabling it.

[bigtree]

1. k&r!

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