A new column published by The Daily Wire accuses The Bulwark, a publication founded by anti-Trump Republicans, of hypocrisy following a social media attack on a conservative Latino economist.
In the piece, columnist Isaac Schorr argues that Democrats have been “every bit the ruthless actors that Republicans have been,” pushing back against a claim by The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell that Republicans are “mercenary” while Democrats are “soft as babies.”
Longwell, a self-described Republican political strategist who now works to elect Democrats and publishes The Bulwark, made the remark Thursday morning while promoting a chapter in her book titled “Republicans are from Mars, Democrats are from Venus.”
By Thursday afternoon, The Bulwark’s Tim Miller had posted about Daniel Di Martino, a Venezuelan immigrant and economist at The Manhattan Institute, questioning why Di Martino had not been deported while criticizing his English. Di Martino speaks fluent English with an accent.
Schorr characterizes Miller’s post as an “unprovoked, racially motivated attack on a young, accomplished scholar” and argues that it undercut Longwell’s assertion of moral superiority on the same day it was made.
“The idea that Democrats arrive at knife fights armed with pillows while Republicans come bearing machine guns is an attractive one to progressive elites,” Schorr writes, describing the notion as a fantasy that allows them to believe they are more honorable and that they would win more if they fought harder.
Schorr rejects that premise outright, cataloging a series of contentious political battles he says demonstrate Democratic aggression going back decades, well before the Trump era.
Historical Grievances
He points to the treatment of Republican nominees and candidates, beginning with Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, whom he says were portrayed as racist extremists eager to use nuclear weapons.
He highlights the 1987 fight over Robert Bork’s Supreme Court nomination, quoting Sen. Ted Kennedy’s floor speech warning that “Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids.”
Schorr argues that the defeat of Bork’s nomination inspired a pattern of what he calls character assassination, citing the confirmation battles of Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. He notes that every elected Democrat endorsed and promoted accusations against Kavanaugh, up to and including gang rape, without evidence, and that then-Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the only Democrat to break ranks and vote to confirm.
Schorr also raises the lesser-known case of Miguel Estrada, a lawyer whom President George W. Bush nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Estrada faced a years-long confirmation fight before withdrawing; Schorr writes that during that period Estrada’s wife suffered a miscarriage, and about a year after he withdrew, she died of an apparent overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills.
He cites a memo from an aide to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) stating that Estrada was “especially dangerous” because he was “Latino” and the White House appeared “to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment,” suggesting Miller should apply for an internship in that office and that Di Martino should be flattered.
Schorr contends that more genteel Republicans before Trump faced similar attacks. He recalls that John Lewis accused John McCain of “sowing the seeds of hatred” and compared him to George Wallace, and that then-candidate Barack Obama suggested McCain was stoking anger and division. He also lists a series of accusations against Mitt Romney during the 2012 campaign, including that he was an animal abuser, a tax cheat, and responsible for a woman’s death from cancer.
While acknowledging that politics is a rough sport and that many Republicans, including Donald Trump, have eagerly competed in it, Schorr argues that they have always been met by equally ruthless opponents.
The column concludes by suggesting that Longwell, of all people, should need no further proof than her own payroll.
Isaac Schorr is a columnist at the New York Post and a 2023–2024 Robert Novak Journalism Fellow at the Fund for American Studies.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-bulwarks-absurdity-and-the-enduring-ruthlessness-of-the-left