More than half the country has serious reservations about President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran, but we’ve been told by the administration that our fears are groundless. This is a solid deal with solid people. We’re moving into a new age of peace, courtesy of the man who promised hope and change. Nothing to worry about. Please ignore those “Death to America” chants. That’s just Iran being Iran.
And if you don’t believe Obama, surely you’ll believe Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. He appeared on 60 Minutes Sunday night to tell reporter Steve Kroft that “Death to America” doesn’t really mean…well, you know.
“This slogan that is chanted is not a slogan against the American people,” Rouhani said. “Our people respect the American people. The Iranian people are not looking for war with any country. But at the same time, the policies of the United States have been against the national interests of Iranian people, it’s understandable that people will demonstrate sensitivity to this issue. When the people rose up against the shah, the United States aggressively supported the shah until the last moments. In the eight-year war with Iraq, the Americans supported Saddam. People will not forget these things. We cannot forget the past, but at the same time, our gaze must be towards the future.”
How fascinating! But if you are still on the fence, please look it up on your favorite search engine. You’ll find hundreds of mainstream news sources insisting that the chant really means “Down with America.” See, Iran doesn’t really want America to die. They just want the country to collapse. And here you were, thinking it was a mistake to lift economic sanctions against them. You must feel awfully foolish.
It’s funny, though. These same liberals can find racism in almost any phrase, as long as it’s spoken by a conservative or Republican or, really, any white American man. Youth? That’s racist. State’s rights? Racist. Rule of law? Racist. Thug, inner cities, tax cuts, law and order, welfare, food stamps, the president’s middle name? All of these, at one time or another, have been identified as Republican code words to win over the racist base of the party.
But even though they are tireless detectives when it comes to conservative racism, they are unable to take “death to America” at face value. One can imagine that if a Democrat said something blatantly racist – “I’m not going to do anything to help n***ers” for instance – they would rush to explain why they actually meant something else. Probably, they were just mocking those evil conservatives. Or maybe they were using code words to speak to the social justice warriors in the party. Nothing to see here.
Republicans should adopt “Death to Democrats” as the official party slogan. It’s fair game, right? It’s political. It’s timely. It really means “Down with Democrats.” And since liberals have locked themselves into their defense of this phrase, they really can’t criticize it.
Yeah, let’s see how that goes.
