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Both Parties Face an Angry Summer

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

If anything is certain about Donald Trump's bizarre bid for the Republican presidential nomination, it is the huge favors he does for the Democrats.

That thought occurred to me last weekend, for example, as Trump was lobbing verbal mud balls at Sen. John McCain's heroic war record at an appearance in Ames, Iowa.

Had national attention not been so captivated by the audacity of Trump, more people would have noticed the weekend's Netroots Nation conference in Phoenix. The progressive activists who disrupted a presidential candidates' forum at the liberal gathering demonstrated how the right has no monopoly on recklessly unbridled anger.

How else does one describe the sight of Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley shouted down for saying "Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter."?

O'Malley was responding to demonstrators who were chanting "Black lives matter" to protest the mistreatment of black Americans by law enforcement. The protestors disrupted the forum at Netroots as O'Malley, a former Maryland governor, was interviewed on stage.

And he later apologized. That's right. O'Malley apologized for being inclusive enough to say "all lives matter," as if that were an insult to protesters who had chanted, "Black lives matter."

 

It took conservatives no time to pounce on the obvious irony of this political correctness clash. Rich Lowry, editor of the conservative National Review, let his sarcasm fly. "One wonders if O'Malley spends any time on the Internet," Lowry wrote. "Everyone knows you can't tell a left-wing audience that all lives matter anymore."

Well, sadly enough in my view, Lowry's right. The slogan "Black lives matter" has grown from Twitter hashtag into a movement after a series of high-profile, racially suspicious police brutality cases nationwide over the past year.

I believe such cases need to be thoroughly investigated and that allegations of racial bias need to be taken seriously. Still, I believe all lives should matter, whether slogans say it or not.

Unfortunately, angry movements don't let such niceties get in the way of a serviceable slogan. Besides, as one "Black lives matter" supporter tweeted, adding "White lives matter" makes you sound like you've walked into somebody's funeral to declare, "I, too, have suffered."

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(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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