Conservatives Are Trying to Make Democrats Commit Political Suicide

Pretty much every Democrat is demanding Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia to resign because of a picture that appeared in his medical school yearbook. It shows a man in blackface standing next to a someone in a Ku Klux Klan costume.

First off, this is out there because a white nationalist website is trying to nail him. The motive is clearly to turn other Democrats against him.

Northam hasn't helped himself by giving an inconsistent narrative. But it's quite possible that neither person in that photo is Northam. The yearbook was probably the very last thing on Northam's mind when he graduated from medical school. I never had anything to do with my high school yearbook. I never had my photo taken for it, or bought a copy, or ever saw one. So there might be a nasty surprise waiting for me there.

One of Northam's "friends" could have put that page together -- perhaps the same one who give Northam the nickname "Coonman." Speaking of that, why was Northam given that nickname? Was it because his white friends thought he was too friendly with African-Americans, and he didn't act racist enough for them?

The only thing we know for sure about this yearbook debacle is that we don't really know anything. People should investigate. Reporters should talk to the editor of the yearbook, and the person who laid out Northam's page. Their names should be in the front of the yearbook.

They should find the photographer, and the other person or persons in the photo. Because at least one of them is not Northam, and they could confirm or deny Northam's story.

It also seems that the yearbook staff at Eastern Virginia Medical School had a long history of racist claptrap, all on its own. It was still publishing photos of students in Confederate uniforms up until 2013, when the school dropped the yearbook over similar offensive photos. Obviously the yearbook staff was packed with racist losers, so it's quite possible Northam had nothing at all to do with his page 30 years earlier.

I also don't think white people, especially young white people, understand how offensive African Americans find blackface to be. The Klan costume everybody gets. But until recently, unless you had black friends that you were with when someone appeared in blackface, you'd never know how bad it makes them feel, because most white folks don't know the history.

But the larger issue is that no one is pure. Every one of us has some stupid or embarrassing thing that we did when we were in high school or college. Pretty much everyone said or did something racist, or called a white dude a cracker, or joined the wrong club, or misinterpreted a girl's friendliness and drunkenly groped her, or shoplifted cosmetics, or smoked too much weed, or "borrowed" a car, or got in a nasty fight and hurt someone seriously.

We all have done something completely out of character, and a mistake or two should not define or condemn us for the rest of our lives. To demand absolute and total purity from every person in politics is not only foolish, it is suicidal for a political party.

To wit, the man who would replace Northam, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, has just been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 2004. The source? The same white nationalist website that "outed" Northam. It's clearly a setup. They're poking the Democrats in the eye, showing how ridiculous their knee-jerk demands for purity in all things is.

Because if Democrats insist every person accused of racism or sexual misconduct or shoplifting resign immediately, there won't be anyone left in the party.

The Republican Party, the Russians and Howard Schulz are doing everything they can to get the Democratic Party to tear itself apart. Democrats shouldn't fall for it.

Al Franken was hounded out of the Senate this way. In retrospect, it was clearly a hit job by a bunch of conservatives who wanted to use women's anger in the #MeToo era to destroy an effective voice in the Senate. But because Al Franken was a good guy with a conscience and a sense of shame, he did what he thought was the right thing and resigned.

I don't know whether Northam should resign. We don't know enough to say yet. Did he go to school in a state with a racist past? Yep. Was he even in that photo, or have anything to do with that page? There's not enough evidence to say yet.

But we do know that if Democrats demand everyone with the slightest whiff of scandal resign in knee-jerk fashion, the party will cease to exist.

I'm not suggesting that they follow the Republicans' lead and give a pass to every pussy-grabbing, race-baiting scumbag. But you've got to give these things the time to let the truth shake out.

Democrats should investigate, and if Northam was complicit with race-baiting crap, they can demand his resignation.

But Democrats shouldn't let conservatives scumbags bait them into destroying each other. They should be taking out their anger on the white nationalists trying to torpedo Notham. These Breitbart-clone clowns are actively trying to harm African Americans, unlike this well-meaning Democratic governor who happened to go to a college with a centuries-long history of institutional racism.