Liberal politicians and commentators took special joy in celebrating July 4th by denouncing America. The Statue of Liberty was not a symbol of freedom but a symbol of hypocrisy. The flag was polarizing. The national-anthem-protests” target=”_blank”>national anthem< is now proof the United States is bigoted, no matter that we live in one of the most diverse nations on earth. A selection:
Sarah Maslin Nir, reporter for the-new-york-times” target=”_blank”>The New York Times<
In a paragraph that telegraphs her own discomfort rather than reality: “Today, flying the flag from the back of a pickup truck or over a lawn is increasingly seen as a clue, albeit an imperfect one, to a person’s political affiliation in a deeply divided nation.”
The article blames former President Donald Trump (of course) for making the flag no longer a “unifying symbol” – barely addressing the fact that the left increasingly rejects all symbols of America, no matter who the president is.
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Maxine Waters, Democratic representative from California, on the Declaration of Independence:
Waters bashes the Founders but does not note, or does not care, that the laws of the United States have changed multiple times to make it clear the aspirational document was not just about White men.
Matt Sullivan, commentator at NBC News, on the national anthem being played before NBA games:
“It is one thing for so many people at barbecues and ball games this holiday weekend to willfully ignore that ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is the product of a poem written by the slave owner Francis Scott Key spewing hate like this: ‘No refuge could save the hireling and slave / From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.’ But athletes shouldn’t be forced to stand for a ceremony many players have rejected so wholeheartedly that they’re not even bothering to show up anymore.”
Sullivan goes on to bash as “ignorant” anyone who isn’t angry about a third verse of the anthem no one sings. They should “shut up.”
One Twitter user said, “I’m a liberal guy but this stuff is getting ridiculous.”
“The least that [NBA Commissioner Adam] Silver and NBA owners can do is tell conservatives to shut up and listen to players whose silence kneels for itself. Basketball has the power to show ignorant Americans what our politicians cannot, and the anthem’s pregame gleaming flickered out, like a bad firework, long ago. The bravest thing basketball can do now is to retire it.”
National Geographic, on fireworks:
“Scientists found that vulnerable people and communities of color are disproportionately exposed to air pollution from firework celebrations.”
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One Twitter user said, “I’m a liberal guy but this stuff is getting ridiculous.”
Cori Bush, Democratic representative from Missouri, on the Fourth of July:
If racially divisive tweets like this weren’t enough, Bush decided to double down, saying: “It’s not a coincidence that the people who are saying Black people have full freedom in our country are the same ones trying to prevent teaching the truth about White supremacy in our classrooms.”
Philip Kennicott, art and architecture critic of The Washington Post, on the Statue of Liberty:
“As familiar to some Americans as the flag, the statue is just as meaningless or foreign to others, a sign without significance, or worse, a symbol of hypocrisy or unfulfilled promises,” Kennicott writes, taking the cake for the most bitter of July 4th commentaries.
Dismissing the Statue of Liberty as just for Europeans, he listed the various ways America has not lived up to the ideals of Emma Lazarus’ poem that is inscribed on it.
“Lazarus’ words are stirring, but they speak to a sense of American identity shared by only part of America. And often, that sentiment has more to do with a flattering sense of ourselves than our actual behavior,” he writes.
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Then, ending in snobbery:
“I went to see the original statue last month. I didn’t go to the site itself – that’s for tourists – but I went to a pier on the west side of Manhattan and looked across the water to Liberty Island. The statue had never seemed so small.”
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