Liberal Organizations Betray Their Members

By Alan Caruba

As we head into the home stretch leading to the November 2nd midterm elections, one factor getting very little attention is the way that liberal organizations have failed or betrayed their members, starting with the Democratic Party.

Even a brief look at the Democratic Party provides a reminder that it stood against civil rights from the days of slavery, giving rise to the Republican Party whose first presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln, who had to preside over a Civil War to end it.

The Democratic Party has managed to serve up some truly awful presidents from Woodrow Wilson to FDR who prolonged the Great Depression with his policies, to Lyndon Baines Johnson whose Vietnam policies filled cemeteries, to Jimmy Carter’s bumbling, to Bill Clinton who used the Oval Office for sexual dalliance, to the current White House resident, Barack Obama, whose diminishing approval ratings are testimony and an indictment of his incompetence.

In a similar fashion the National Association for Colored People has demonstrated in the years since the Civil Rights movement that it is little more than a liberal platform for some of the worst bias to be found, including that expressed against African-Americans. It was quick to denounce Shirley Sherrod, the former head of the Department of Agriculture’s rural development office in Georgia. The organization then claimed it had been “snookered” by a video that purported to show Ms. Sherrod expressing bias, but it had failed to conduct even a cursory investigation to defend her.

Lately the NAACP issued a resolution denouncing the Tea Party movement as biased, claiming that it is rife with “racist extremists.” Its president, Ben Jealous, said “We take issue with the Tea Party’s continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements” but there isn’t a shred of evidence to support such blatant nonsense.

The NAACP has conveniently forgotten that it was a former Republican President, George W. Bush who elevated two African-Americans to the position of Secretary of State, one of whom, Colin Powell, had previously been endorsed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George H.W. Bush.

Another liberal group, the National Organization of Women, have become famous for failing to defend or support women who have become vocal advocates of conservative issues despite their rise to national recognition as authors, talk show personalities, and as political leaders. The result is a lopsided babble that largely ignores the enormous strides women have made across the political and social spectrum.

Few women running on the Republican ticket running for public office these days have a NOW endorsement. The California chapter has actually endorsed former governor Jerry Brown and is backing Sen. Barbara Boxer for reelection. This reflects most of the NOW chapter endorsements.

It is an extreme irony that one of the most hated women in America today was the first to have become the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Her name alone is enough to incite cross-over votes.

It can be argued that these two national organizations do not reflect the views of either the African-American community or that of women, but both have been around long enough to command attention and to have been thoroughly infiltrated by liberals oblivious to the role conservatives have played in advancing their goals.

We may well see a sea change among their membership, large scale defections, as they confront the reality that Democrats and liberals have long since taken their support for granted.

© Alan Caruba, 2010