The Covington Affair
Missed Opportunities
Trump's State of the Union address was a bit underwhelming. If only he had simply invited Nick Sandmann and a few of the other Covington Catholic High School students as special guests, he would have all but won reelection before the speech was over. If there was anything that could inspire his base and harrow his enemies, it would be Sandmann standing in the balcony and showering his smirk of "white patriarchy" over the entire chamber.
More so because the libel and smears against them were spurred on by many in that very chamber attending the State of Union, such as Elizabeth Warren and Ilhan Omar. It would be like Hamlet's play within a play, to catch the conscience of the guilty spectators.
There's still time to dis-invite the next professional sports team that does not even want to be there anyway (like many of the New England Patriots), and roll out the red carpet for the Covington High School students to the White House. Trump should elevate these boys, and in so doing the issue of abortion, forcing the Democrats to defend their worst elements and most extreme positions. At this point, the democrats cannot really back away from full on unrestricted abortion up to birth (and then some), a position the vast majority of Americans reject.
I do not know who is advising Trump on these decisions, but we are missing a lot of low hanging fruit here. If Trump has had time in the past for Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, and a bunch of athlete-felons, he should have time for boys who took the slings and arrows out there (from Left and Right) because they supported him and the pro-life movement.
Wolves in Sheep Dogs' Clothing
The Covington affair, of course, was about much more than abortion. It was about identity politics. It was about how the left subtly attacks people for being white, and being Christian. And the fallout revealed the extent to which conservatism itself has been corrupted.
To briefly summarize what occurred with the Covington students: January 18, after participating in the March for Life in Washington D.C., the students of Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky assemble on the Lincoln Memorial late in the afternoon to pick up their buses back home. While waiting there, a group calling themselves the Black Israelites begins hurling taunts and slurs at them, essentially (based on the nature of the insults) because they are white and many are wearing MAGA hats. They are called crackers, faggots, one was called a “nigger”, and are all told to "go back to Europe". In the video, it is pretty clear the Black Israelites are acting like deranged psychopaths attempting to goad the kids into a fight or some type of confrontation, in the same way that all deranged people you run into on the streets of a big city are trying to suck you into their paranoia. The kids do not take the bait, and instead do a pep rally cheer to drown out all the slurs coming their way.
Into this scene dances Nathan Phillips, an Indian protesting on behalf of “indigenous peoples”. Cheered on by the Black Israelites he and others from his group march right into the faces of the Covington students waiting on the steps. Phillips proceeds to obnoxiously bang his drum in Student Nick Sandmann's face for some time. Many students were wearing MAGA hats, but contrary to the news reports, there was no shouting about building a wall. The students never made racist taunts. The students never aggressively go up to Phillips. Phillips, in fact, led his band of Apaches into the group of pro-life students waiting for the bus.
A short video of Phillips banging his drum in the face of Sandmann who stood there with an uncertain, befuddled smile on his face, falsely described the students as the aggressors who approached and taunted Phillips. This was the impetus for the mob that set out to destroy the students, including individuals calling for acts of violence against the kids and their families, and some publishing their names and addresses online. Covington High School was closed the next school day due to death threats.
After the Covington affair there must be a moral reckoning for conservatives over the way those students were let down by so many self-proclaimed leaders in the movement who chose to initially join in the character assassination of those high school boys rather than question or rebut it.
There is something deeply wrong with the repeated pattern of conservatives falling into the Leftist narrative simply to spite the President or elevate themselves as a “reasonable conservative”. There is clearly a need for a new and different conservatism with the nerve to think and act outside the framework of the Left.
When I say a new and different conservatism, I mean one that does not seek to appease or apologize as its first instinct, that takes the side of actual conservatives, and does not believe, as the Left does, that Trump supporters are racist and bullies. The Covington affair revealed many things: chiefly, it proved the duplicity of the press, and the vindictiveness of identity politics. But it also flushed out and unmasked the real character of so-called "Never Trump" Republicans, who showed that they disdain Trump supporters and the President alike. Their behavior showed their first loyalty is not to some higher conservative principles or deeply held convictions, but to maintaining their position of respectability in the mainstream.
Wherever you looked in the days after the confrontation, institutions that should have taken the students' side, that should have given these students the benefit of the doubt, decided to throw them to the wolves. The Covington students' home Diocese condemned their actions, though the Bishop later apologized, saying he felt "pressured from all sides to make a statement" on the video clip. Their own school threatened them with suspension, and the organizers of the March for Life condemned them. The National Review, the ostensibly pro-life, establishment conservative flagship whose editors scoffed at the counterfeit conservatism of Donald Trump, ran multiple pieces attacking the student's actions, with one article (now taken down) by Nicholas Frankovich accusing the kids of "spitting on the cross".
Even if the edited video did not present a true or complete picture of everything that occurred it did not actually depict the particular unforgivable sins of which the Covington students were accused: aggressively approaching Phillips, chanting build the wall in his face, and otherwise disrespecting the man. Impugning the moral character of those students even on the basis of the short edited video was unforgivable.
Yet the mainstream conservatives who define themselves in opposition to Trump, "Con Inc.", if you will, went right along with the narrative and indicted the students. Rich Lowry of the National Review demanded the students apologize, and Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire tweeted his support for Nathan Phillips. BIll Kristol, one of the most strident Never Trump critics, also pounced. They did not do so primarily on the basis of a "deceptive" video but because white kids in MAGA hats are not worth the benefit of the doubt. The mere fact that someone on the internet said “look at this video that shows white kids in MAGA hats disrespecting a minority" was enough for some conservatives to turn on their own because at a certain level they themselves think the worst of Trump's supporters. If this young pro-life student would not kneel before a racist mob, Con Inc. would do it for him.
Granted, at least Shapiro and Lowry changed their positions when the full videos came out, yet by then, the narrative has already been formed in the media. the news cycle was run. The nightly news televised its reports. Facebook made its posts. The character of these students was already being defamed, and the death threats and vilification were already on the way. Furthermore, one shudders to think how long the names of these kids would have been dragged through the mud unanswered if the second video had never come out. Almost no one was willing to take their side or even hold their fire until it did. It's too late for the self-appointed leaders of conservatism to be dragged into defending their own side after the fact because they lack the nerve or the instincts to do it initially.
In my mind, students who travel across the country to march in defense of the unborn have earned the benefit of the doubt.
This brings to mind a recent piece by the National Review and Atlantic Magazine writer (and arch-Never-Trumper) David French, who laments that in "Trump's America" his followers have redefined the inherent virtues of masculinity. While traditionally it entailed protecting the innocent, now it’s synonymous with being a bully:
There was a time, not long ago, when I thought I knew what sort of masculinity conservatives revered. It was captured most memorably in the movie American Sniper. The film, which tells the story of the legendary Navy seal Chris Kyle’s life and death, has a short scene in which Kyle’s father delivers what’s known as the “sheepdog speech,” cut with images of Chris defending his brother from a playground attack.
The sheepdog speech had been circulating for years, mainly in military circles, and it conveys a simple idea: There are three kinds of people in the world—the sheep who need protection, the wolves who seek to devour the sheep, and the sheepdogs, those blessed with a “gift of aggression [and] an overpowering need to protect the flock.” Kyle’s father’s words frame the whole rest of the movie. “You know who you are. You know your purpose.”
Of all the disorienting and disturbing cultural effects of Trump’s ascension to the presidency, few are as disorienting and disturbing as the redefinition of ideal masculinity in the hearts of many of his biggest fans. The sheepdog has been replaced by the wolf.
If he’s right, then let's consider what the leaders of Con. Inc., those who still know and exemplify "the sort of masculinity conservatives revered," actually did in practice when the wolves came prowling. What type of men are they? Well, Mr. French was nowhere to be seen as his own paper was tearing into the students.
But this should come as no surprise. In French's mind, the "sheep dogs" are the one's nipping at Trump's heels and trying to take down an illegitimate President. Thus he considers "sheep dogs" men like Robert Mueller, and, following his logic, the Never-Trumpers of Con. Inc. that tried to "draft" French himself to primary Trump in 2016 and ran a whole magazine issue entitled "Against Trump".
French's sleight of hand is to define being a "sheep dog" as being politically in line with his ideology and opposed to Trump. Absent is loyalty to an actual flock. Being a sheep dog is about having the right opinions; his kind of opinions. It is little wonder then that the initial instinct of Never Trump conservatives like Bill Kristol, Ben Shapiro, David Brooks, National Review and others was to join the wolves: the students, after all, were wearing MAGA hats.
If virtue and masculinity is about being a "sheep dog" who protects the innocent from the "wolves", it looks like his magazine and his pack of principled Never Trump Conservatives were wolves in sheep dog clothing.
The perniciousness of those whose loyalty is to principles and ideas in the abstract is that they make actual people expendable. These Con. Inc. figures have floated so high into the ether of lofty principles in order to rationalize their contempt for Trump that they could not see these pro-life students for who they were, non-ideologically. They could not see what was happening on the ground. In the arena. All they could see was that dreaded sign of supposed conservative apostasy, the MAGA hat.
After all, next time these students should be smart enough not to wear the MAGA hat, as Ross Douthat, New York Times’ house-broken conservative, advised. You're embarrassing the movement!
This whole episode proves what many conservatives outside of the D.C. - New York orbit of Con. Inc. have suspected. The disdain for Trump masks a disdain for much of America. Which is why when push comes to shove, members of Con. Inc. seemed more interested in distancing themselves from embarrassing Trump supporters than defending students marching to defend the unborn. Which leads to the question: what use is Con. Inc. if they will so easily jump to the same conclusions as the Left because of their crusade against the President?
