Connect with us

Politics

“America Is An Idea” And “Not Defined By Its People.” – Lindsey Graham

Published

8 years ago

on

(Via NewsWars)

Friday on Fox News, Tucker Carlson questioned Lindsey Graham’s claim that “America is an idea” and “not defined by its people.”

“According to Lindsey Graham, you could take our entire population and swap it out for 320 million, I don’t know, Chinese or Indians or Africans or Canadian or people from New Zealand, and the place would be no different, so long as the idea was still there,” Carlson said. “Does anyone actually believe that?”

Washington, D.C. is a divided city, but today saw a moment of rare political unity. Lawmakers in both parties came together in grave agreement that it was unfortunate, unacceptable, indeed threatening, that President Trump would refer to poor and dangerous countries as in effect poor and dangerous.

Now, some of the outrage was tactical, obviously. A way to score political advantage, but a great deal of it was entirely real. It was authentic rage.

So, why are the people in charge hysterical about this? Is it because Trump said something racially insensitive?

Let’s see. Just yesterday, Nancy Pelosi dismissed the DACA negotiation because there were too many white people involved and most people here didn’t even notice. So, left-wing attacks on the basis of race are now common. Very common.

So, could it be they found it shocking the president would criticize an entire nation? Maybe. But then, the left has no problem bashing huge parts of this country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You can put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They cling to guns or religion or antipathy towards people who aren’t like them.

NANCY PELOSI, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: The five white guys, I call them. I said, “You’re going to open a hamburger stand next or what?”

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So, they don’t have a problem dismissing entire populations. So, what is the real reason for the panic you are watching right now on cable television?

Maybe it’s because Trump’s remarks are forcing precisely the kind of conversation our leaders don’t want to have. He didn’t do it on purpose. It was accidental, but he still raised questions they’d rather not answer, like who exactly are we importing into our country and how are they doing once they get here?

The answer, of course, well, they are all valedictorians and war heroes and, in fact, way more impressive and way more American than you will ever be, so shut up. That’s what we’re told. That’s what we are required to believe. What if it’s not true?

Last year, the U.S. accepted 23,000 people from Haiti and 172,000 from Mexico. Immigration from El Salvador have been so brisk in recent years that one in three Salvadorians now lives in the United States. Has America become a better country as a result? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe we ought to talk it through and decide before we continue with our current immigration policy.

Leaders who actually cared about their people would do exactly that. And yet, our leaders just yell at us until we stop asking questions.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina released a statement today that neatly summarizes how most of official Washington thinks about this subject. In a statement, Graham dismisses the idea that America should even think about what kind of people it lets in.

“I have always believed that America is an idea,” Graham wrote, “not defined by its people, but by its ideals. Diversity has always been our strength, not our weakness.”

America is defined by its ideals, OK. So, what are those ideals? It might be useful to know considering how important they are. Well, diversity is our strength is the only one our leaders seem to agree on. The less we have in common, somehow the stronger we are. Is that true? We better hope it’s true because we’re betting everything on it.

But there’s a deeper problem with what Sen. Graham said. “America is not defined by its people.” Really? What do its people think about that? Are they pleased to learn their leaders consider them merely a commodity, a set of interchangeable parts?

America’s actual people with their actual families and towns and traditions and history and customs may be surprised to learn that they are irrelevant to the success or failure of what they imagined was their country.

According to Lindsey Graham, you could take our entire population and swap it out for 320 million, I don’t know, Chinese or Indians or Africans or Canadian or people from New Zealand, and the place would be no different, so long as the idea was still there. Does anyone actually believe that?

How about we test that idea starting with the U.S. Senate? Would South Carolina get the same representation from someone randomly selected out of the phone book? As Lindsey Graham would say, the Senate isn’t defined by its people. It’s really just an idea. And as soon as you start defining things by ideas rather than individuals, people become irrelevant.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Politics

Bannon An ‘Oppurtunist’ – Trump Jr & Newt Gingrich

Published

6 days ago

on

June 20, 2026

By

(Via Zerohedge)

In the course of less than a day, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon has gone from simply “former Trump strategist” to “radioactive backstabber,” after The Guardian reported that Bannon, in Michael Wolff’s new book “Fire and Fury, called a June 2016 meeting at Trump tower involving Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”


“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”

In response, President Trump issued a four-paragraph scorching reply, saying Bannon had “lost his mind.” Donald Trump Jr. also responded, calling his father’s former chief strategist “backstabbing, harassing, leaking, lying & undermining the President,” adding “Steve is not a strategist, he is an opportunist.”

Newt Gingrich chimed in on Fox News, telling Neil Cavuto, “I think that Bannon thinks he’s extraordinarily important. But the fact is, Trump had won the nomination without Bannon. Trump would have won the presidency without Bannon. And Trump has governed without Bannon.”

So I think there’s an exaggerated sense of who Steve is. And I think, remember, this is a guy who got fired. So you have a guy who has been fired who is trying to claim a bunch of things, which he apparently did not claim at the time.

And I think you have to just say, you know, it’s noise. It has nothing to do with — the things that matter to America and the things that matter to the American people have no relationship to the kind of noise that we’re going to spend all day today with.

And luckily for the president, he’s really come to distinguish between the things that matter and the things that don’t. The meeting this weekend at Camp David matters with the Republican leadership. Steve Bannon saying a bunch of junk doesn’t really matter in the long run. It will disappear. -Newt Gingrich

Trump Jr. also replied to a tweet by conservative pundit Bill Mitchell, which quotes a portion of Bannon’s book, reading:

“On Election Night, when the unexpected trend , Trump might actually win, seemed confirmed, Don Jr. told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears—and not of joy.”


Trump Jr. responded: “Another good one. Anyone who knows me or follows me knows that’s about as far from something I would say or how I speak as possible… What a joke.”

And earlier in the day, Trump Jr. tweeted “Andrew Breitbart would be ashamed of the division and lies Steve Bannon is spreading!,” after tweeting “Wow, just looked at the comments section on Breitbart. Wow. When Bannon has lost Breitbart, he’s left with . . . umm, nothing.”

And now, it appears as though Bannon may have lost any hope of cobbling together political capital. As US News reports;

Despite his blatant miscalculation and the animosity he stirred among traditional Republicans, Bannon’s enduring influence was that he purportedly had a direct line to Trump – the White House confirmed they spoke by phone last month – and could help mold the president’s thoughts on policy and political strategy.

Now, that line appears lacerated.

“Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look,” Trump said in the statement. “Steve doesn’t represent my base – he’s only in it for himself.”

The extraordinary breakup between the two larger-than-life comrades led to immediate fallout across the Republican Party. GOP leadership rejoiced at Bannon’s fall from grace, with allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reveling in and sharing the president’s takedown.

Bannon’s split from the Trumps puts wealthy GOP donor Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah Mercer in an awkward spot – as the financier have financially supported Breitbart, while also supporting President Trump and his GOP causes. Mercer announced in November that he was selling his stake in his company to his daughters – while at the time, making it clear that while he occasionally discusses politics with Bannon, he’s not always aligned with him.

And as Trump Jr. said earlier today – when Bannon has lost Breitbart, “he’s left with … ummm, nothing.”

In September, Bannon appeared on 60 minutes where heb called himself a “street fighter” and “declared war on the GOP” for trying to “nullify the election.” Bannon also said that the Trump administration made the “original sin” of embracing the establishment. “I mean, we totally embraced the establishment … Because ya had to staff a government.”

Bannon also said he was going to be Trump’s “wing man outside for the entire time, to protect [Trump] and to “make sure his enemies know that there’s no free shot on goal.”

Well – it looks like Bannon just took a shot on his own goal, and will be cast into radioactive irrelevancy for time immemorial.

Continue Reading

Iowa

Blexit / WalkAway: Majority of Non-White Voters Plan To Vote Republican in Iowa’s 1st District According to NYT Poll

Published

6 days ago

on

June 20, 2026

By

In what seems to be a testament against a “blue wave”, according to a NYT poll taken back in September, it shows that 45% of non-white participants, the majority, plan to vote Republican. With 42% voting Democrat are 13% undecided. Non-white people were 7% of those polled entirely.

What also is interesting is it shows 52% white people voting Democrat, with 37% voting Republican, and 11% Undecided. Showing a higher rate of non white people voting for Republicans than white people.

Now overall this poll also showed Abby trouncing Blum, and while we disagree with the polling numbers to that extent because it seems that they may have over sampled Democrats, although we can’t tell because the poll data does not show party affiliation.

No matter how you frame it, it shows the media’s race baiting narrative hasn’t worked in Iowa’s first district as much as they hoped and non white people are a powerful force within the Republican party.

Continue Reading

Media

Bill Maher Brings On Vaccines Skeptic, Gets Railed By Media

Published

6 days ago

on

June 20, 2026

By

This past Friday Bill Maher brought on a “questionable” guest as his first on his show ‘Real Time’ on HBO. The guest in question —, is a known Vaccine Skeptic. It was quickly noticeable from the crowd reaction, which is usually sporadically either clapping or laughing, often mocked by Bill himself, was very quiet and toned down, most likely thrown off guard. This issue, like many Bill champions on his show, are issues he prides as fringe on both sides of the aisle, the far-left and far-right often being huge skeptic of establishment Scientist and Doctor opinions.

Continue Reading

Trending

Donate to Populist Wire

*Note: Every donation is greatly appreciated, regardless of the amount.