President Donald Trump is being accused of racism because…well, he’s Trump and the left thinks everything he does is racist. The latest manufactured liberal outrage is because Trump is awarding Elvis Presley the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
How is this racist, you ask. Apparently, Elvis culturally appropriated black culture by becoming famous for playing rock and roll, so therefore he is guilty of insidious racism according to hyperventilating liberals. It sounds dumb, but what liberal thing isn’t dumb?
Fox News reports that President Trump is awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to baseball great Babe Ruth, late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, philanthropist Miriam Adelson, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, jurist Alan Page, Dallas Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach, and the King of Rock and Roll Elvis Aaron Presley.
“This prestigious award is the Nation’s highest civilian honor, which may be awarded by the President to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,” said the White House in a statement.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest honor that a civilian can receive and should be a very non-controversial award. However, this is the Age of Trump, and everything that the President does is cause for alarm. Washington Post columnist Chris Richards, who is white, is furious at what he sees as an overt act of anti-black racism:
Yes, the late Elvis Presley will receive the Medal of Freedom from President Trump on Friday.
Yes, Trump is sending a message here.
Yes, Presley is among the most pivotal and controversial musicians of the previous century, so yes, this is another needling MAGA maneuver — a little nod to the good old days, back when black visionaries could invent rock-and-roll, but only a white man could become the king.
Yes, this overture looks ugly to anyone who feels antagonism and regression radiating from Trump’s promise to “make America great again.”
No, Richards doesn’t actually use the “R” word, but yes, he’s very clearly calling Trump a racist for giving the medal posthumously to Elvis.
Richards goes on to accuse Trump of bestowing this honor on Elvis because he “wants to look like a real president.” He brings that racism thing around again by claiming Trump wishes he was like Richard Nixon hanging out with Elvis instead of being the President who hugged rapper Kanye West.
Richard drives home his “Trump is a racist” nonsense by saying the President is beating the country to death with his whiteness by awarding Elvis the Medal of Freedom:
Because, yes, Presley was a hero to most, but does hanging a medal onto one of the most decorated ghosts in popular culture change anything at all about his complicated legacy or how we think about his music today? No. Does it show us how our president continues to use his brazen lack of imagination as a cultural cudgel? Yes.
The liberal case for Trump’s “racism” is largely based on the spats he’s had with black journalists and athletes, his so-called Muslim travel ban, and that he said some illegal immigrants are rapists and criminals. The thing is, Trump has spats with people of all races and is truly an equal opportunity insulter. Trump’s travel ban was directed at countries that sponsor terrorism, and it didn’t affect most Muslims. Some illegal immigrants really are rapists and criminals.
These examples of Trump’s racism are stretches of the imagination, but accusing him of being of being a racist because he is awarding Elvis Presley the Medal of Freedom is such a reach that liberals are going to dislocate their shoulders trying to make it happen.
