In the 17th century, Americans hanged “witches” to avoid real and substantive issues. Today, Delaware Senate candidate Chris Coons and the Democratic Party attack “witches” (or at least one “witch,” Republican Christine O’Donnell) in order to avoid scrutiny of their abysmal record (or at least Coons’ record as a doctrinaire, government-expanding, tax-raising lefty).
In this way, history repeats itself, figuratively speaking. Indeed, what we are now witnessing is a modern-day political version of the 17th-century Salem Witch Trials.
Of course, the witch trials were a diversion then; and they’re a diversion now. After all, the new Congress that is elected in November will not be voting on “witchcraft.” It will be voting on taxes and spending.
Yet, given the media’s ridiculous obsession with O’Donnell’s youthful jocularity about dabbling in “witchcraft,” you’d think that this issue is front-and-center on the congressional agenda. But of course, it is not.
Neither is sex education or the teaching of evolution. Yet, these also are issues that have preoccupied the legacy media, left-wing bloggers, and the pundit class.
O’Donnell has nothing to apologize for. Her Christian religious beliefs — although much-scorned and ridiculed by anti-religious zealots like Bill Maher — are far more relevant, mainstream and commonsensical than her left-wing critics realize or ever will acknowledge. But O’Donnell’s Christian religious beliefs also are mostly irrelevant to her work as a senator.
Chris Coons and his allies in the legacy media and in the left-wing blogosphere know this. They know that when the new Congress convenes in January it will not be deciding the fate of “witchcraft” in America. They know that Congress will not be telling local school districts what to teach about evolution and sex education.
Instead, Congress will be deciding whether to repeal Obamacare, whether to extend the Bush tax cuts, and whether to finally begin reining in out-of-control government spending. And on these issues, they know, Chris Coons, Harry Reid, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party say “No!” and Christine O’Donnell and the Republican Party say “Yes!”
And so, the Left realizes, this election is really an easy choice for most moderate and independent voters. Moderate and independent voters want to check one-party rule in Washington, D.C. They want to vote to stop Coons, Reid and Obama from having an unfettered whip hand through which to enact their far-left tax-and-spend agenda.
And so, to stop this from happening — to stop any check on their power — the hard Left has decided to create a diversion — a smokescreen, if you will — to prevent voters from focusing on the real and substantive issues that matter to them.
Of course, this is nothing new. As I’ve mentioned, this is just the latest witch-burning crusade in American history. The Salem Witch Trials in the 17th century were the first such crusade. The “witches” then were convenient targets of opprobrium for a populace beset with social, political and economic challenges and difficulties.
In the same way, O’Donnell is a convenient target of abuse for the hard Left, which has fallen on hard times politically, and which, therefore, cannot fathom losing Joe Biden’s old Senate seat. And especially galling to the Left is the notion that Biden’s Senate seat might be lost to a young, attractive and articulate conservative woman.
Indeed, there is real and reprehensible sexism at work here — just as there was in the 17th-century Salem Witch Trials. (In fact, let’s not be naïve: “Witch,” we all know, is really a euphemism for the “B Word.”) Wilkpedia, for instance, notes that:
The patriarchal beliefs that Puritans held in the community added stresses. They believed women should be subservient to men, and that women were more likely to enlist in the Devil’s service because women were lustful by nature…
Girls had additional restrictions placed upon them and were trained from a young age to spin yarn, cook, sew, weave, serve their husbands and bear their children.
In accordance with Puritan beliefs, the majority of accused “witches” were unmarried or recently widowed land-owning women. According to the law, if no legal heir existed upon the owner’s death, title to the land reverted to the previous owner. Or, if no previous owner could be [ascertained, the land was reverted] to the colony. This made witch-hunting a possible method of acquiring a profitable piece of property [emphasis added].
Today the “profitable piece of property” is high political office in the United States Senate. Coons and the hard Left believe that office belongs to them; and so they are determined, come hell or high water, to keep it.
One brave and unmarried land-owning woman, though, stands in their way; and her name is Christine O’Donnell. And so, she must be made into a caricature and destroyed.
But to paraphrase Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, that Senate seat doesn’t belong to them; it belongs to the people of Delaware. And so, on November 2, the people, not the media, will decide who is going to represent them in the United States Senate.
Christine O’Donnell isn’t dead politically; far from it. The Left hasn’t yet been able to hang her, despite the media’s best efforts to do just that.
And that’s because conservative women nowadays refuse to be burned at the left-wing stake. They refuse to go meekly into the night. They refuse to be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness and left-wing smear campaigns.
They know, as do the voters, that there’s too much at stake in this election to be diverted by ludicrous talk of “witches. They know that this time Americans mean to take their country back; and that women are leading the way.
John R. Guardiano is a writer and analyst in Arlington, Virginia. He writes and blogs for a variety of publications, including FrumForum, the American Spectator and The Daily Caller. Follow him at his personal blog, ResoluteCon.com, and on Twitter: @JohnRGuardiano.