The revolution devours its own. One minute you are leading the politically correct vanguard against your moral inferiors. The next minute the crowd has turned against you.
That’s one takeaway from a week that began with actress Patricia Arquette being attacked by people to her left when her fashionable liberal cliches did not go far enough and ends with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel fighting for his political life.
These are just the latest examples of a growing trend. Liberal columnist Jonathan Chait was described as a “sad white man” — one of the most pejorative descriptions available in the politically correct book of insults — for protesting too much when PC started hitting too close to home.
The New Republic, newly demoted from in-flight magazine of Air Force One to a vertical something or other, published an apology for its long, racist existence and the unbearable whiteness of much of its staff.
White liberals are learning that no amount of privilege-checking can save them from the folly they have unleashed.
Arquette’s case was merely silly. After an impassioned speech at the Oscars demanding equal pay for women, for which she received a standing ovation from suffering paupers Jennifer Lopez and Meryl Streep, the actress elaborated further on what must be to done achieve the goal first mandated by federal law with the Equal Pay Act of 1963.
“It’s time for all the women in America, and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now,” Arquette said.
The downtrodden in whose name Arquette claims to speak noticed the obvious implication: it was time for everyone, including all the gay people and all the women of color, to fight for well-heeled white women.
They were not pleased. Arquette was faced with a barrage of tweets from people who said her remarks reminded them that white women are oppressors too. Even the occasional white liberal piled on.
“[T]ake a closer look at the gap and you’ll find that the numbers often used as shorthand — women earning 77 cents on the dollar — isn’t reflective of the much starker wage gap faced by women of color,” observed Salon’s Katie McDonough in one of the more balanced pieces conceding Arquette’s heart was in the right place. She added, “lesbian workers earn less than both straight and gay men.”
This competition in victimization is less significant than Rahm Emanuel’s failure to avoid a runoff in the Chicago mayoral race.
Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff to Barack Obama and top political consigliere to Bill Clinton, is being denounced by teachers unions and minority activists in terms once reserved for Ted Cruz and Jesse Helms.
The mayor only managed 45 percent of the vote in the first round of balloting. Emanuel will now face Jesus G. Garcia in the runoff.
Consider it his come to Jesus G. Garcia moment.
As The Daily Caller’s Eric Owens reported, the Mexican-born Garcia “stands for a minimum wage of $15 per hour, increased low-income housing and expanded services and protections for immigrants.”
Emanuel has been a longtime champion of expanding immigration to improve Democratic electoral prospects (though, like Chuck Schumer, he recruited anti-amnesty candidates to run in reddish districts when he chaired his party’s congressional campaign committee).
I bet he never imagined that this might come at the expense of his own electoral prospects.
Even though Emanuel appointed “Chicago’s first ever technology industry diversity council,” it wasn’t good enough. Here’s an account of one anti-Rahm rally in the South Side of Chicago:
Together, García’s supporters comprise one of the most diverse groups of citizens in the United States. The rally certainly represented Chicago’s diversity, where South Side residents, local politicos, public school teachers, families, students, and children from all walks of life gathered to hear García denounce Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s alienating policies.
No matter how many industry diversity councils Emanuel appoints, the most diverse groups of citizens in the United States are not going to put up with his alienating policies.
“I’ve been a city employee for 30 years, so I’ve seen a lot of mayors,” one Ray Alvizu told The New York Times. “I know that Chuy [Garcia’s nickname] will be good for us. Rahm is all about the 1 percent.”
How did this happen? Wielding raw government power was supposed to be one of those few dirty things white liberals were still willing to do.
Now the playbook they’ve been using against conservatives of all backgrounds has been turned against them.
Hillary Clinton — who supported Arquette and has already been endorsed by Rahm — had better watch out.
W. James Antle III is managing editor of The Daily Caller and author of the book Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped? Follow him on Twitter.
