Only Among the Democrats

Bernie Sanders gave his own response to the State of the Union speech last night.  I didn't see it and I don't know how many people did.  I don't even know if the networks covered it.  What I do know is that there are a bunch of Democrats who are excoriating Sanders for giving his own speech rather than letting Stacey Abrams speak for all the Democrats.  Abrams is a former Georgia state legislator who ran for governor last November but lost.  She was chosen to give the response by Chuck Schumer.  But here's the key:  the criticism of Sanders by other Democrats isn't that he spoke out with his own views.  No, the criticism is that by doing that, Sanders upstaged Abrams who is a black woman.  Imagine, the critics don't care what Sanders said or even what Abrams said.  The Democrat critics are upset because and old white man took attention away from a black woman.

It's a sad day that we have come to when a big chunk of a major political party thinks it's more important what ethnic/racial/gender identity the speaker holds than what that speaker says.  Martin Luther King would be horrified.  The Democrats focus on a person's race and sex rather than upon the content of his or her character.  It's a truly sad day.