Ana Navarro Gets Racist After Polls Show Huge Black Support for Trump
I’ve been reliably told it’s sexist to call a woman “unhinged.” This article has to do with Ana Navarro and reality, so it’s going to be a difficult write.
Navarro, for those of you unfamiliar, is one of the numerous talking heads who have discovered the excellent racket of “reconsidering” your former beliefs and becoming an uncritical supporter of the other side. I’m not going to say every pundit whose beliefs evolved necessarily did so out of cupidity — the late Charles Krauthammer’s contributions to conservatism didn’t exactly seem motivated by a desire to get on “Meet the Press” — but professional contrarianism isn’t exactly a new thing.
That being said, Navarro has taken it to a whole new unh… erm, where’s that thesaurus? The point is that the former Republican has become a nominal Republican who will parrot Democrat talking points as if she’s being paid to do so.
Then again, filing her nails on air as part of her work on CNN in order to dismiss an opponent and later claiming Sen. Rand Paul was “mansplaining” when he tried to gently convince her of the fact that — yes — Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro really is a socialist has increased her profile exponentially. So, well, you do the fiscal math.
You can’t say this is fake, however. Not when Navarro went apoplectic on Twitter over two polls which showed significantly increased support for President Trump from black Americans.
Now, let’s do keep in mind these are just two polls. And yet, predictably, Twitter has become both balkanized and emphatic about what they are going forward.
Conservatives are saying you can call 2020 over right now; without monolithic black support for a Democratic candidate, Trump will walk to re-election. Democrats have basically said these polls are as fake as those elections in failed states where mustachioed rulers who have 200-foot billboards of their portrait outside the airport get 90 percent of the vote.
People, again: It’s two polls. They’re an interesting snapshot of the black vote and something that should have gotten more attention in the media given the huge amount of Trump support they showed in the African-American community, but they are — given the deluge of surveys that’ll come out on a daily basis until next November — two buckets of water in the Atlantic. When it becomes a wave, call me.
ICYMI: Last Friday we showed Black Likely Voter approval for @realDonaldTrump at 34%.
We then found out that a recent widely quoted @EmersonPolling Registered Voters based poll showed Black Voter approval for @POTUS at 34.5%. https://t.co/SS9K9WS4Ix
— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) November 25, 2019
That said, remember how I thought these polls ought to have garnered more media attention? Well, thanks for putting on your red suit and beard before you picked up your cell phone and checked your Twitter feed Monday evening, Ana, because you certainly gave me a gift.
It all began with a thread from Turning Point USA Twitter user @alx:
NEW POLLS: Black American support for President Trump:
Emerson: 34.5%
Rasmussen: 34%— ✌? ALX ?? ✌? (@alx) November 24, 2019
Trump is doing exactly what @ananavarro praised Rand Paul for pushing in 2014.
Why is she now criticizing African Americans and posting borderline racist Tweets for supporting him for it? https://t.co/CaKHDflwfH
— ✌? ALX ?? ✌? (@alx) November 26, 2019
All you have to do for this to go away is ignore it, Ana Navarro. You have a blue checkmark and he doesn’t. You ignore it and no one cares. That’s all you have to do.
Because I’m writing about this, you may have guessed that’s not what Ana Navarro did:
“Zero chance this is accurate. Zero,” Navarro tweeted.
“The poll must have only been conducted in the homes of Ben Carson, Kanye, that sheriff guy with the hat and those two Cubic Zirconia & Polyester-Spandex ladies.”
Zero chance this is accurate. Zero. The poll must have only been conducted in the homes of Ben Carson, Kanye, that sheriff guy with the hat and those two Cubic Zirconia & Polyester-Spandex ladies. https://t.co/vsmXJBY1KB
— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) November 25, 2019
All right, so in case you were having trouble parsing the racism here, “that sheriff guy with the hat” is former Milwaukee County, Wisconsin Sheriff David Clarke and “those two Cubic Zirconia & Polyester-Spandex ladies” are pro-Trump social media personalities Diamond and Silk.
First off, I thought we weren’t supposed to be attacking reputable organizations we disagreed with. Nobody’s ever said Emerson or Rasmussen conducts polls “in the homes of Ben Carson, Kanye, that sheriff guy with the hat and those two Cubic Zirconia & Polyester-Spandex ladies.” That’s generally considered a flaw in polling methodology if I’m not mistaken.
Rasmussen may tilt more conservative than other polling organizations, but essentially calling both polling organizations fake news doesn’t exactly seem on-brand for a personality on a network where Jim Acosta regularly fulminates that his empty suit and Brylcreemed hair aren’t being taken seriously enough by the Trump administration and that dismissing CNN is a sign of some deep, dark rot within conservatism.
So second, about that funny you made: It’s racist. Try that whole “two Cubic Zirconia & Polyester-Spandex ladies” stuff on “The View” and see how long you’re going to be LinkedIn contacts with Joy Behar.
Yet, inasmuch as this was covered by the legacy media — and that coverage seemed to be limited to Newsweek — the hook didn’t seem to be that Navarro was a racist. In fact, in said article, that word — nor any synonyms of it — appears.
Instead, we get this: “The CNN host had plenty of support for her Rasmussen bias and inaccuracy claim, with pollster Frank Luntz noting past discrepancies from the polling firm about black voters supporting Trump ahead of the 2018 midterm elections … Additional Rasmussen polls released in the past week included that only 38 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction, and that the House impeachment inquiry hearings have not done much to sway overall public opinion of impeaching the president.”
Oh, that’s your takeaway from that tweet? The writer, a man with the Bunyan-esque name of Benjamin Fearnow, didn’t mention that it might be racially insensitive to call Diamond and Silk … well, that?
To be fair, though, Fearnow didn’t call Navarro’s tweet “unhinged.” Neither have I. Sure, it’s a sign of sick, bigoted moral decay from someone who can never reasonably condemn President Trump for impulse control or language again — but will anyway. But she’s not “unhinged.” Nosiree. I’m no sexist.
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