Share
Commentary

Cory Booker Attempts To Take the High Road and the Low Road at the Same Time on Trump Question

Share

Sen. Cory Booker announced that he was running for president on Friday. Which came as a surprise, because I could have sworn he had already been running since the morning after Trump got elected. I guess it was time for the New Jersey senator to make things “Facebook official,” as they say.

Booker’s announcement was, for the most part, nothing we haven’t seen before. Like Sen. Kamala Harris’ announcement last month, Spartacus’ speech was a blend of excessive pessimism about where we are and paradoxical assurances he would take an optimistic high road all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

“People in America are losing faith that this nation will work for them, they’re beginning to believe that too many folks are gonna get left out or left behind, they believe that forces that are tearing us apart are stronger than those that bond us together,” the 49-year-old Booker said during his announcement. “I’m running for president because I want to address these issues.”

Standing outside his Newark, New Jersey, home, NBC News reported, “Booker said his campaign will be about pushing Washington, as well as ordinary Americans, to overcome hostility and divisiveness, while expanding opportunity for all.”

The Democratic motto, courtesy of Michelle Obama: When they go low, we go high.

Trending:
Fani Willis Throws a Tantrum to Jim Jordan as Contempt Deadline Arrives

And in the spirit of former Attorney General Eric Holder, that attitude lasted for, oh, a few minutes.

Booker was asked whether or not he thought President Donald Trump is a racist.

“I don’t know the heart of anybody,” Booker replied at first. “I’ll give that to the Lord.”

Fair enough. But then, in almost the same breath: “I know a lot of people that profess the ideology of white supremacy that use his words. And I think his failure to condemn bigotry and racism, when he makes comments about African countries, when he challenges and demeans the ability of a federal judge because of ancestry, that’s bigoted language.”

But then returns the optimism: “I just want everybody to know I’m going to run a race about not who I’m against or what I’m against, but who I’m for and what I’m for.”

Of course.

Check out the video here:

This, according to NBC News, was where the candidate “stayed true to his campaign’s message of limited mudslinging.” After reading that, I was reminded briefly of Jim Geraghty’s piece on the New Jersey senator’s candidacy over at National Review: “Booker gets some of the most glowing coverage in the Senate, and it is hard to overstate how thoroughly Booker can charm the reporters sent to profile him. In 2014, the Daily Beast raved about his ‘Christ-like quality.'”

Related:
Jon Stewart Has Anti-Trump Meltdown After Getting Caught Overvaluing His House by 829%
Do you think that Cory Booker will win the Democrat nomination?

There was no comparing him to the Savior here, but the basic gist of Booker’s argument is that Trump is a bigot even though he doesn’t know what’s in his heart — that Trump slurred African countries because of racism and that the president demeaned a federal judge solely because the judge is of Hispanic heritage.

That’s apparently “limited mudslinging.”

It’s impossible to determine what’s in the heart of Cory Booker, but I’m pretty sure I can divine it with some certainty.

Booker’s brand has been constructed around a mediagenic optimism — running into burning buildings and living for a week on food stamps while he was mayor of Newark, for instance. Even in the Senate, his angry “Spartacus” moment could almost have a bit of charming naïveté about it if you were already inclined to like him, as most of the media is.

Booker’s strategy, therefore, is pretty straightforward: He’ll have his cake and eat it too.

He can spend the campaign bashing Trump and conservatives as bigots, but as long as he throws in some language about optimism, that’ll be the story.

We’ll see how much mileage that gets the senator.

Truth and Accuracy

Submit a Correction →



We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

Tags:
, , , , , ,
Share
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




Conversation