A witch's broom is "a deformity in a woody plant" caused by fungi, insects, viruses or other alien invaders that results in a "dense mass of shoots" growing from a single point on a normal tree. Occasionally such a deformity will result in a desirable cultivar for the nursery trade, like the dwarf Alberta Spruce. Over time, a botanical "reversion" may grow out of the cultivar, as robust normal-scale new growth (above) sprouts from the stunted parent. A metaphor for the Tea Partiers reverting to first principles as the aging statist juggernaut threatens to turn the lights out in the Shining City Upon a Hill?
"If Shakespeare wrote US History, would he one day claim slavery was the evil seed that grew into America's greatest loss of freedom?" wrote blogfiend [sic] Dan Riehl last evening on Twitter, tossing us a morsel of food for thought. Our gut reaction was no:
Obama is not a fruit of the tree of liberty but a witch's broom (see caption above). Think Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Shelby Steele.
The evil seed came from abroad, the Gramscian march through the insitutions, for starters.
A black man happens to be at the helm of the ship of state, hellbent on turning the land of the free and the home of the brave into a Euro-style progressivist utopian nightmare, but what does that have to do with slavery? Nothing, really, given that none of the President's ancestors was ever a slave. Admittedly the First Lady presents a more "nuanced" case, having descended from a mixed union of slave girl and white man. But that is beside the point. The evil seed, as we twittered last night, was the Marxist project in its many manifestations that drifted to our shores from across the pond. Barack Obama was weaned on its toxic collectivist agenda and reaps the harvest of the "white man's burden" of guilt-ridden elites who embraced his blackness as a way of feeling good about themselves and disingenuously sticking it to philosophical opponents like us. As then Sen. Obama told ecstatic New Hampshire voters way back in December of 2006, playing the race card early and often, “Are some voters not going to vote for me because I’m African-American? Those are the same voters who probably wouldn’t vote for me because of my politics." Did Obama just call me a racist? we asked rhetorically:
Being one of those voters who probably wouldn't vote for him because of his politics, we were naturally offended at his suggestion that people like us are racists. Swept up in the locals' devotional hysteria, however, the media didn't seem to notice. Folks hear what they want to hear.
"Could a white president have so successfully pulled off shredding the Constitution to further his agenda? I think not," writes Lloyd Marcus at Big Journalism, a man after our political heart:
Like millions of my fellow Americans, I am outraged, devastated and extremely angry by the Democrats’ unbelievable arrogance and disdain for We The People …
Ironically, proving America is completely the opposite of the evil racist country they relentlessly accuse her of being, progressives used America’s goodness, guilt and sense of fair play against her.
In their quest to destroy America as we know it, progressives borrowed a brilliant scheme from Greek mythology. They offered America a modern-day Trojan Horse, a beautifully crafted golden shiny new black man as a presidential candidate. Democrat Joe Biden lauded Obama as the first clean and articulate African American candidate. Democrat Harry Reid said Obama only uses a black dialect when he wants.
Now tell us again, who's the racist here?
Note: Blogpost title is from Banquo's speech in Macbeth, Act I, Scene III.