Video: Media's Not Talking About Time Obama Used 'Monkey' Exact Same Way DeSantis Did
“Monkey around. “Monkey with it.” “Monkey it up.”
Have you ever used any of these terms? You’re a horrible racist, at least according to the Democrat Party and much of the media.
Well, that is you’re a white Republican, at least. If you happen to be an African-American candidate who uses the same common term in an almost identical context, you can get off scot-free.
(Oh, no. That might have been offensive to the Scottish.)
We’re talking, of course, about the recent pseudo-scandal surrounding U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, the Republican candidate for governor in Florida.
During a recent appearance on Fox News, the candidate used the term “monkey this up” to mean “mess this up,” while warning voters not to derail the state’s progress by voting for socialism.
“Let’s build off the success we’ve had on Gov. Scott,” DeSantis said. “The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases bankrupting the state. That is not going to work.”
Racism! DeSantis’ opponent, you see, happens to be black — Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum. So, instead of recognizing that “monkeying with” something is a pretty common phrase, Democrats attacked the conservative.
“It’s disgusting that Ron DeSantis is launching his general election campaign with racist dog whistles,” griped Terry Rizzo, chairwoman of the state’s Democrat Party.
Disgusting, racist dog whistles. Rizzo’s ears must be finely tuned to detecting those imperceptible offensives after years of practice, but she was strangely silent when another candidate used almost exactly the same “monkey” phrasing a decade ago.
That candidate was Barack H. Obama.
Yes, back in 2008 when Obama was just a lowly senator trying to win the Democrat nomination for president (spoiler: he won; the nation lost), the African-American candidate casually used the term “monkeyed around.”
Don't forget when Obama used "monkey" as a verb too, @RepDeSantis pic.twitter.com/7cbVVf05gP
— Fleccas 🇺🇸 (@fleccas) August 30, 2018
“It’s not as if it’s just Republicans who have monkeyed around with elections in the past, sometimes Democrats have to,” the future president declared when talking about corruption in politics.
Nobody in the audience gasped. No news reporters fainted from the vapors. No pundits accused Obama of using an off-limits, race-tinged word.
In fact, the comment went almost entirely unnoticed until now … probably because “monkey it up” or “monkey around” as a colloquial way of saying “mess it up” or “mess around” doesn’t have any blatant racial connotations.
Unless, of course, you live your entire life imagining racism where it doesn’t exist and acting as the ever-offended word police.
That seems to be where the left is these days: Accusing everybody except their own side of racism, no matter how silly, in a desperate attempt to distract black Americans who are shrugging off that way of thinking and actually moving forward with their lives.
The “race card” used to trump everything. These days, it isn’t nearly as powerful as the left believes … and if they’re not careful, these faux outrages over common speech may have voters walking away from their antics in droves.
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