Ileana Johnson is not a Serious Person

Writing at The Bull Elephant (and Freedom Outpost), Ileana Johnson complains that:

“What is good has become bad, evil has become good, and moral values have been replaced by moral relativism, decadence, and filth. America continues to be fundamentally transformed from the shadows.”

Johnson is a conservative, so she’s not talking about Donald Trump paying porn stars not to talk about his (lack of) skills as a lover. She’s talking about Barack Obama promising to “’fundamentally transform’ America into a socialist paradise of his anti-American and racist ideology.”  I must admit to having a bit of trouble wrapping my mind around this, and Johnson does not elaborate in a way that clears up her meaning. 

Instead she begins with an anecdote about teaching economics to a class of “hardworking Americans” in 2007. These were not the “pampered and entitled snowflakes of today,” except:

“It was a bit too late to teach social manners to the two young black women who always arrived late, answered their phones in the classroom, and left often for bathroom breaks but returned with sodas, hamburgers, and fries from the nearby bowling alley.

The two women, who wanted an A just by showing up for class, asked provocative questions such as, why does our textbook separate everybody by groups, age, disability, education, race, when giving economic statistics? Can we all not be just Americans, men and women? The fact that most textbooks are written by liberal college professors and are chosen as part of the curriculum by more liberal college professors and administrators did not dawn on them.”

This seems like a good question to me, and I might have responded with something like “to show how the economy affects varied demographic groups.”  Johnson uses it to both attack “liberal college professors” and demonstrate how “two young black women” lack the chops to know who is really keeping them from being “just Americans, men and women.”  It apparently did not dawn on Johnson that she chose the textbook in question, and her very presence in the classroom provides a data point against liberal control of academia.  In any event, it’s not clear why the race of these two students matters except as a dog whistle explanation for their behavior and obtuse refusal to see the world as it really is.

There’s more. Students often talked during breaks about “The ‘maverick’ candidate Obama with his “’beautiful family.’” Why put this is scare quotes if not to imply that black families cannot be “beautiful?”  Students also annoyed Johnson by working for Obama, who would “give everyone free housing, health, food, and college.”  I missed this plank in the Democratic platform.

In Johnson’s fever dream,

“The entire country is in a social and political ailment. Communists, socialists, and anarchists are slowly taking over the country. Washington is a political Swamp nobody can possibly ever drain. People not qualified to answer a simple history or geopolitical question are elected to Democrat office by Democrat voters equally ignorant, lacking basic information, civics, and history knowledge, and who often do not speak English and vote legally and illegally.”

I suppose there’s something to this if you count Vladimir Putin as a communist or socialist – and you have good reason to. But for “conservatives’ like Johnson it’s all Barack Obama’s fault for turning “…our country into such an anti-American and welfare-centered direction that it is uncertain right now that we would ever be able to recover.”

Johnson appears to have gone through the looking glass.  People protesting actual Nazis are the real fascists, and Black Lives Matter protesting police brutality against minorities is racist. Helping people get health insurance and more education is now evil, but corruption in government and separating children from their families is good.

Ileana Johnson is not a serious person.  She demonstrates no knowledge of American history or politics and discusses socialism in ways that make me wonder how in the world she got a doctorate in economics. She lies about Obama.  But she’s right that “What is good has become bad, evil has become good, and moral values have been replaced by moral relativism, decadence, and filth. America continues to be fundamentally transformed from the shadows.”

With the election of Donald Trump Americans (thanks to the Electoral College) replaced a morally courageous President with a decadent one who cares more about himself and his wallet than any family, friend, colleague, or country.  The racist backlash against President Obama has changed America so much that even self-described Christians support a President whose decadent behavior makes Bill Clinton look like the most morally pure man who ever held power.

Who is the real “moral relativist?”

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