'Mugged' Interview: Ann Coulter on Faith, Liberals, and Civil Rights
Never known to mince words, conservative political commentator Ann Coulter is doing a lot of talking about her recently released book, Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama. Her media book tour comes just in time to mix it up with political pundits during the peak election season.
Coulter told The Christian Post in an exclusive interview on Monday that she could have saved herself "some trouble" while writing a previous book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, published a-half-dozen years ago, by waiting on the 2012 Democratic National Convention "when they rejected God from the platform."
"That video they should play over and over and over again. It doesn't get much clearer than that," she said.
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There is another "ism" that Coulter writes about in her new book released last week, and that is "racism."
Coulter writes in Mugged that "whenever the Democrats are in trouble, they accuse Republicans of 'racism.' For decades, the Left has been putting on a play with themselves as heroes in an ongoing civil rights movement – which they were mostly absent from at the time. Long after pervasive racial discrimination ended, they kept pretending America was being run by the Klan and that liberals were black America's only protectors.
"The Obama candidacy allowed liberals to engage in self-righteousness about race and get a hard-core Leftie in the White House at the same time," she continues in her book. "In 2008, we were told the only way for the nation to move past race was to elect him as president. And 53 percent of voters fell for it. The 2012 Obama campaign is going to inspire the greatest racial guilt-mongering of all time."
The Christian Post asked Coulter about her faith, Mugged, and about her views on civil rights as it pertains to not only blacks, but in the way gay activists and their supporters have framed the issue of same-sex marriage.
CP: First, I'd like to ask you something about your faith. Many people may not know about your spiritual beliefs. How important is your faith in God?
COULTER: It's everything. It's 100 percent. I'm from Connecticut so we tend not to be as demonstrative about it.
CP: Do you believe conservatism is synonymous with Christianity? If so, why?
COULTER: I think it is synonymous with a belief in God. Absolutely. Four books back I had a book titled Godless: The Church of Liberalism. I could have saved myself some trouble and waited for the 2012 Democratic National Convention when they rejected God from the platform. That video they should play over and over and over again. It doesn't get much clearer than that. I was in church yesterday mulling this – I'm sure there are people who consider themselves Democrats, maybe even liberals, who are good Christians, but if so I do not think they understand the tenants of those two organizations.
CP: Have you ever converted a liberal to conservatism?
COULTER: Oh, yes. Different people at different times and at the same time I'm very happy to say to Christianity through my writing and speaking.
CP: Have Democrats abandoned blacks for other interest groups?
COULTER: Yes, and they only pretended to care about black people for about five minutes and the next thing you know, the ink on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which was the first civil rights legislation pushed by a Democrat because you would think it was the only civil rights legislation in U.S. history. Republicans had been pushing civil rights laws since immediately after the Civil War. That was when Republicans dominated Washington – the House and Senate – so all of that got through, 13th, 14th, 15th amendments, and 1866 Civil Rights Laws. For the next 100 years, Republicans kept introducing anti poll tax legislation, anti-lynching legislation, public accommodations legislation, which kept being blocked by Democrats.
Thanks to the efforts of Thurgood Marshall, the great attorney, enforcing constitutional rights of black Americans, and Republican presidents enforcing those Supreme Court victories and the law, enough black people were voting that the Democrats had to dump the segregationists and start demagoguing black people so you get the '64 Civil Rights Act.
Within two years, the Democrats had switched the concept of civil rights to encompass abortion on demand, and now it's gay marriage, or rights for the homeless. Look at the voter ID laws that are being fought as a civil rights issue now. So, liberals are willing to slander black people by saying they are too stupid to be able to get a photo ID to vote in order to promote a cause liberals truly believe in which is voter fraud.
CP: Why do you think gay activists and their supporters have framed the issue of gay marriage as a "civil rights" issue that was once very clearly an issue almost exclusively for blacks?
COULTER: Because that was a great cause. Everything that liberals want they call a civil right. This avoids them having to argue about it and puts the halo around the issue. But the idea that gays have suffered as black people in this country did – no. The reason we needed civil rights laws was because we couldn't get Democrats to stop discriminating against blacks – keeping them out of restaurants, having separate schools for them – that was never a Republican thing, that was the Democrats. The Republicans kept passing laws to say knock it off. There is no history of slavery and Jim Crow toward lesbians who want to get married, white women in Scarsdale who want an abortion, and smelly homeless people stinking up the libraries. The liberals slapped the label of civil rights on everything they are in favor of, having nothing to do with black people, in order to give it a halo and avoid having to argue the issue. I'll say why can't we say a flat tax is a civil right? Do you oppose civil rights for income earners?
CP: Isn't the issue of gay marriage more about redefining marriage than a civil rights issue?
COULTER: I know. It's preposterous, particularly in this case. If you are the one arguing to overturn the Constitution I think the burden is on you to make the argument. It's not on us and by the way, I was the first speaker at a conservative gay group, GOProud, a couple of years ago and my speech was about talking them out of gay marriage.
CP: So, how do you define civil rights and is there a particular group of people struggling with their civil rights now?
COULTER: Not so much anymore. It's more of a historical point. I think it still has some meaning. I mean historically that's what civil rights were. It was blacks who couldn't use the same water fountain. It was blacks that top hats were standing in the school house door to exclude. It was blacks who were in slavery. So, historically that is what civil rights was and it is just a lie to attach that to whatever issue you happen to be in favor of.
At this point in history, now that we've finally got the Democrats to stop discriminating against black people, there's no one doing the discriminating. There are probably more child pornographers than actual racists in America. It is not the main problem that needs to be dealt with. In fact, I would be shocked if I heard of a club that excludes black people, whereas, I'm all for clubs that exclude women or clubs that exclude men – I belong to some of those. Your antennae don't go up when it's a different group. If there is some sort of disparate impact, a test that's being given that only black people seem to be failing, that sort of thing, that's when your antennae go up. And there should be special solicitude because of the legacy and history of slavery and Jim Crow laws. There is no such legacy for recent immigrants, illegal immigrants, or women who want abortions. So, no you don't get the same special scrutiny for things like that.
CP: You suggest that Mugged is a book about white liberals, not African-Americans. What is the history of racial demagoguery since the 1970's?
COULTER: I think the only black person that will not like this book is Al Sharpton. I've forgotten how much of the racial demagoguery he had been involved in, but he pops up periodically throughout the book. There's also stories – in fact, I'm thinking of making this my column this week – about a lot of black heroes who you never heard about because what liberals want to celebrate are gangster rappers, and cop killers…
We were on our way to ending the racial divide in this country ironically enough after the O.J. verdict. White America just said, that's it, the white guilt bank is shut down, I hope O.J was worth it. For about a dozen years relations between blacks and whites were much more comfortable. You didn't have white people patronizing blacks – although liberals still were – and everyone wasn't walking on egg shells. Suddenly we see all these talented blacks and where had they been all this time? The only spokesman for Black American until then had been Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. You had Republican policies that were pushed through that could never be pushed through before on law and order, and on welfare reform, and they have been such magnificent successes that Bill Clinton has claimed credit for both of them.
Now, Obama has brought it all back. I meant his candidacy has brought it all back. It's not so much him playing the race card though he does. It is white liberals in the media who don't know a single black person.
CP: Chapter 16 is titled "The Media Cry 'Racist' in a Crowded Theater." What do you mean by this and how has the media contributed to the racial demagoguery?
COULTER: Well, it's all about the media. They are the racial demagogues. That's why I say this book isn't about black people, it's about white liberals. The reasons, for example, they love Barack Obama, but gosh, they didn't have such love for Michael Steele or Condoleezza Rice or Clarence Thomas or now for Mia Love. It's because Obama is the most left wing president the country has ever seen and they can attack Obama's critics, as he pushes through policies they support because they are liberal policies, by calling his opponents racist. It's laughable the things they call racist. I go through a whole slew of them (in the book) and the categories of Tea Party racism and through history the things they call racist … it's all nonsense, but they just roll it out every few years while they themselves are the ones who actually engage in objectively racist speech and have no interest in promoting black people. They have an interest in promoting liberal policies.
CP: How do you see race relations in the country now?
COULTER: A little off. Sadly, I think the Obama candidacy has brought back the liberal racial demagoguery and that's why I wrote this book to remind people that racial bullying has never produced anything good. It has led to disaster, most of all for black people. Don't fall for it again in the 2012 election.
READ: HAVE BLACK PASTORS MADE OBAMA MORE IMPORTANT THAN GOD'S WORD?
