I would like to believe that there will be another Black president before I go off to join, Jesus, Mohammad, and Beyoncé in the afterlife at Club Eternity, but I cannot be for certain. However, there is one thing I’m willing to bet my liver on: Dr. Ben Carson won’t be Negro POTUS number two, especially not in 2016. So while I hate to be the bearer of bad news to the "National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee," I would advise them to look for a new hobby.
Now to be fair, #TeamBen, you have done some impressive work thus far. As The Atlantic’s Alex Seitz-Wald notes, “The group that put Carson on the hotel keys has outraised Clinton's draft committee, Ready for Hillary; has been on the ground in Iowa; and is working from the playbook written by Howard Dean and Barack Obama.” More, according to the group’s Web site, their petition seeking to encourage Carson to run has amassed close to 390,000 signatures.
Nonetheless, you could probably find a million fools in America willing to vote for a brown avocado as president, so that doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the grand scheme of things. And besides, from what I’ve read, you folks over there are running with some very flawed logic as to why Ben Carson is the GOP’s best hope to defeat presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and master of the universe, Hillary Clinton.
Let three-time congressional candidate, George H.W. Bush appointee, and petition-creator Vernon Robinson tell it, Ben Carson is the Republican Party’s best shot at broadening its base beyond old, racist, and easily fooled White dudes.
Robinson says, "At 17 percent, Hillary loses all of the swing states and the Roosevelt Democratic coalition is destroyed. In addition, Ben Carson is able to clearly and calmly articulate conservative positions in a way the average voter can understand.… He's the only guy who can bond with all of the American people."
Are we talking about the same Ben Carson here, because the Ben Carson I’m familiar with is about as calm as a second string hypeman at his first Source Awards.
I mean, Ben Carson is the man who once declared: "You know Obamacare is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And it is in a way, it is slavery in a way, because it is making all of us subservient to the government, and it was never about health care. It was about control."
Not only is this one of the most asinine false equivalencies that I've read since that time I read some misguided White woman compared Beyoncé to Miley Cyrus, it’s despicable for a Black man of all people to diminish the horrors of slavery to make some kind of cheap political point. Ben Carson, may every dream you have for the rest of your natural life be summed up as American Horror Story: Slave, Slap the Stupid Out Of Your Simplistic Self.
Worse, Carson had the following to say about same sex marriage: “[Traditional marriage is] a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group — be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn’t matter what they are — they don’t get to change the definition.” He also said gays don’t deserve “extra rights” and he loathes political correctness.
This is Ben Carson “calmly articulating conservative positions in a way the average voter can understand"?
So private insurance is like slavery and two committed people of the same sex getting married is like boning a dog and/or a pedophile? Mind you, Obamacare is proving to be a success and attitudes about the initiative are rapidly changing now that it’s been implanted and marriage equality is gaining support in the Deep South. Now, Carson did say during his speech at CPAC, "One of the principles of Saul Alinsky is that you make the majority think their ideology is outdated, and nobody thinks that way."
This must be the old, crotchety conservative Black male equivalent of “The Illuminati” and various other theories found on YouTube. You keep telling yourselves these lies if you want to, but if you nominate Ben Carson for president, you’re going to yield the same results as Herman Cain’s 2012 campaign and Alan Keyes’…well, every time he’s tried to run for something.
This makes me think of Salt-n-Pepa’s “Whatta Man,” particularly the following line from Spinderella: "…every time they tried I said, ‘That's not it.’”
This is exactly what Black people are going to tell you if you nominate that bigoted fool because putting a Black face on the virtues held mostly by White Republican men won’t net any traction among minorities. That's not it, Ben. You're not it.
If you want a Black, I suggest kidnapping Deval Patrick or finding “Doc” from Back To The Future and kidnapping pre-Bush Colin Powell. Other than not, not happening anytime soon. Bye.
Michael Arceneaux is the author of the “The Weekly Read,” where tough love is served with just a touch of shade. Tweet him at @youngsinick.
