For those of you who still believe that the up-scale Sierra Club — with 2.4 million members and a $100 million annual budget — is anything more than a general purpose left-wing pressure group, allow me to share with you an email I received Tuesday from Sierra president Michael Brune urging me to action.
This email didn’t ask me to get off my duff in the name of clean air and water, to save some obscure plant or animal, or to worry some climate alarm. You know, the kind of things one would expect environmental organizations to be hot for. No, Brune wants me to call the White House, at the number helpfully listed, to demand — Sierra Clubbers demand, they don’t request — that “the Trump administration fire staffers who support hate.”
That’s right. Apparently Brune and his legion of Lexus lefties and tote-bag cranks have been convinced that the Trump administration is overrun by white racist haters. Saturday’s events in Charlottesville, and Trump’s rejection of the no-hate-on-the-left orthodoxy, have further cemented them in this delusion.
“Some of these same white supremacists work in the Trump administration,” Brune asserts, offering no basis for this outlandish claim. “Call the White House now and demand that they be fired.”
Other than the general fear that closet ku-kluxers in grey suits and ties lurk and do their evil work throughout 1600, Brune offers some specific names of advisors who should be cashiered. The names won’t surprise those who have been paying attention. Of course Brune wants to see the end of that general bugbear of the left, Steve Bannon. No explanation needed here. Everyone to the left of John McCain considers him a limb of Satan and has nightmares about Bannon whispering in the Donald’s ear. Sebastian Gorka should get the heave-ho too because he has, Brune says, underestimated the risk to the peace of the nation of white nationalist groups. Stephen Miller has earned the animosity of the left for suggesting that the State of Liberty has more to do with, well, liberty, than it has to do with open borders.
There you have it. The three hateful desperados and threats to the republic, according to a silk-stocking environmental group.
Brune goes on, working up a real head of steam and indignation: “It is more important than ever that we call out these people for exactly what they are: unacceptable racists preaching division and hatred that stand in opposition to the values of equality and justice that must drive our nation forward. Hatred and racism have long played a disgraceful part in American history, but there can be no doubt that those who spew hate feel empowered right now when they see allies in the corridors of power.”
Wow. Takes your breath away, doesn’t it? Our Michael is some stem-winder. I’d be a bit alarmed after reading this if I had ever seen any of the presidential advisors singled out spewing hate or saying or doing anything racist or bigoted, let alone preaching hatred and division. But I haven’t. And I don’t think anyone else has either.
So I’ll pass on the White House phone call, thanks. But I have come to four firm conclusions after reading Brune’s overwrought and over-the-top pitch:
- If Michael Brune is afraid of the three men he misrepresents in this email, he should sleep with a night light.
- He should get his reflux medicine prescription refilled.
- He should switch to decaf.
- The Sierra Club is at heart just Occupy Wall Street, only with more trail mix.
