Wilson Wyatt would be proud of John Yarmuth
By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
The late Wilson Wyatt would be proud of John Yarmuth.
The former was Louisville’s liberal Democratic mayor in 1941-1945 (and Kentucky’s lieutenant governor in 1959-1963). The latter is Louisville’s liberal Democratic congressman.
Yarmuth won’t be a face in the inauguration crowd today.
“As the transition of power is a hallmark that must be honored, this is not a decision I make lightly,” he said in a news release.
The veteran lawmaker from the Falls City survived Donald Trump’s Bluegrass State tsunami and won a sixth term last November.
Yarmuth explained that he is boycotting Trump’s big day “because I believe the office of the President deserves our respect, and that respect must begin with the President-elect himself.”
He added: “For the last ten weeks, President-elect Trump has continually denigrated the office of the President by using his bully pulpit for insult and ridicule. Since he made his ignorant comments about Congressman John Lewis...I have heard dismay from hundreds of constituents. Thousands more have contacted me over the past months regarding his shameful remarks about women, the disabled, immigrants, and countless others — as well as his continued praise of a hostile foreign leader.”
Trump has resurrected the hate and paranoia of the old, anti-immigrant Know-Nothings. The party was popular in Yarmuth’s hometown in the mid-19th century.
On election day in 1855, Know-Nothing ruffians rampaged through German and Irish Catholic neighborhoods in Louisville, killing, burning and looting.
In 1856, former Whig president Millard Fillmore ran for president on the Know-Nothing ticket and lost in a landslide. Neo-Know Nothing Trump's win was a fluke.
Fillmore pandered to nativism and xenophobia. Mere immigrant-bashing wasn’t enough for Trump, who an official Ku Klux Klan newspaper supported for president. Trump broadened his appeal to bigotry with hefty helpings of racism, sexism, misogyny and religious prejudice.
Trump’s boorishness “is not normal,” said Yarmuth. “It is an embarrassment to our country and to the office of the presidency, and we must send the message that this behavior is not acceptable from the leader of our nation. Not attending the Inauguration is one way for me to do that.”
My way is to go for a walk, dive into my new crossword puzzle book and spend the rest of the day binge watching reruns of The Office and Parks and Recreation.
Tomorrow, this liberal, union card-carrying Democrat from deepest western Kentucky is heading to Murray to join a “March for Equality and Social Justice.”
A footnote: Trump, too, is a union-buster. He prefers “right to work” states to non-RTW states. He has fiercely fought against a union at his Las Vegas hotel. Since he came to Washington, Yarmuth has voted the union position on issues 98 percent of the time and 100 percent in 2015, according to the AFL-CIO’s legislative scorecard.