Get Real, Darren Bailey Is Not an Anti-Semite
GOP nominee for Governor Sen. Darren Bailey (R-Xenia) shakes hands at the DuPage County Fair in Wheaton last month. (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
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OPINION
First, a primer, if you haven’t seen. From the Chicago Tribune:
Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker launched a TV spot on Tuesday criticizing Republican challenger Darren Bailey for a 2017 statement in which the wealthy downstate farmer contended the Holocaust during World War II pales in comparison with lives lost through abortion.
“The attempted extermination of the Jews in World War II doesn’t even compare on a shadow of the life that has been lost with abortion,” Bailey says in a Facebook video made during his run for state representative, an excerpt highlighted in Pritzker’s new ad.
The Jewish publication Forward on Monday was the first to report on the Bailey video.
Pritzker’s ad, which notes Bailey’s opposition to abortion in all cases except to save the life of the mother, ends with the tagline “too extreme for Illinois.”
The Oct. 12, 2017, Facebook video was recorded shortly after then-Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signed legislation authorizing taxpayer funded abortions for poor women. “I believe that abortion is one of the greatest atrocities of our day and I believe it’s one of the greatest atrocities probably forever,” Bailey says in the video. “I will not compromise on matters of life.”
Allies of Pritzker, who is Jewish and who spent millions of dollars for the construction and operation of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, accused Bailey of antisemitism and said his comments were part of a pattern toward the Jewish community.
I have a general guide for political candidates: don’t compare anything to the Holocaust. Don’t mention Hitler (hello Mary Miller), and don’t talk about Nazis. Ever.
But while the Chicago media and pro-abortion rights folks went ballistic on the comments Tuesday, I think we should take off our partisan glasses for a moment.
Bailey is a true believer pro-life candidate. That means he (and more than 15% of the population in the state, according to polling) believe abortion ends a life. I’m not talking about restrictions or exceptions or anything in a gray area.
It is my assumption that Bailey was trying to do a simple comparison of numbers. The nonpartisan Guttmacher Institute reported around 2.7 million abortions in the U.S. between 2017-2020. The Institute reports there have been at least 750,000 abortions in the U.S. each year since Roe took effect in 1973. Over 48 years, you can do the math.
As you likely know, there were around 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust.
The way he said it was terrible, simply put. But if you think Darren Bailey is an anti-Semite for the way he stumbled through a Facebook video 5 years ago, you’re really letting your partisanship show.
Unfortunately for Bailey, his statement attempting to clear things up didn’t really help deal with the firestorm Tuesday:
“The Holocaust is a human tragedy without parallel. In no way was I attempting to diminish the atrocities of the Holocaust and its stain on history. I meant to emphasize the tragedy of millions of babies being lost. I support and have met with many people in the Jewish community in Illinois and look forward to continuing to work with them to make Illinois a safer and more affordable place for everyone.”
“I’m sorry for my poor choice of words” would have helped.
The partisan response was out there and it drove the narrative of the day. Personal PAC CEO Terry Cosgrove, one of the most influential and divisive abortion rights advocates in the state, sent a blistering release about Bailey.
“Personal PAC joins Governor Pritzker, the Jewish community and all decent Illinoisians in condemning the irresponsible and contemptuous comments of Darren Bailey. People who hold these dangerous views should have absolutely no place in government.”
While Bailey has seemed to make his position on abortion slightly less rigid than he has stated in the past, he’s never going to change his mind on what abortion is. Terry Cosgrove and JB Pritzker are never going to change their minds about what abortion is.
Abortion is one of the binary issues of our politics. Either you’re on one side or the other. Sure, there are those that are pro-choice people who are for restrictions like on partial birth or late term abortions. And there are pro-life people who will always make exceptions for rape, incest, the life of the mother, or for an emergency contraceptive. But there’s a base emotion that drives this political argument. Those emotions are never going to be settled.
But we can at least make an effort to listen to the views of the other side and have political discourse without making obscene charges like calling Darren Bailey an anti-Semite or the terrible things you see on social media about JB Pritzker everyday.
Look, JB Pritzker is probably going to win this race for Governor and Darren Bailey is making a lot of unforced errors that should have been found and cleaned up by his team months ago. That video never should have been on the internet. But let’s just stop the fearmongering. Darren Bailey doesn’t hate Jews. It was a dumb thing to say and I’m sure he knows it now if he didn’t before, but let’s not drag the debate even lower than we’re already at.
Let’s all lower the vitriol with the people we disagree with. A Republican lawmaker told me the other day Pritzker wants to “destroy” downstate. You’ve seen what the left says about Bailey. Everybody take a breath and let’s have real debates about policy instead of a bunch of name calling.