RUY TEIXEIRA: The Democrats’ White Liberal Problem. It’s their party now:

And no wonder one still searches in vain for the Democratic politician willing to venture a true “Sister Souljah moment.” Recall the original Sister Souljah moment that occurred in June 1992, when Bill Clinton, speaking at a gathering for Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, commented on a statement rapper/activist Sister Souljah had made in an interview with The Washington Post. In the interview, she replied to a question about whether black-on-white violence in the 1992 LA riots was a “wise, reasoned action” as follows:

Yeah, it was wise. I mean, if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?…White people, this government and that mayor were well aware of the fact that black people were dying every day in Los Angeles under gang violence. So if you’re a gang member and you would normally be killing somebody, why not kill a white person?

Clinton’s comment on this to the Rainbow Coalition was:

You had a rap singer here last night [on a panel] named Sister Souljah…Her comments before and after Los Angeles were filled with a kind of hatred that you do not honor today and tonight. Just listen to this, what she said: She told The Washington Post about a month ago, and I quote, ‘If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?…So if you’re a gang member and you would normally be killing somebody, why not kill a white person?

If you took the words ‘white’ and ‘black’ and reversed them, you might think David Duke [founder of a Louisiana-based KKK organization] was giving that speech.

At the time, Democrats were suffering from a highly negative image of being soft on crime and public disorder and practicing a racial double standard (sound familiar?). Given what Clinton said and where he said it (to the Rainbow Coalition), his message was crystal clear: Democrats should not tolerate violence and inflammatory rhetoric, including any that comes from members of their own coalition. There should be no double standards.

Clinton was relentlessly attacked by Jackson and other figures on the party’s left for his apostasy. But normie voters got the message. Here was a different kind of Democrat who was willing to throw obvious Democratic lunacy over the side. Clinton withstood the blowback and he—and his party—reaped the reward.

At the conclusion of their chapter on Clinton’s Sister Souljah moment and his distancing of Jesse Jackson, in Mad As Hell, Revolt at the Ballot Box, 1992, Jack Germond and Jules Witcover wrote:

In political terms, however, the issue was less whether Clinton could enlist heavy black support without Jesse Jackson than whether he could win more support from Southern whites and Reagan Democrats in the North by taking on Jackson so directly and visibly. As the campaign wore on, it became apparent that, premeditated or not, the Clinton posture toward Jackson resonated throughout the electorate. As Stephanopoulos put it later, “It stood for something larger than what it was”—dramatic evidence this was a “different kind of Democrat.”

We heard about it repeatedly from Democrats in the South all through the general election campaign. As Al LaPierre, executive director of the party in Alabama, recalled: “People would come up to me and say, ‘Dammit, we’ve finally done something right. . . . It was really amazing that one instance worked so well.’” And we heard it from blue-collar workers in the industrial states outside the South. Kevin Mullaney, an electrician in North Philadelphia, later told one of us, “The day he told off that fucking Jackson is the day he got my vote.”

But then, that’s why it’s still called the “Sister Souljah moment” — has one occurred on the left since? As Teixeira writes, “It’s hard to imagine a contemporary Democratic politician being willing to risk such a confrontational attack on party orthodoxy. Today’s massive contingent of white liberals, herded along by their opinion leaders and institutions, are likely to rise up in unison to punish such apostasy. That key change makes the intra-party cost-benefit calculus of such a move far different—far more negative—than in Clinton’s day. So we don’t see them.”