Mike Huckabee Hasn’t Changed Much

Over the past four years, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has become a reliable defender of Donald Trump and Trumpism. He recently aroused the ire of Beth Moore and hundreds of other Twitter users with a  trademark bad dad joke tweet implying that Chinese people get special privilege from corporate America. The tone of the tweet appears to minimize the recent wave of anti-Asian attacks.

He’s back at it again today with this tweet.

Actually, totured reasoning isn’t anything new to Huckabee. The same guy who once half-joked that he wished he could force people at gun point to listen to David Barton’s lectures, once defended the police for shooting two black youth for stealing beer.

While I cannot say how this came to me, I here reproduce a column Huckabee wrote in 1975 which justifies the police shooting of two black young men who were caught stealing beer. One of the young men, 17, was killed. Huckabee actually says the shooting was the fault of the boys. Because they stole beer, they deserved to be shot, he reasoned. In the real world, it is hard to imagine white boys being shot dead for stealing beer.

Huckabee’s insensitivity to race as an issue in this shooting sounds sadly contemporary. White boys stealing some beer — or abusing an animal as Huckabee’s son was once accused of doing — might be slapped on the hands or given probation, but deadly force was used with these black young men.

Huckabee’s defense of the officers was that they couldn’t tell if the young men were black or white. This seems to be a ridiculous assertion. According to Huckabee, the boys were ordered to stop but ran. The officers surely saw them when they ordered them to stop. They were close enough to shoot them.

Stealing beer shouldn’t trigger a death sentence. Instead of calling for an investigation, Huckabee used his influence as a white minister to defend deadly force for a minor crime, quite possibly with racial bias. I realize this is long time ago, but apparently Huckabee hasn’t changed much.

37 thoughts on “Mike Huckabee Hasn’t Changed Much”

  1. GOVERNOR Huckabee?
    Is he still in office, or is this like the President of Mar-a-Lago referring to himself in third person as “The President”, fake Presidential Seal letterhead and all?

    Huckabee who was Jim & Josh Duggar’s “Friend in High Places”?
    Huckabee whose Ivanka-haired daughter was his LORD and Savior’s official spokeshole?

  2. Criticizing Marxism-based ideologies such as Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter movement, does not make anybody a racist or a racially insensitive person, but a critical thinker. Likewise, criticizing those who are criticizing CRT and BLM is also critical thinking, which is good. I read that newspaper snippet from 1975, and it looks like Huckabee was criticizing Critical Race Theory, which has emerged during the 1970s. It’s not about Huckabee but about the same ideology that was being promoting back then and is being promoted now.

    1. How do you connect a movement calling attention to the biased slaughter of African Americans to Marxism?

      1. The biased slaughter of African Americans is just one aspect of this movement. It further calls attention to the entire American society where, according to them, people are not seen as individuals but rather as part of collective groups, oppressed vs. oppressors, in this case, African Americans v. Whites. Most importantly, this movement explains such an inequity in the US because of the existence of capitalism, and calls for an entire remaking and reshaping of an American society, a revolution.

        1. It cannot be denied with any cediability that African Americans, as a group, have been (and continue to be) descriminated against (oppressed) by a mostly white contingent of society. I don’t know why recognizing this would mean the individual is not valued or considered. This sounds like just so much babble.

          There may be a marxist or socialist in BLM, but the group’s mission is as I described it. Charges of Marxism are being made from the alt-right as a way of discrediting them, i.e. doing to them exactly what BLM says is happening. Slavery is just one facet of America’s Original Sin, and it continues today in your own words and those others like you.

          https://www.tampabay.com/news/nation-world/2020/07/22/politifact-is-black-lives-matter-a-marxist-movement/

          1. The article that you provided tells that BLM co-founders identified as Marxists. However, it is not exclusively Marxist movement and I never said that. My problem is that this movement, just like CRT, is saying that all those cases, and there are many of them, where injustices done by whites to people of color, is supposedly the fault of every white person in America, instead of those particular individuals. I don’t agree with that and I have a problem that there is a trend in our society, even among Democratic politicians to label me and others for this disagreement as being either racist or racially insensitive.

          2. That a founder has Marxist ideas does not mean the organization is Marxist. They could be vegan as well but it still doesn’t necessarily make the organization so. As Americans we have to own a huge piece of the blame for institutional racism in this country, the same way we collectively take pride in some of the good things we represent. Until we do that, we can’t fix it. There is nothing new about this concept, therefore denying it could be construed negatively, yes.

          3. That a founder has Marxist ideas does not mean the organization is Marxist. They could be vegan as well but it still doesn’t necessarily make the organization so. As Americans we have to own a huge piece of the blame for institutional racism in this country, the same way we collectively take pride in some of the good things we represent. Until we do that, we can’t fix it. There is nothing new about this concept, therefore denying it could be construed negatively, yes.

          4. Again you misrepresent BLM. While certainly there are likely some members who believe racial injustice is “the fault of every white person in America” that is not the official stance of the entire movement.

            what they argue is that the entire system is racist, in some cases intentionally (ex. laws that target minorities). in other cases it is just a by-product of the fact that whites are in the majority and a mix of other reasons as well.

          5. Charges of Marxism are being made from the alt-right as a way of discrediting them, i.e. doing to them exactly what BLM says is happening.</blockquote.

            It's the same shtick you found in the old John Birch Society:
            Denouncing everyone else as "COMMUNISTS! COMMUNISTS! COMMUNISTS! THEY'RE HERE! THEY'RE THERE! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE! THE COMMUNISTS! THE COMMUNISTS! THE COMMUNISTS!"

        2. It cannot be denied with any cediability that African Americans, as a group, have been (and continue to be) descriminated against (oppressed) by a mostly white contingent of society. I don’t know why recognizing this would mean the individual is not valued or considered. This sounds like just so much babble.

          There may be a marxist or socialist in BLM, but the group’s mission is as I described it. Charges of Marxism are being made from the alt-right as a way of discrediting them, i.e. doing to them exactly what BLM says is happening. Slavery is just one facet of America’s Original Sin, and it continues today in your own words and those others like you.

          https://www.tampabay.com/news/nation-world/2020/07/22/politifact-is-black-lives-matter-a-marxist-movement/

        3. “The biased slaughter of African Americans is just one aspect of this movement.”

          No, not “just one aspect”, the most important aspect of the movement. You have taken lessor arguments by BLM and elevated them to being equivalent to their primary reason to exist: eliminating racial injustice. In doing so, you falsely imply the the entire movement supports “revolution” when they do not.

  3. Mike Huckabee has always, for the decades I have been aware of him, been a nasty mix of Christian huckster and conservative politician. I don’t see that changing.

  4. He writes: “…if our citizenry were not armed to the teeth, it might not be necessary for our policemen to do so (as in England)”

    So…two questions:

    1) were these two young men armed?
    2) Does Mike Hucksterbee support British style gun control?

  5. He writes: “…if our citizenry were not armed to the teeth, it might not be necessary for our policemen to do so (as in England)”

    So…two questions:

    1) were these two young men armed?
    2) Does Mike Hucksterbee support British style gun control?

    1. 2) Does Mike Hucksterbee support British style gun control?

      Only for Thee, NEVER for ME.

  6. “Huckabee hasn’t changed much.”

    I’m gonna disagree here. Huckabee has actually spoken out against the killing of George Floyd. So apparently his racism has shifted from blacks to asians. I’d say that is a significant change.

    anybody want to start a pool on who Huckabee is gonna hate next year?

  7. “Huckabee hasn’t changed much.”

    I’m gonna disagree here. Huckabee has actually spoken out against the killing of George Floyd. So apparently his racism has shifted from blacks to asians. I’d say that is a significant change.

    anybody want to start a pool on who Huckabee is gonna hate next year?

  8. O/T: Julie Roys reports the latest on everybody’s favorite megachurch pastor, Typhoid John.

    “John MacArthur Defends Church’s Failure to Report COVID Outbreak with Problematic Claims”

    “Nowhere in his statement does MacArthur deny that the outbreak occurred, despite the church continuing to meet in-person and without social distancing throughout the outbreak. MacArthur even admits that a “handful” of GCC congregants have been hospitalized or died from COVID. But he claims these congregants were not attending services and could not have contracted the virus at church.

    The Roys Report, however, has evidence that at least one of the GCC congregants who died was attending GCC.”

    MacArthur uncharacteristically missed a month of preaching in late December and January for an undisclosed illness. When he returned to the pulpit, he looked noticeably thinner. And after coughing and struggling to catch his breath, MacArthur pointed to his chest and said: “It’s still in there.”

    https://julieroys.com/john-macarthur-defends-churchs-failure-to-report-covid-outbreak/

    1. And after coughing and struggling to catch his breath, MacArthur pointed to his chest and said: “It’s still in there.”
      He must have been referring to Covid in his chest, because he certainly doesn’t have a heart. Or at least not one of flesh — stone I could believe.

    2. If you haven’t sampled Julie Roy’s site, it’s well worth a look. She’s a pretty hardline conservative evangelical herself, but she is fearless when it comes to reporting on the shenanigans of the evangelical community’s movers and shakers.

      The comment section is a blast too, with plenty of support for her work, but there’s also a bunch of Trumpian hardliners who believe she’s betraying the conservative evangelical cause by airing their dirty laundry in public, and are convinced she’s running a bunch of vendettas against them.

    3. MacArthur uncharacteristically missed a month of preaching in late December and January for an undisclosed illness.

      “Undisclosed illness (cough cough cough)” as in “The Chinese COMMUNIST Hoax”?

  9. I have long thought Beth Moore was a bit short-sighted and naïve; now I’m certain of it. The Huckster will never change because he does his level best to stay off the Road to Damascus.

  10. Isn’t Huckabee writing a parody about the inconsistency of those who will object to the GA voter law but do nothing about totalitarianism in China because China brings a lot of money to them? Why is China let off the hook while GA is being hammered?

    1. Ok… but I bet there’d be a better way to say that thing, so that nobody, even the most biased anti-conservative, anti-Huckebee person would understand that point (if that’s what he was trying to do…)

      1. Perhaps, but parody and irony is a well-known way to make a point. The idea that someone is a racist because they mention a particular ethnicity or nationality is a strange idea to be sure. No reasonable definition of racist would apply here. Huckabee’s point seems clearly a parody or irony and it would be hard to miss that, I think. And the bigger point is even more important.

        It also reminds me that calling COVID the China virus or the Wuhan virus was racist, but every news organization did it early. And now we have a British variant and a South African variant and no one that I have seen thinks that it is racist to call them that. The bottom line is that our thinking skills have greatly eroded as a society and our civic discourse is the worse for it.

        1. “I love the poorly educated!”
          — Donald J Trump (Praise His Holy Name)

          1. Your “Praise His Holy Name” is far more generous that I would do but to each their own.

            I think Trump probably meant “less educated” although “poorly educated” certainly describes a lot of people. His comment was in a list of people he was talking about in winning the Nevada primary. In which he identified evangelical, young, old, highly educated, and poorly educated. He also identified Hispanics. The point was that he won every demographic in that primary.

            But the truth is that politicians in general love them and it shows in all the BS that politicians shovel that the poorly educated believe. Democrats depend every day on people being poorly or less educated, just like the GOP does. They depend on people not knowing much and not being able to think for themselves. It’s a problem with politicians, not with left or right.

          2. Your “Praise His Holy Name” is far more generous that I would do but to each their own.

            I think Trump probably meant “less educated” although “poorly educated” certainly describes a lot of people. His comment was in a list of people he was talking about in winning the Nevada primary. In which he identified evangelical, young, old, highly educated, and poorly educated. He also identified Hispanics. The point was that he won every demographic in that primary.

            But the truth is that politicians in general love them and it shows in all the BS that politicians shovel that the poorly educated believe. Democrats depend every day on people being poorly or less educated, just like the GOP does. They depend on people not knowing much and not being able to think for themselves. It’s a problem with politicians, not with left or right.

        2. “I love the poorly educated!”
          — Donald J Trump (Praise His Holy Name)

        3. FWIW, the South Africans I know
          (a) are not of one race – there are multiple races represented in South Africa, just like everywhere else; and
          (b) take great care to explain that the variant was first identified in South Africa because they had the technology to isolate it, but the variant is known as B1351.
          So, maybe the people who are labeled – whether maliciously or not – don’t like it, and that other people think they shouldn’t mind is not relevant.

      2. A further point: the latest vote suppression measures in GA are directly a matter for Americans.

  11. I’d say Huckabee made a damn good case for strict gun control as part of his racism there.

  12. Huckabee’s son didn’t “abuse an animal” he literally lynched a pet dog.

    1. I read somewhere that it was a stray, not a pet–not that that makes it any better. Huckabee’s kids are messed up.

  13. In 1975 we still had the “fleeing forcible felon” rule, which authorized the police to use deadly force against, well, fleeing forcible felon even if he was unarmed. Since this involved burglary, a felony, I expect the police were not punished for this episode.

    Some years later, the Supreme Court held that you could only employ deadly force to a fleeing suspect if that suspect was armed with a deadly weapon.

    Such has the nation’s love of property long been, that the death penalty for petty theft seemed downright reasonable. And, fond as I am of Arkansas in general and Little Rock in particular, I don’t doubt that the result here would have been different if the burglars were local white high school boys.

    More depressing is my suspicion that many folks today think it still reasonable to apply deadly force against an unarmed thief. Especially a black one.

  14. Huckabee owns the deaths of 4 police officers in Lakewood, Wa., who were killed by a lifelong criminal that Huckabee released on nothing more than a jailhouse conversion story. Because no criminal would ever make up a story like that, or something.. He’s a self serving, narcissistic moron..

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