When all else fails for the left, they drag out the race card. Why not? It’s worked in the past, ushering in our first black president in 2008. At least that’s how Barack Obama is described. In reality he is only half black, with a black father (officially the Kenyan Barack Senior, or possibly Frank Marshall Davis, according to some). His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was as white as Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren.

Democrats and their media allies are floundering in the face of a covfefe-strength hurricane of great economic news and an incumbent president who is fulfilling his campaign promises. What he hasn’t yet accomplished is not for lack of trying; instead the unfinished agenda is attributable to a hostile Congress and Judiciary.

The media of the time called for the half-white portion of Obama’s heritage to be ignored rather than muddy the waters of his being America’s first black president. Yet during the Obama presidency, for different political reasoning the media went out of its way to make a point of the mixed heritage of another individual, specifically George Zimmerman.

The situation was George killing, in self-defense, the paragon of virtue and honor, black teenager Trayvon Martin, prompting the New York Times, and then other media to refer to Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic”.

From the Huffington Post, critiquing CNN’s repeated use of the expression: “By labeling Zimmerman a ‘white Hispanic,’ they serve their obvious political bias, but also they cynically serve their financial interests by keeping the race angle as part of the story’s subtext.”

The situation called for it, creating a racial controversy when it was anything but. “Interestingly, CNN never referred to their former host, Rick Sanchez, as a ‘white Hispanic.’ Wonder why.” For the same reason Obama was never referred to as a “white black” or a “white African American”.

This is situational racism, calling someone or something racist when it suits the particular situation at hand, even if it wasn’t considered racist previously. Democrats and the media practice situational racism regularly, as a means of advancing their agenda, shutting down opposing voices, and pandering to minorities whose votes they desperately need. Let’s look at several recent examples.

Nike, not content to sell shoes to Americans of all political persuasions, stepped in it again via their vice president for social consciousness, Colin Kaepernick. Nike made a special edition Betsy Ross flag shoe for Independence Day but Kaepernick objected to the flag as being racist and appealing to white nationalist groups. Nike promptly recalled the shoe to virtue signal their wokeness over such a symbol of hatred.

MSNBC regular and Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson, “related the flag to other symbols of hate such as the Nazi swastika and burning crosses.” Why? Because the situation called for it. Anything to fan the flames of racism at a time when minority unemployment is at an all-time low in advance of a presidential election.

Yet the situation was different just a few years ago when the left was celebrating the first black president. In 2013, behind Barack Obama at his second inaugural, flew not one, but two Betsy Ross flags.

Screen grab from Twitter

This same so-called Nazi flag also flew at his 2009 inaugural. Where were the cries of racism? Why wasn’t Obama, who is half white, castigated for flying a symbol of white supremacy? It was a different situation and not one where racism needed to be applied.

Now take President Trump, who according to cable news is the biggest racist who ever walked the earth. If you look up “racist” in the dictionary, Trump’s face will be next to the definition. Soviet Union honeymooner Bernie Sanders confirmed the settled science on Donald Trump’s racism, recently saying Trump is a, "racist, sexist, homophobe and religious bigot." Case closed, right?

For the current situation of a successful and popular president running for reelection, Democrats have nothing to offer voters aside from unaffordable giveaway programs and calling Trump names. What about the past situation when Trump was a private citizen, keeping his nose out of politics, contributing generously to Democrats? Say, in 1997.

That was the year Donald Trump helped launch Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition Wall Street Project. Funny how Trump wasn’t a racist or a religious bigot as he was received so warmly by two black religious leaders, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (see this). Beside the two “reverends”, there were other black gentlemen who didn’t appear uncomfortable around the racist Trump. Again, a different situation. That time Reverend Jackson had his hand out for money; today it’s about electoral politics. When exactly did Donald Trump become such a racist?

Lastly is the story of Joe Biden, who served as a Democrat senator for 26 years before serving as the vice-president to Barack Obama, our first half-black president. During those 34 years, one of the things he was never accused of was being a racist. A plagiarist perhaps, but despite his white privilege, Joe was “down for the struggle” and having to defend himself after being called a racist by Kamala Harris was nothing he ever envisioned.

She didn’t directly call him a racist during the recent debates, but used a backhanded way of doing it by saying, “I do not believe you are a racist”, but… Just like asking a man when he stopped beating his wife.

Today is a different situation. When Joe was a loyal Democrat apparatchik his views on busing or whether he got along with white segregationist senators was irrelevant. But when running for the Democrat party nomination in the age of #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo, the situation has changed and now all of a sudden, Joe Biden is a racist. Welcome to Donald Trump’s world.

Expect to see more of this, from situational racism to situational sexism, or any other “ism” for that matter. When it is politically expedient, the tables turn, and loyal leftists may suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of the social justice fence.

When you stand for nothing, it’s easy to live in the moment, from one situation to the next, outrage burning in the eyes of the beholder, regardless of the past. After Joe Biden, who’s next?

Brian C Joondeph, MD, is a Denver based physician and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in American Thinker, Daily Caller, and other publications. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.