NEWSWEEK: THE POW-MIA FLAG IS TOTALLY RACIST: “It’s Tuesday, so you know what that means: it’s time to get outraged about something stupid and inconsequential,” Sean Davis wrote yesterday at the Federalist in response:

If you’re wondering where the proof is of the POW-MIA flag’s racist heritage, you’re not alone. It turns out there is none, nor does the author attempt to make anything approaching an argument on the topic. At least outlets like Salon and Slate humor their readers with convoluted arguments that make no sense. Newsweek, accurately realizing that it’s probably not worth the effort to cobble together anything approaching coherent content for what’s left of its dwindling readership, apparently figured that stupid headlines are even cheaper to produce than stupid articles.

Since late 2007, when Barack Obama overtook Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential campaign, it’s been obvious that anyone or anything can be temporarily weaponized as racist. Bill, Hillary, and even their rank-and-file Democratic primary voters were declared racist in 2007 in 2008; this year, Bill and Hillary are being offered a ticket back to the White House in 2017. (Engraved by those who declared “Hillary ‘White Power Clinton” as “spouting Klan-style talking points” in 2008.) John McCain was declared racist in 2008, and then welcomed back to polite society as soon as he returned to bashing his fellow Republicans. Mitt Romney was smeared as racist, and then once the 2012 campaign was over, was seen as the GOP’s sane, sensible elder statesman. Words such as “golf” and “Chicago” were declared racist until they weren’t. And now, for no particular reason other than click bait, the POW-MIA flag is racist.

I hope Democrats understand that implications of their scorched earth campaign, which has long since denuded the R-word of the sting it once carried: Ultimately, if everything is potentially racist, then in reality, nothing is.