What happens when you elect people to office who have only the most tenuous grip on reality, and actually think that Rachel Levine is a female admiral, Lia Thomas is a champion female swimmer, and Old Joe Biden is a competent, capable president of the United States? They’re finding out the hard way in Newark, N.J., these days. The city was about to become a Sister City with the nation of Kailasa and sign a cultural trade agreement with Kailasa representatives, but then a small detail ended up ruining the party: Kailasa doesn’t exist. It’s a fictional place.
Earlier this year, it was full speed ahead. In January, the India Posts English site, which offers mechanized translations of news items from the Indian press, posted a story from the Tamil-language site Dinamani: “Bilateral agreement between the United States and Kailasa!” — complete with exclamation point. The article noted that Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (son of the famed race-resentment poet Amiri Baraka) and other Newark officials had signed a “Bilateral Code of Ethics Agreement” at Newark’s City Hall with Kailasa’s Permanent Ambassador to the United Nations, Vijayapriya Nithyananda, and other representatives of Kailasa. But when you click on the link to the Tamil original, it takes you to a Tamil article all about how the whole thing was a scam, and Newark got fooled.
CBS News reported Wednesday that “the city of Newark is admitting it got scammed,” but “the city only found out about the fraud after it held an official ceremony for it.” Baraka “invited what he thought was the Hindu nation of Kailasa to Newark’s City Hall for a cultural trade agreement, but it turns out Kailasa is no nation at all; it’s a fake.” Newark residents are about as embarrassed by all this as one would expect. One said simply, “Very embarrassing for the city.” You can say that again. Another added, “I truly don’t even have words for it.” No worries: I do. Here are some of them: it’s not just an embarrassment, it’s a cautionary tale. And it’s not just a cautionary tale of what happens when you don’t do your homework. It’s a cautionary tale of what happens when you elect people because of their racial or ethnic identity rather than because of their ability to do the job. It’s a cautionary tale of what happens when you elect people who value posturing to favored groups over recognizing reality and making hard choices accordingly.
Another Newark resident said, “I’m really sorry for the city that they got duped in that way.” Sure. But tomorrow, a man who claims to be a woman could walk into Newark City Hall and start ranting about transgender rights, and neither Ras Baraka nor any other Newark official would say, “Wait a minute. You’re not really a woman. You’re just deceiving yourself and others, and endorsing the irreversible mutilation of human beings and their lifelong dependency on pharmaceuticals in pursuit of a delusion.” If Baraka did ever dare to say such a thing to a “trans woman” or some other “gender fluid” person, he would be roundly denounced as transphobic, hateful, and outside the bounds of acceptable behavior. If, on the other hand, Ras Baraka went along with the game and pretended that some guy in a dress and makeup was a woman, no one would dare say he was being “duped.” But that would be exactly what was happening.
CBS adds that “though it has a detailed website, ‘Kailasa’ has no real government. It’s the brainchild of Swami Nithyananda, a notorious scam artist and fugitive from India who has been on the run from rape charges since 2019.” However, no one bothered to check. As one Newark resident asked, “Whose job was it to do a simple Google search? No one in City Hall, not one person did a Google search, so maybe we need a transformation of City Hall ’cause not one person said, let me go and Google and figure out this was a fake city.”
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Yes, we do need a transformation of Newark City Hall, and other city halls as well, and a far more thoroughgoing one than that Newark resident or others likely realize. This Kailasa incident is embarrassing, but it’s just the sort of thing that is going to happen when an entire political faction decides that reality is optional. Now Newark is trying to clean up the damage: CBS notes that “a few days after the papers were signed, City Council rescinded the agreement.” Newark City Councilman Luis Quintana declared, “This is an oversight, cannot happen any longer.”
Why, sure it can. It can happen and it will happen, in all kinds of ways, as long as the Left continues its war on reality. And that war shows no sign of abating anytime soon.
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