When former President Donald Trump was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020, not once but three times, it looked like it finally might be the end of the line for the prestigious award. After all, the highest of the Nobel prizes has been somewhat controversial for decades now.
But apparently, Trump being honored with a serious nomination was the last straw for the political left. Of course, there was plenty of squawking about the nomination being ridiculous. But there was also talk of nearly canceling the award in its entirety.
According to The Atlantic’s Graeme Wood, “Giving the peace prize to no one at all is a tradition the Nobel Committee should revive, perhaps on a permanent basis. The record of achievement of the peace laureates is so spotty, and the rationales for their awards so eclectic, that the committee should take a long break to consider whether peace is a category coherent enough to be worth recognizing.”
Now, while I disagree that efforts of peace should be ignored, Wood does make a fair point: the committee’s decisions of the past have not always seemed earned.
Take Barack Obama’s winning of the award in 2009 for doing nothing but being the first black man to win the US presidential election. Then there is the award given to Al Gore before that for merely making a documentary and poorly done one at that.
And of course, we can’t forget about such winners as the Palestinian leader and terrorist Yasser Arafat in 1994 or communist leader of Vietnam Le Duc Tho years earlier.
But at least President Trump was actually making peace deals, and some rather big ones at that.
Of course, we all knew he’d never actually win the award. The committee is far too left-leaning to allow that to ever happen.
But it seems this year, those who shouted the committee’s demise because of a mere mention of Trump are jumping right back on the politicization of the award bandwagon.
So who is being nominated for 2021?
Well, Black Lives Matter, of course.
You know, the group that incited riot after not-so-peaceful protest all summer long in 2020 and has only increased the division and hate within our nation’s borders!
But according to Norwegian Member of Parliament Petter Eide, the group has “become a very important worldwide movement to fight racial injustice.”
He told The Guardian on Friday, “I find that one of the key challenges we have seen in America, but also in Europe and Asia, is the kind of increasing conflict based on inequality. Black Lives Matter has become a very important worldwide movement to fight racial injustice. They have had a tremendous achievement in raising global awareness and consciousness about racial injustice.”
So what about all those protests and riots carried out in their name? Shouldn’t that prove that the group isn’t so concerned with peach or even equality but only out for their own agenda?
Well, according to Eide, “Studies have shown that most of the demonstrations organized by Black Lives Matter have peaceful. Of course there have been incidents, but most of them have been caused by the activities of either the police or counter-protesters.”
Naturally, the rather left-leaning Guardian backed up this claim, stating that some 93 percent of all supposed protests organized by the group were “peaceful” in nature. They also insinuated that “in many cases,” if damages or violence occurred, it was only after law enforcement or right-wing groups got involved.
Is that why some $2 billion in insurance claims have been filed after these “demonstrations?” To put this into perspective, as of September, Axios reported that the damages were officially greater than any other series of riots in US history.
And as Loretta L. Worters of the Insurance Information Institute told the outlet, “It’s not just happening in one city or state – it’s all over the country. And this is still happening, so the losses could be significantly more. And it’s worth noting that’s insurance claims, not damages.”
She explained that just because a claim wasn’t filed doesn’t mean damage didn’t’ happen. “Indeed, 75 percent of US businesses are under-insured and about 40 percent of small businesses have no insurance at all. Their untold millions in losses don’t show up in the $2 billion figure.”
And yet, someone wants us to believe that the protests and riots that caused all this damage, including loss of life in some cases, was meant to encourage peace?
Maybe it’s time the committee takes up that tradition of no winners, after all.