Marc A. Thiessen, "Republicans should follow Ben Carson’s lead on Black Lives Matter" (17 August 2015), The Washington Post (2015), Washington, D.C.

Republicans who encounter Black Lives Matter protesters should resist the temptation to go Chris Christie on them. Instead, they should follow the lead of Ben Carson and use the protests as an opportunity to point out that the Democratic policies of the Obama era are failing our most vulnerable citizens. Carson didn’t wait for the protesters to come to him. He took his campaign to Harlem last week to make the case that the GOP has better solutions for the challenges of poverty, dependency and lack of mobility... That is precisely the message every Republican candidate should be delivering. When confronted by Black Lives Matter protesters, Republicans should declare that they fully agree — black lives do matter — but that the policies of the past seven years have not made black lives better. They should point out that the African American youth unemployment rate in July 2015 was 31 percent — more than double that of whites, at 14.4 percent. To put that figure in perspective, in 1932 — the very worst point of the Great Depression — the national unemployment rate was 22.9 percent. So for young black men and women today, the employment rates of the Great Depression would be a step up from those of the Obama 'recovery'.

— Marc A. Thiessen

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Republicans who encounter Black Lives Matter protesters should resist the temptation to go Chris Christie on them. Instead, they should follow the lead of Ben Carson and use the protests as an opportunity to point out that the Democratic policies of the Obama era are failing our most vulnerable citizens. Carson didn’t wait for the protesters to come to him. He took his campaign to Harlem last week to make the case that the GOP has better solutions for the challenges of poverty, dependency and lack of mobility... That is precisely the message every Republican candidate should be delivering. When confronted by Black Lives Matter protesters, Republicans should declare that they fully agree — black lives do matter — but that the policies of the past seven years have not made black lives better. They should point out that the African American youth unemployment rate in July 2015 was 31 percent — more than double that of whites, at 14.4 percent. To put that figure in perspective, in 1932 — the very worst point of the Great Depression — the national unemployment rate was 22.9 percent. So for young black men and women today, the employment rates of the Great Depression would be a step up from those of the Obama 'recovery'." in the context of "Marc A. Thiessen, "Republicans should follow Ben Carson’s lead on Black Lives Matter" (17 August 2015), The Washington Post (2015), Washington, D.C." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Ben Carson" (Quotes about Carson) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Ben Carson

About Ben Carson

Benjamin Solomon "Ben" Carson, Sr. (born September 18, 1951) is an American retired neurosurgeon, author, and politician who served as the 17th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2017 to 2021. He was a candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 Republican primaries. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, by President George W. Bush in 2008.