“The founders were imperfect geniuses. They wrote a lot of our bigotries into [the Constitution]. … If you think about how we have overcome those things, it’s always been by creating, first, calls to consciousness, speaking truth about the injustices, and then bringing together those uncommon coalitions.” —Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ)

Ironically, the above quote by declared Democrat presidential candidate Cory Booker comes from an NPR interview speaking to how the New Jersey senator is going bring people together. One suspects that calling the Constitution a document that contains “bigotries” isn’t the best place to begin. Unsurprisingly, NPR did ask Booker to itemize those “calls to consciousness,” and The Washington Free Beacon’s request for same has not been returned.

For decades, the Left has pointed to that clause as evidence the Constitution is a bigoted document. For those same decades, the Left has remained willfully ignorant — or purposefully deceitful — with regard to the history behind that clause. “The three-fifths rule for counting slaves is often misunderstood,” The Heritage Foundation explains. “When the Constitutional Convention debated the issue of how to count population for the purposes of representation, the Southern delegates to the Convention would have been pleased if nonvoting slaves had been counted as full persons. That way, the Southern states would have had a greater representation in the House of Representatives. In contrast, some Northern delegates resisted counting slaves at all” (italics original).

Though imperfect, the three-fifths compromise allowed for the recognition of slaves a human beings, the ratification of the Constitution, and the creation of the union. A bloody Civil War to preserve that union ultimately precipitated the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution — banning slavery, guaranteeing due process and equal protection to former slaves, and granting black Americans the right to vote, respectively.

No compromise, no union.

If Booker wants to talk honestly about bigotries, acknowledging his own party’s long history of them would be a great place to start. Like the fact that Democrats opposed those amendments, or that there were 20 Democrat platforms that either supported segregation outright, or were silent on the subject, from 1868 through 1948. Or that the Democratic Convention of 1924 held in Madison Square Garden was known as the “Klanbake” where a plank condemning KKK violence was defeated outright. Or that it was Democrat Commissioner of Public Safety Bull Conner who set dogs and water hoses on black protesters in 1963 in Birmingham, or that Democrat Governor and ardent segregationist Ross Robert Barnett was the man who denied James Meredith admission to the all-white University of Mississippi in 1962. He might even mention that, percentage-wise, more Republicans voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act than Democrats — which passed despite a 57-day filibuster led by former KKK member and Democrat Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV).

The same Robert Byrd Democrats referred to as the “conscience of the Senate.”

Instead, Booker spoke to the “rank racist rhetoric” used by Donald Trump during the immigration debate. And while he insisted America is “a nation of conscience, and I found partners on the other side of the aisle who agree with me on these issues,” he wants term limits for Supreme Court justices because he believes the GOP “stole a Supreme Court seat,” when Republicans exercised their constitutional prerogative to provide or withhold their advice and consent regarding appointees to the federal bench.

The GOP did so because it was a presidential election year, and argued the voters should have a say — and they cited Joe Biden’s 1992 statement of precisely the same reasoning as their rationale for doing so.

Booker is also disenchanted with “rugged individualism.” “I love rugged individualism and self-reliance. But rugged individualism didn’t get us to the moon,” he said. “It didn’t beat the Nazis or Jim Crow.”

Jim Crow? Once again, facts are stubborn things. The Jim Crow era, during which segregation was strictly enforced between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 right up to the civil-rights marches of the 1960s — often with lynchings and murder when police efforts fell short — was a political effort wholly owned by Democrats and the faction of their party known as “Dixiecrats.”

Booker’s distaste for rugged individualism per se is even more alarming, yet he is in lockstep with a Democrat Party whose appetite for mob rule — and permanent control — is undeniable. This is the party that wants to pack the Supreme Court, abolish the Electoral College, eviscerate federalism, lower the voting age to 16, and give noncitizens the right to vote.

And yet Booker still insists he’s all about unity. “In all of my elections that I’ve had, I’m not trying to beat Republicans; I’m trying to unite Americans,” he said on Martin Luther King Day. “Because there’s not a right or left way to move forward. You move forward by moving forward.”

Apparently the presumption of innocence isn’t part of the “moving forward” equation. During the Brett Kavanaugh nomination hearings, Booker insisted that “whether he is innocent or guilty,” it is time to “move on” to another Supreme Court nominee. At a press conference prior to the confirmation process, he joined Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in asserting that supporting Kavanaugh made one “complicit in the evil.”

After the hearing and prior to the 2018 election, Booker doubled down, insisting the Kavanaugh’s impeachment would be on the table if Democrats take control of one or both Houses of Congress.

Booker is entitled to believe whatever he wants. But as his campaign unfolds, he should be held to account to name the specific “bigotries” in the Constitution to which he was referring. Illuminate us all, Mr. Booker.

“Moving forward” demands nothing less.