The conversation on the nomination of Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions is a good indicator that the left learned nothing from the 2016 election. Race-baiting is their bread and butter, and it will continue to shape their politics going forward. This much is clear.

I hope all Americans, whatever their political affiliation, continue to reject it as emphatically as they did in the last election.

As a Hispanic myself, I am ashamed by the phoniness of it all. A recent Fox News op-ed piece started out making the “Jeff Sessions is a racist” charge by making fun of the distinguished senator’s name. “The name Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III sounds like a character in a Civil War drama,” was the first sentence of Raul Reyes’ piece. How ironic… and embarrassing.

But here is the good news. The left’s lies have caught up with them. Calling every Republican a racist does not work anymore. That’s how they derailed Jeff Sessions’ judicial nomination in 1986, despite what the clear evidence showed. However, it won’t work this time.

They want to define a man based on some off-the-cuff comment, while ignoring an entire lifetime of public service because he disagrees with them on policy.

The reality is that for more than 40 years, since he first served in the United States Army Reserve in 1973, Sen. Sessions has served the American people with distinction.

He spent two years as Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama (1975-1977) and then served for 12 years as the United States Attorney for Alabama’s Southern District (1981-1993). He was then elected Alabama Attorney General in 1995, serving until being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1997, where he has served ever since.

Others have written about his positive record in several civil rights cases. Liberal publications, like the Atlantic, have had to admit the facts, even as they try to do their part to spin the record according to the left’s marching orders.

The Atlantic does not dispute that Sessions, “‘brought the first anti-voter suppression lawsuit in the history of the Department of Justice,’ in the 1983 case U.S. v. Conecuh County, when ‘Sessions sued white Conecuh County election officials, including the Chair of the local Republican Party.’” “Sessions is indeed listed on the filing,” they admit. But then they try to minimize his involvement because he was not the “lead” in the case. They try to do the same with other cases, like U.S. v. Dallas County Commission, where Sen. Sessions helped the civil rights cause.

That’s when you know facts do not fit the narrative they are trying to create. Even the ultra-liberal Salon had to acknowledge some of the facts, running this headline: “Calling Jeff Sessions ‘racist’ conveniently ignores the work he’s done for Alabama’s black community,” highlighting yet another part of the rich history of compassion in public service that Sen. Sessions has not only talked about, but lived.

Sessions’ stellar record was highlighted in a powerful letter by former attorneys general, including Ed Meese, William Barr, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, and Michael Mukasey. They wrote:

Senator Sessions has been intimately involved in assuring that even as the Department combats the scourge of illegal drugs, the penalties imposed on defendants do not unfairly impact minority communities. …

As the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, Senator Sessions worked hard to protect vulnerable victims, particularly children.

It is why prominent civil rights figures have come out to support him, despite the incredible pressure to conform to the left, which media allies always put on minority leaders to toe the line.

Alabama Democratic Senate minority leader Sen. Quinton Ross said, “We’ve spoken about everything from Civil Rights to race relations, and we agree that as Christian men our hearts and minds are focused on doing right by all people.”

Dr. Alveda King, niece of the great civil rights leader and reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., defended Sessions and said, “Playing the race card used to work because nobody could find out the truth behind the matter.”

Amen to that. The charges of racism from the left are hollow to the core. They have actually hurt the cause of civil rights, and I hope the American people continue to reject them by supporting the nomination of Jeff Sessions to be our next U.S. attorney general.