Joe – Thank you. Your panel discussion of the Berkley/Antifa/Snowflake “controversy” reminded me why of I don’t watch morning news programs. It is too annoying to work all day while I’m debating with you in my head.
It is simultaneously humorous and frustrating that the newfound awareness of the “Antifa” is instant Republican fodder.
Conveniently, now in the “Summer of Trump 2017” – the conservative media is eager to focus on the very few liberals who are violent – picking up on the NRA’s narrative du jour. Now, thanks to the “Antifa’s” actions, Republicans can choose not to face the well-organized and entrenched evil of white supremacy in America or how it is now the true, active, and very public base of the Republican Party because of a very few liberals who gained notoriety.
I always denounce threatening words and threatening actions and physical violence regardless of the source. But I know that this white nationalist threat exists in every corner of the US. I don’t live in a bubble. The people who ignore this hateful reality are in the ones in a bubble. And the people who discuss it so glibly are the “mentally stunted”.
I’m 48 years old and in my lifetime, I have heard no condemnation of racism by Republicans that is backed up by action. Democrats haven’t done enough either. But I have never seen Republicans call for more thorough investigations and prosecutions when synagogues and mosques targeted and burned or when white pro-life activists threaten the lives of doctors and commit assault against legally operating abortion providers.
Republican politicians consistently turn a blind eye when it suits them – further infantilizing the white working class by not owning up to their support of systemic racism in our communities and our culture.
But I’m in a liberal bubble. Sigh.
A few Republican politicians have come forward to denounce the KKK, but have you debated on your show why they likely won’t change laws to actually protect people and why they certainly won’t change the policies that continue to keep people divided by race? Until they do that, violence will increase, because they are pitting us against each other.
Then, Joe, you talked about law and order. Again – do you hear that? That’s the echo of the right-wing echo-chamber messaging.
Did you care when, earlier this year, a 2006 Department of Homeland Security study was reported to find that “domestic terrorism investigations focused on militia extremists, white supremacist extremists, and sovereign citizen extremists often have identified active links to law enforcement officers”? And that white supremacists were “avoiding overt displays of their beliefs” to gain “employment with law enforcement agencies”?
Did you or any other Republican object when Trump gave the DOJ direction to stop pursuing terrorism investigations by Neo-Nazis and only focus on Islamic terrorists? I heard crickets from my bubble. That was a clear-as-day green light for Neo-Nazis and a signal that law enforcement would once again turn a blind eye to crimes against minorities and our democracy.
It was a far cry from the small progress made at the DOJ to fairly represent people equally under the law during Obama’s administration, which Republicans were chomping at the bit to undo. Did any Republicans fight for racial equality during the confirmation process of Trump’s nominees? No. They stuck together and marched in almost perfect time, happy to remove so many African-Americans from leadership positions.
It’s a sad day for me when I realize that even my “moderate” Republican friends, who are similar to you, will ignore all that and just be glad to jump on Antifa actions and smear liberals, while only reservedly shaking their heads and give a quiet “oh, jeez, that’s terrible” at violence by bad white cops or atrocious white nationalists.
And, oh! The “free speech” hand-wringing from you and your panel about right-leaning speakers who were supposedly deprived of their first amendment rights and the fate of liberal college students.
Fake News Alert! A college cancelling a speaker is not “limiting their free speech.” These well-financed and well-represented speech-givers have ample media outlets, the internet, podcasts, and more. What the universities are taking away is money and promotion and their name. And that is within their rights.
The people and students protesting aren’t limiting free speech. They are rejecting the content of that speech. And that protest is their free speech!
Of course, there should be no violence – but your faux concern about free speech – please. Republicans just don’t like it when people tell them they aren’t wanted. They can’t seem to handle rejection (i.e. reality) as well as us liberal snowflakes.
And – it keeps making me laugh – your offer to send “some people” to help Berkeley protect the Alt Right demonstrators? Forgive me – I must have missed it – did you offer to send some people to Charlottesville to protect the Jews and Christians in their places of worship? Did you send “some people” to protect protesters in Ferguson? In Baltimore? Funny how you want to protect the Alt Right’s rights, isn’t it?
When the organizer of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” march, Jason Kessler, wanted to give a press conference after the unfortunate events that weekend, he was provided a microphone and the press was waiting for him – with bated breath – ready to report his free speech to the world.
Kessler was shouted down by an opponent and then complained that free speech is dead. Someone stole the spot light during his moment of hateful glory. Boo hoo hoo! Talk about a snowflake. Racists and their supporters have been shouting down and taking away the mic from black people for decades.
Actually Joe, free speech is not dead in Berkeley because of liberals – it just doesn’t ONLY belong to Republicans.
I know, Joe, you are smarter than me – reading the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times – as a child. RME. You are more elitist than me. You are slicker than me. Your hair stands taller than mine. But I’m not living in a bubble because I don’t want to listen to right wing ideology. I hear it, I see it, and I reject it.
(Sources: NRA.com, Reuters, Intercept/IBT, Morning Joe)