Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
In case you didn’t know it, the mainstream media wants you to think that President Donald Trump is bad. I’m pretty sure you already knew that, though. I mean, I know you understood what the media wanted you to believe.
While Trump isn’t perfect by any stretch, I find that I regularly have to defend them against ridiculous charges with no basis on reality.
For example, did you know that “white mob violence” has returned thanks to Trump? That’s what Newsweek seems to argue.
White mobs have once again moved out of the shadows and into the limelight during this Trump moment. Militia movements and right-wing extremists are starting to turn out in force to intimidate racial justice and anti-Trump demonstrators. Predominantly white and often explicitly racist, these groups now regularly use social media to threaten their adversaries. This election season, they’re gearing up to defend their president with an astonishing degree of support from Republican Party regulars.
According to a January 2020 survey by political scientist Larry Bartels, most Republicans believe “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” More than 40 percent agree that “a time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands.” In a recent essay on his survey’s findings, Bartels concludes that ethnic antagonism “has a substantial negative effect on Republicans’ commitment to democracy.”
As the 2020 election nears, that party is also desperately trying to flip the script by using fear of “their mobs” and “Antifa terrorists” to drive its base to the polls. “We have a Marxist mob perpetrate historic levels of violence & disorder in major American cities,”tweeted Florida Senator Marco Rubio in response to the Democratic National Convention in August. Not to be outdone, the president promptly said, “I’m the only thing standing between the American dream and total anarchy, madness, and chaos.”
Of course, this country has no such Marxist mobs. The only real groups of vigilantes with a demonstrated history of violence and the guns to back up their threats congregate on the far right. The white supremacist Atomwaffen Division, for instance, has been linked to at least five killings since 2017. In late May and early June, members of the far-right Boogaloo Bois conducted two ambushes of police officers and security personnel, killing two of them and injuring three more. Over the summer, as far-right organizations spread the meme “All Lives Splatter” around the internet, dozens of right-wingers drove vehicles of every sort into crowds of Black Lives Matter protesters.
That last paragraph, however, is downright hilarious. Especially in light of riots taking place literally all over the country. Millions of dollars worth of damage done, businesses and livelihoods–and by extension, lives–destroyed, all pushing a Marxist agenda, but nope, no Marxist mobs.
Atomwaffen Division dipsticks often get lumped into the right despite sharing pretty much zero mainstream right views, but the media ignores anything from the left as being remotely political. Take two LA Sheriff’s deputies being gunned down earlier this month amid vehement anti-police rhetoric from every leftist luminary one cares to name.
Nor does Newsweek remember Dallas police officers being ambushed in 2016 or NYPD officers being ambushed and killed in 2014, also amid vehement anti-police sentiment.
Those, however don’t count.
Unsurprisingly, Newsweek continued.
As president, he’s continued to side with the mob. He infamously refused to denounce neo-Nazis gathering in Charlottesville in August 2017, applauded the armed demonstrators who demanded the reopening of the economy in the pandemic spring of 2020, and defended 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse after he killed two Black Lives Matter protesters in Kenosha, Wis., in August.
Yeah, he defending Rittenhouse. But the writer failed to note that the “protestors” had attacked him already, thus he was acting in self-defense and numerous videos of the event support that.
And yet, that’s not the only bit the writer missed. After all, the whole paragraph starts with a lie, that Trump failed to denounce neo-Nazis.
The day of that incident Trump said, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides.” Trump said he had spoken to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, and “we agreed that the hate and the division must stop, and must stop right now. We have to come together as Americans with love for our nation and true affection — really — and I say this so strongly — true affection for each other.”
Two days later, on Aug. 14, 2017, Trump issued a statement from the White House, and referred to “KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”
Trump, Aug. 14, 2017: As I said on Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America.
And as I have said many times before: No matter the color of our skin, we all live under the same laws, we all salute the same great flag, and we are all made by the same almighty God. We must love each other, show affection for each other, and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry, and violence. We must rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that bring us together as Americans.
Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.
We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of our Creator. We are equal under the law. And we are equal under our Constitution. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America.
During a press conference the following day, Aug. 15, 2017, Trump explained his initial “many sides” comment.
“You had a group on one side that was bad,” Trump said. “And you had a group on the other side that was also very violent.” He added, “I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups, but not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.”
So yeah, he did.
Then again, when people ignore the rampaging mobs that have terrorized American cities for stuff that happened in a completely different part of the country, you can’t actually expect them to pay attention to pesky little thing like facts, now can you?
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. He's also the host of Unloaded TV on YouTube.