A meteorologist in northwest Washington was removed from his position reporting on the weather for a local NPR station following comments he made in a blog post comparing recent rioting in Seattle to Nazi Germany.
In a post on Wednesday, Cliff Mass described conditions in Seattle to Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” in Germany in 1938. During those riots, which targeted Jewish people in the country, businesses were burned, homes were destroyed, and more than 90 people were killed.
“Take a walk around downtown Seattle. You will be shocked by a shuttered, dystopian city and made angry by the inaction and ineptness of its political leadership. It is simply beyond words,” Mass wrote in his post. “Block after block of boarded up stores, restaurants, and other buildings. A city in lockdown and afraid.”
Since the Memorial Day death of George Floyd in police custody, Seattle has been the scene of massive demonstrations protesting police brutality and racism in law enforcement. In more recent weeks, some of the demonstrations have deteriorated into arson, looting, and violence against police.
President Trump and congressional Republicans have pointed to the incidents in Seattle and in nearby Portland as examples of failed leadership on the part of elected Democrats in those cities.
“What’s happening, unfortunately, is not free speech,” said Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who held a hearing on the violence in Seattle and Portland last week. “… and those who are peaceably protesting are seeing their protests hijacked by violent anarchists, by Marxists who are engaged in acts of terror.”
KNKX, the Tacoma-based NPR affiliate that broadcast Mass’s weather reports, called his blog posts inappropriate and said it would pull him off the air.
“At KNKX, we value high-quality, factual information in our news programming and we aim to present an array of voices that reflect our region,” station officials said in a statement. “We turn to our regular commentators for their expertise and points-of-view when it comes to sports, food and the weather. But if a commentator, even on his own independent platform, delivers rhetoric that is offensive and inaccurate, we cannot support it.”
In an update posted atop his original post, Mass said he has become the victim of viral partisanship perpetuated by social media.
“There are two types of mobs,” he said. “First, mobs the hurt people and destroy property. Second, there are social media mobs that attempt to destroy those they disagree with or attack different viewpoints. We have seen both types of mobs here in Seattle during the past months. Neither is good.”
