Maybe it’s time to pull Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, from the airwaves, at least until we can all forget about his airheaded remark that conservative voters (the people he’s supposed to lobby on behalf of) might actually physically attack a U.S. senator.
Conservatives were rightly irritated this week when they noted that the national media did everything they could to skip over the news about a man who allegedly drove a van straight into a Republican-led voter registration booth in Florida. The 27-year-old suspect, according to police, slammed into the registration center, sending volunteers scrambling, and then got out of his vehicle to take a video of the wreckage.
Everyone knows that had the target been Democrats or, God forbid, a newsroom, we would have been treated to 24-hour coverage for three days straight of the “rise of white supremacy,” or “the growing violence instigated by President Trump’s attacks on the press.”
Then, of course, we’d find out that the perp is an apolitical mental case with no party affiliation and the story would quietly disappear into the night sky, never heard of again.
Why, then, would Matt Schlaap think it’s appropriate to anticipate any violence at all from conservatives at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference later this month?
In an interview on Saturday with Greta Van Susteren, Schlapp said he thought it especially wise to disinvite Utah Sen. Mitt Romney from the event because, “This year, I would actually be afraid for his physical safety, people are so mad at him.”
True, Republicans are unhappy that Romney served as the sole Republican to vote in favor of removing Trump from office, a move that reeked of a need for approval from Democrats and the media, but who said anything about physically harming him?
Mild-mannered Trump supporters are the ones constantly fending off charges that at any moment they might shoot up the Democratic National Committee.
In the Trump era, to date, the only major violent episode was the 2017 shooting of Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, and that was perpetrated by a Democrat who supported Bernie Sanders and had an extensive online history of hating Republicans.
Trump voters are tired of having to prove themselves as well-meaning citizens who resolve their differences not with physical violence but by turning out in election years. And now they can thank Schlapp for making that no easier a task.
