Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, has a short memory. Either that or he is every bit the political hack he appears to be.
CNN’s Jim Acosta published footage this week showing pro-Trump activists at rally in Tampa, Fla., booing, hissing, sneering, and jeering at members of the news media.
Just a sample of the sad scene we faced at the Trump rally in Tampa. I’m very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in somebody getting hurt. We should not treat our fellow Americans this way. The press is not the enemy. pic.twitter.com/IhSRw5Ui3R
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) August 1, 2018
The Hawaiian senator weighed in, boasting that the Left would never behave in such a manner.
We have no equivalent to the dark carnival that is a trump rally. This is not a thing on the left. We just argue about healthcare and climate and sometimes relitigate 2016 but we are not actually out of our minds.
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) August 1, 2018
Trump rallies can be rowdy, dangerous, and even lawless, but Schatz is out of his mind if he believes the Left doesn’t have a “dark carnival” problem of its own. How easily they forget.
The demonstrators who set Berkeley, Calif., on fire in 2017, for example, are not exactly tricorn hat-wearing, small-government fanatics. The riots, which were sparked by scheduled appearances by right-wing provocateurs Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter, involved heavy and violent participation from avowed left-wing activists known as “anti-fascists” (aka Antifa). The clashes were bloody and vicious, and all because right-wingers were invited to speak at the University of California, Berkeley.
Then, there is the Occupy Wall Street episode, which was embraced in 2011 by leading Democrats, including Reps. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., Keith Ellison, D-Minn., Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., and House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson, D-Conn.
The left-wing Tea Party knockoff was violent, destructive, and lawless. It also had a serious drug abuse and sexual assault problem.
It might interest Schatz to know that five members of the Occupy Cleveland chapter were found guilty on charges of a terrorist plot to blow up a bridge spanning the Cuyahoga River. They are all serving time in federal prison.
Officials stressed at the time that the charged individuals “in no way [represent] or [acted] on behalf of Occupy Cleveland,” but that’s not really the point. The point is that the Left most absolutely has its own dark and bloody carnival acts, and that MAGA-land is not unique in the landscape of American politics.
If we’re going to talk about “dark carnivals” of booing and jeering, let’s talk about the targeted harassment of Trump administration officials. Let’s talk about the gang of left-wing activists who chased Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen from a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C. Let’s talk about the protesters who surrounded Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, as they tried to leave a Georgetown restaurant. Let’s talk about the anonymous activist who left a headless animal on a DHS official’s front porch.
Let’s talk about James T. Hodgkinson, the man who attempted a mass shooting of Republican members of Congress in June 2017, putting Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., and lobbyist Matt Mika in critical condition. Hodgkinson, an avowed supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., allegedly took action against GOP lawmakers because he was “frustrated over political direction of U.S.”
“Not actually out of our minds,” indeed.
None of this is to say there aren’t problems on the Right. This isn’t to excuse the words and actions of right-wing reactionaries and trolls.
Rather, it’s to say this: Get your own house in order, senator. Things are bad enough as-is without members of Congress also pretending the problem isn’t as widespread and serious as it actually is.
