Why does a growing portion of the Internet think that mild-mannered Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., secretly harbors sympathies for the ultra-violent, hard-left Antifa movement?
In short, rumor-mongering and questionable reporting.
Calls for Ryan to condemn the self-described anti-fascists began immediately after his condemnation of the neo-Nazis who marched on Charlottesville, leaving three dead in the wake of their demonstration. Decrying white supremacy is apparently tantamount to endorsing leftist violence.
On the day that Heather Heyer’s parents buried their murdered daughter, Ryan said that “there are no sides” when it comes to Nazism and declared “we will not tolerate this hateful ideology.” But in that call to unequivocally condemn bigotry, some on the far-right apparently heard an anarchist dog whistle.
As one Breitbart reporter noted, Ryan’s statement seemed “to push back” on President Trump’s earlier condemnation of “blame on both sides” of the violence in Charlottesville.
Things tumbled out of control from there.
A Twitter mob rose up out of the ether, alternatively calling on Ryan to condemn the group and accusing the speaker of joining their ranks. Eventually things reached a strange fever pitch when actor-director-producer James Woods shared an obviously fake quote from the speaker supposedly endorsing the leftist hooligans.
lol do you Google bro? This is ridiculously fake. https://t.co/2od0gQ1ICD
— Philip Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) August 29, 2017
Stories from GatewayPundit, Breitbart, and the Daily Caller poured gas on the bonfire of hysteria. And when Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., denounced Antifa violence in her congressional district, they collectively cried hypocrisy. “Pelosi condemns Antifa before Paul Ryan does,” the Daily Caller’s Alex Pfeiffer observed in a subsequently viral Wednesday tweet.
That collective effort finally got predictable results. In a story somehow billed as exclusive, the Daily Caller reported the shockingly obvious: Turns out, Ryan really does find Antifa and Nazi violence equally repugnant.
“Speaker Ryan believes, as is obvious, these individuals are left-wing thugs, and those who are committing violence need to be arrested and prosecuted,” Ryan spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, told the Caller. “Antifa is a scourge on our country.”
But more questions, and more material for the next viral outrage mob, remain.
Strong was noticeably silent on the speaker’s opinions about reviving Nickelback, texting in movie theaters, and kicking puppies. Is Ryan’s silence an implicit endorsement?
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
