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Joe Biden Supporter Takes Action Against the MAGA Threat
Joe Biden warned that Republicans who want to make America great again are “a clear and present danger” to American democracy. That his political opponents represent “a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.”
His message got through. A North Dakota man has been arrested and charged with vehicular homicide after intentionally killing a teenager with his vehicle just because the teen is a Republican.
The fatal vehicle-pedestrian incident happened early Sunday morning, Sept. 18, in McHenry, North Dakota, about 120 miles northwest of Fargo and 54 miles north of Jamestown. Court papers show Brandt called 911 around 2:30 a.m. Sunday and told the 911 dispatcher that he just hit Ellingson, claiming the teen was part of a Republican extremist group and was calling people to come get Brandt after a political argument.
The judge ordered him held on $50,000 bail.
January 6 protesters, who killed no one, were held indefinitely without bail.
Published in General
So in your twist on the facts, Ohio State’s “fight” song with lyrics, “Fight the team across the field, show them Ohio’s here….” is a call to arms, demanding violence against the other team? A call for more unnecessary roughness penalties, maybe?
Yes, and just as obviously “FJB” is an incitement to rape the president.
Yes, I do know all of that. Which is why I said it was wrong to blame Sarah Palin. I also think it was wrong of Democrats to blame Rush Limbaugh for inspiring the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.
You’re walking down an icy set of stairs, Franco. The only way to ensure that fringe actors don’t do crazy things against any group because they were inspired by someone denouncing said group is to shut down all speech critical of anyone.
What if I told you it is possible to advocate for a political position without labeling your opponents as “a clear and present danger” and a “threat to the very soul of our Democracy?” Is that a thing you can imagine happening?
I don’t believe you have the ability to make apt comparisons in that case.
Not knowing whether or not this man is a paranoid schizophrenic doesn’t give you the right to compare him to one in defense of your position. If we find out that this guy was an equally unhinged lunatic, then you might have a case.
There is a distinct difference in quality and quantity of demonization of Republicans versus Democrats. We can also look at results to determine the effectiveness of incitement. Also we must look at the results of news coverage and to what extent people were prosecuted. You are ignoring those factors.
Further to equate whatever Rush Limbaugh, a partisan commentator, said about Democrats in general, to the bombing of the federal building in OKC, to what a President of the USA said in prepared remarks is another apples and oranges fallacy.
Note that no one here is citing Keith Obermann or Lawrence O’Donnell or any number of unhinged partisans. We are talking about elected officials , in this case the highest elected office in the land, essentially calling for “action” to confront “extremists”. Note well, he didn’t say “extremism”, which refers to ideas and ideology, he said “extremists” which refers to actual people. Read the speech. It’s linked.
To postulate on this site that there are equivalencies specifically, or even generally, to the nature, the quality and the degree of demonization, and by whom, shows you to be incapable of comprehending current events.
To comment as though everyone here doesn’t know that it’s wrong to blame a politician for what some fanatic does and we need you to come in and make false comparisons is insulting enough. The idea that we should somehow accept the very obvious double-standard in service of some blanket notion of ‘right and wrong’ when there are people rotting in jail, when Democrats are clearly demonizing and scapegoating anyone and everyone for what are nothing more than pedestrian political beliefs, when they continually declare that MAGA Republicans are inciting violence, and we are somehow not allowed admonish them for far more direct demonization and calls to action is despicable.
This mentality on ‘our side’ is precisely why I despise many Republicans and believe they should be
tarred and feathered in the public squarestripped of power and banished.I despise the moral equivalency game. I used to call it “we-do-it-too-ity” as a takeoff of Jonah Goldberg’s “whataboutism.” I find it more helpful to draw distinctions. And there are very many to be drawn between Democrats and Republicans.
For example, the only people who died on January 6th were supposed “MAGA extremists.” That’s a distinction worth making.
And they refuse to make such distinctions or agree to them once it’s pointed out (as we can see plainly here) .
It’s not just a matter of poor reasoning skills. These people are playing defense for the opposition.
Not just the media. They control public education, academia, social media, big tech, the entertainment industry, they partner with the largest corporations . . . all the richest and most influential people are aligned with Democrats . . . their message is amplified x 100,000.
And that message is that conservatives are evil and must be destroyed by any means necessary.
If you kill a few, Kamala will just bail you out to kill again.
Basically, fascism.
Of course. I’m not endorsing Biden’s speech.
It used to be a conservative position that criminals are responsible for their actions. It was the left that excused the criminals and tried to find others to blame.
No one is arguing that the criminal shouldn’t be held accountable. No one is saying Biden should be put in jail for causing his supporter to act out this way. But is it a lie to say that Biden and the Democrats are deliberately, consciously stoking this violent response? And if they are stoking this response, are we wrong to encourage a political consequence for it?
Embrace the power of “and.” Punish the killer and point out the danger posed to “our democracy” and our citizens by Biden’s inflammatory rhetoric.
And democrats do the exact opposite. Affirm and bail out the killer and politically destroy the gOp President whom you fraudulently accuse of inflammatory rhetoric. Impeach. Remove. Bar from Office. What a crock!
Yup.
Let’s see if I understand. If you literally murder a Trump supporter, you get released on bail.
If you carry an American flag through the Capitol on January 6th, you rot in jail indefinitely without bail.
Do I have that right?
You do. Unfortunately.
And there are people here at Ricochet who see nothing wrong with that.
Honest question: Are those who only entered the Capitol and “paraded” around being held without bail? This is really a Julie Kelly question, but there are a number of categories of offenses. I understand that the point still stands regardless, and I don’t think hardly anyone involved should be held without bail.
I don’t see you condemning it, either. Amazing how carefully you choose your words and examples.
You come on this thread citing how you think it was “wrong” (-strong words!) for Democrats to, um, deliberately fabricate false narratives made by Democrats blared loud and wide through their media, and wag your finger at us for being so ‘non-conservative’ to make the case that the President’s recent speech might have contributed to this heinous crime.
You then make another logical leap, believing, or pretending to believe, that it’s entirely a zero-sum issue. I.E. by claiming Biden’s possible influence on the zeitgeist and this man’s actions, is absolving the murderer of all responsibility.
Actually he was.
You found me out, Inspector Clouseau.
Embrace the healing power of “and”.
Biden and the Democrats, in cooperation with the Federal Bureaucracy have acted to encourage violence against non-conforming office holders (certain Supreme Court Justices, Rand Paul, etc.), and Republican individuals. They have done so via tactics like dehumanization, brownshirts/blackshirts, selective lawfare, explicit calls to arms, financial and legal support of their law-breakers, and the use of police powers.
AND
This ND guy is a murderous psychopath who, if the news reports are accurate, should be executed after being forced to pay restitution to the family of the murdered teen.
On a related tangent, it’s worth noting, according to former AG Barr no Trump apologist, that Trump explicitly said that he would not seek action against Hillary for her abuse of Confidential materials because “it would make us [America] look like a banana republic”. Too bad for this country that the Vampires of the Democrat party and the the Lynn Cheney apologists don’t have the same self-control and wisdom as President Trump.
A thousand times this. Who’s the authoritarian, the fascist? Who’s a threat to “our democracy” (republic)? Who’s turning us into a banana republic? Look in the mirror Democrats and Trump haters.
I was just looking at my local NPR home page for a link to a story I had seen last week on the Martha’s Vineyard migrants when I saw this headline in the right-hand column:
First off, the use of the term “election deniers” by the current government-in-power is segregating and maliciously targeting a group of people merely for questioning the government. And the term “Holocaust denier,” as Bryan pointed out earlier last week, casts its shadow over “election denier.” Sort of how Putin talks about the Ukrainians.
Second, it’s an announcement that it is open season on anyone who questioned or still questions the election.
The Democrats are striking so many people so fast in a scatter-shot fashion that even if they were motivated to do so, the Republicans could not keep up with it.
It is the rising cost of living and its accompanying insecurity that is behind this immoral effort. The Democrats are worried they will lose the House and Senate. As well they should be. In 2016, six weeks after they sent out ObamaCare bills to people that were twice as high as people were told they would be, they lost the House, the Senate, the presidency, and several governorships. The Democrats are desperate right now.
It was mostly the false equivalencies that gave you away. No special detective work needed!
Isn’t there something in the CoC about assuming fellow Ricochetti are arguing in good faith?
Sheesh.
Oh, that ship sailed long ago, and gets holed below the water line every time You Know Who drops a turd in the punchbowl.