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Sorry Rich, You Got It Wrong
The Breitbart Presidency – Rich Lowry
It doesn’t take political skill or crisis-management ability to show largeness of heart. Future historians will marvel that one of the most damaging events in the early Trump administration came in a botched response to a neo-Nazi rally. Even Jake and Elwood Blues could have gotten this right.
Mr. Lowry is referring to a scene in the movie “Blues Brothers”. Let’s take a look at what he is referring to.
In this wonderfully comic movie scene, as the bluesmobile picks up speed and drives directly at the crowd of Nazis, all of the Nazis manage to jump off the bridge into the water to the approval of the crowd and almost everybody who saw the movie. This, of course, isn’t real life but just a movie. Events are scripted and acted the way we would want them to be. Nobody actually gets hurt but the Nazis are humiliated.
Unfortunately, real-life happened in Charlottesville, not a movie. What Rich and others need to ask themselves is what if the shoe was on the other foot, what if an Antifa protester had driven a car into the Nazis and something much more real would have happened than the scene in Blues Brothers. A car traveling only 30 mph closes upon someone on foot in very little time. Especially if one is distracted or can’t directly see the vehicle as in a demonstration or a crowded shopping area. The likelihood that multiple people would be unable to avoid the oncoming vehicle is very high. What if it was the Nazis that were run over. Would that be funny like in Blues Brothers? What if a Nazi was dead and 10 or 20 wounded. Would that be OK because they were Nazis?
We are stumbling towards anarchy in this country. Pulling down the statue of Robert E. Lee sounds harmless but where will it end. Who determines what will be acceptable and what won’t, a duly elected American Government or a Vigilante Army of political radicals looking to score a propaganda splash.
In light of what was really happening, Trump’s reaction was the proper reaction. He condemned all of the violent behavior. I hate Illinois Nazis too. In fact, I hate all Nazis and I’m glad to mention it. However, I don’t think you give up on the rule of law because a rag tag gang of idiots decide to call themselves Nazis and get a permit to march. It would be nice if everything that happens could follow a script so that what we want to happen always happens. Unfortunately, real-life isn’t that simple. Maybe we all ought to think it through a little more.
Regards,
Jim
Published in General
I’m also getting so tired of the arrogance of people who think that somehow they’ve been proven correct: see, he did it again . . . Your point about the antifa could very well have happened, and maybe they wish they’d thought of it: use a car as a lethal weapon. I want to be able to say things have got to get better. But they may get even worse before they get better. Sigh. Thanks for this post, Jim.
I saw that too. And laughed. “There you go again” Rich. Slamming Trump, his voters and your competition.
Rich Flowry, NRO, et. al. … the nomination, and subsequent election of President Donald Trump was as much a rejection of you and your milquetoast losing defense of conservatism, as it was of Cruz/Rubio/Kasich in the primary and HRC in the general. Breitbart is not “alt-right” like you and the Left like to slander it with snarky slurs evoking the kkk and white nationalists. Breitbart is an alternative conservative news and opinion site that speaks for a broader group of the GOP than you do. And you don’t like it. So you slander Trump, Breitbart and the GOP voting base all at once. You lose. Again.
VDH has tried to warn you but you are tone deaf all the whilst yelling “lalalalalalalala …..”
Susan,
Trust me, long ago when I saw the movie (when it had just come out) I clapped and cheered like everyone else as the Illinois Nazis got theirs. We can’t remain, intellectual adolescents, all our lives. Of course, we all need a good laugh now and then to break the tension but when we confuse a script with real-life we are on thin ice.
Regards,
Jim
Indeed. I too dislike these modern day “nazi-sympathizers” and the anitfa fascists who showed up. A pox on both of their houses. Just like our president said. They are equivalent. Without any falsity.
Well put Jim! I wish I could get SWMBO to understand that we protect the right of all our people, even those we loathe. Because out there is someone who loathes you, and would only be too happy to take a 2X4 to you if you say or do something lawful they disagree with.
BTW, you might want to put a CoC warning before the video. (Loved that scene when I saw it in the theater.)
-Dan
I was wondering what your take on this was James.
Happy to stand beside you.
My guess is that if Antifa would have ran over nazi’s and Obama would have said there was violence on “both sides”, and that some of the Antifa folks were good people, the same people excusing Trump for his stupid comments would be incensed at Obama, and rightly so.
Canceled my Subscription of two decades thanks to Rich.
Somehow, being called a racist finally gets to me.
Tony,
Sorry, Tony but you’ve got it wrong too. Those same people that have been parsing Trump for three days would have agreed with Obama in a heartbeat. The people who have tried to defend Trump would have very little to say unless Obama went so far as to imply that the Nazis deserved what they got. There is a high probability that Obama would have gone that far. Remember “Bring a gun to a knife fight.” Obama was and is a classical cultural Marxist. He would defend Kim Jong Un, no matter how many people he executed, just as he defended Fidel Castro.
I hate Nazis but I hate Bolsheviks too.
Regards,
Jim
So you think some of the Antifa are good folks? Interesting.
I am 100% certain that Mr. Lowry agrees with you. Luckily, you can condemn the violence on both sides AND mention that a Nazi rally is despicable all by itself (as you just demonstrated).
This type of labeling is exactly what the left loves. Can’t ever get enough “denouncing” to satisfy their logic. The best line I saw related to this event was that that it’s too bad both sides can’t lose, which is what Kissinger said of the Iraq/Iran war.
Most realistic observers realize that neither of these “sides” in Charlottesville, as much as they can even be described as monolithic groups, are in any way reasonable people. The violence is what Trump condemned, and that came from both sides. Please try not to impute motives or conclusions for others. Simply condemning their hateful actions is enough.
As I already noted, can’t ever have enough denouncing. Ever. With enough parsing and guessing at Lowry’s motivations and beliefs, I’m sure we could cleanse him. But, with his subscription base dwindling ever more rapidly, I think he may not have enough parsers in the wings. I, too, quit his magazine when it failed to advance conservatism, just like I quit Scientific American when their cant became almost entirely leftist and political. There are venues without that offensive leftist leaning.
Bravo all! Also notice that my profile picture of the Statue of the Richmond Howitzers in Richmond, VA is no longer shown. Thanks to Ricochet for the hatchet job.
Er, Rich’s point was that Trump got the reaction to the Nazis in Charlottesville wrong, dead wrong. And he made a point, in his column, of addressing the issue that is Jim Gawron’s entire thesis- “whataboutism” is not an excuse for Trump when Trump screws up- which appears to be at least as frequent as ever, despite his gaining experience on the job.
The fact is, you go with what actually happened, not “if it had been the other way around”. The “antifas” are scum, their behavior is execrable, they wear masks and swing clubs, and all ought to be locked up. The fact is, the neo-nazis that Trump is so afraid to offend because he believes that they are so important to his political base are the ones who committed murder, not the “antifas”. When the “antifas” kill someone, we should condemn them fifty ways from Sunday. But till then, we talk about the actual terrorist murderer, and the fact that the president is a narcissistic 4 year old with a tin ear.
And that constant screwing up is destroying conservatisn and any opportunity for the center and Right to sell, to civilized people, the core resistances against the Left, “antifas”, or the Legacy Media.