Despite how most of the Twitterverse feeIs I am not in fact a hypocrite. While left-leaning I’m more than capable of criticizing my own brethren (I dislike the DNC almost as much as any conservative), when the time comes that they deserve it. This is one of those times.
On January 6, 2021 I happened to have been driving to work in Michigan, I was crossing the upper peninsula with very patchy cell service. I read an article at lunch which said that the Capitol had been shut down because a large group of protesters had gathered outside. That was more or less expected, but my god when I got back to cell service and heard what happened.
A large group of protesters who traveled to D.C. to attend Donald Trump‘s “Save America” rally, had responded violently to his speech and ransacked our Capitol. To make matters worse it seemed that the sitting president was the person most directly responsible for the violence.
Endless analysis of these events, their cause, and who is to blame for them has been done elsewhere, so we need not deep dive here, I would say only that I do believe Donald Trump is responsible for that riot, whether he meant to incite it or not. I believe he is guilty of committing acts of sedition that resulted in his followers committing acts of treason. You would be well within your rights to dispute that I know. I would contest that such statements as “ you’ll never take back our country with weakness“ and “We fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore,” are pretty clear, but the water at least has some mud in it.
You couldn’t tell that from the response of Democrats though, according to them and their affiliated media partners Donald Trump was absolutely 100% guilty and needed to be held criminally accountable. There was no mistaking his words, there was no misinterpreting his message, he incited that riot. Which brings us to the subject of this piece, “The Left’s” complete hypocrisy with regards to the treatment of California congresswoman Maxine Waters.
Maxine Waters Is often dismissed by “The Right” as crazy, they say she says things that don’t make sense and carries on constantly making gaffs. A simple YouTube search can furnish you with dozens of options if you really need examples. It would be nice, in this case, to just dismiss her comments as many people so frequently do, but in this case I believe that would be an error.
Make no mistake about it, people on the left take her seriously, she is an elected representative and a person with influence amongst her fans. Back in 2018 you may recall she told them to “get in the face“ of people affiliated with the Trump administration, and to “make them uncomfortable”. People responded, regardless of how you may feel about Sarah Huckabee Sanders or Scott Pruitt, people let them know their displeasure, VERY publically.
Should we hold Maxine Waters directly responsible for the behavior of other individuals? That would depend on what they did and what she said. A more nuanced approach that seems to be lost on The Left with regards to congresswoman Waters comments on the Derek Chauvin trial in Minneapolis.
If you haven’t been following the trial that closely, you have to catch up on your Blind Owl blogs, but to summarize Maxine Waters went to Minneapolis to meet with protesters and had some things to say. Specifically she said to “get more confrontational”. A daunting proposition; Considering we already have seen very violent behavior from some people I don’t know how much more confrontational they can get, but there you have it. My larger concern is actually a quote that gets missed in the larger more urgent story about the violence.
She also said “I hope we get a verdict that says guilty, guilty, guilty”. Consider for a moment the absurdity of that, as an elected official shouldn’t she say she hopes the process is fair and that justice is served (or some more balanced position anyway)? She’s hoping for a specific outcome? To follow that with what was frankly a dog whistle to escalating violence Is alarming. I think most reasonable people would interpret that as a veiled threat to the jury, if they don’t deliver a guilty (guilty, guilty, guilty) verdict they will have any future violence on their hands. That is not how our legal system is supposed to work. That thing she (Waters) swore to uphold and defend...
The Left is applying a clear double standard here. You can’t (without being a total hypocrite) say that Donald Trump made the statements that he did and people who acted violently interpreted his words exactly correctly. Then in the next sentence state that anybody committing acts of violence because of Maxine Waters comments are incorrectly interpreting her message. That she is not advocating violence but rather just being direct about what will probably happen. It’s a well framed narrative.
That is certainly a much more comfortable version of events, but unfortunately it happens to be completely false. Democrats want to move the goal post and that’s bad for us as a country. If Donald Trump’s racially insensitive comments enabled racists to commit despicable acts of racism, then Maxine Waters veiled threats of escalating violence would have enabled rioters to commit acts of despicable violence had Chauvin been acquitted.
Sorry my fellow liberals, we can’t have it both ways on this one. We can’t call out the Republicans for their terrible behavior with regards to not holding Donald Trump accountable, and then justify our own bad behavior because they did it first. You don’t earn any righteous indignation by being the second group to do a lousy thing. Just because somebody else behaves badly, as my kindergarten teacher told me when I was 5, “that doesn’t make it OK for you to act like them”.
If you feel that Donald Trump’s second impeachment was completely justified, then you have to support impeaching Maxine Waters. You don’t hold someone accountable exclusively because of the results of their behavior, you also do it because of the behavior itself. Inciting or enabling violence doesn’t become more acceptable because the person doing it happens to agree with you politically. We certainly can’t decide who we prosecute and who we don’t based on political affiliation. If you really don’t have a problem with the two sides doing this to one another; feigning outrage while behaving the exact same way themselves, then you need to consider whether or not you are contributing negatively to the state of the country.
Spoiler alert you are.