As I watching the desecration of the Capitol, I made two predictions. The first was that somewhere in that mob of thousands, there would be a few with known ties to Antifa or the BLM movement or known anti-Trump people that were engaged in unforgivable behavior. The second prediction was that once one of those people was identified, he would be given prominent ink in this newsletter. I guess I was right on both counts.
Don’t get me wrong. Anyone, no matter which side, that participated in the riot deserves all the opprobrium that you can muster. And they deserve to be prosecuted. Full stop. And I am content to let the legal system decide on the degree of culpability of Mr. Sullivan and what punishment he should suffer. But from reading the affidavit, it doesn’t appear that he was involved in any physical assault on anyone. But where is the much, much longer list of known Trump supporters that have been arrested? And the affidavits accompanying their arrests? How does finding ONE anti-Trump person justify the outsized coverage given him in these newsletters, especially considering that this is at least the second newsletter article to feature Sullivan? And especially since I think that the only Trump supporter involved in the riot called out by name was Ashli Babbitt. Why such an emphasis on one person?
Unless the purpose was to subliminally create a false equivalency between the Trump supporters and the anti-Trump side in causing the riot. For those determined to see such an equivalency, I’ll make another prediction: when the dust has settled, we will know that the vast majority of those arrested and charged for instigating and participating in the riot were Trump supporters.
And remember how during the summer riots, there were charges that many of the provocateurs were actually right-wing folks taking advantage of the unrest to promote Trump’s candidacy by attempting to scare voters? How much ink was given to that story in these newsletters?
Remember how the conservative media (justifiably) castigated those that downplayed the riots in the summer as being “mostly peaceful”? Well, the January 7 newsletter contained this nugget: “Tens of thousands of Trump supporters rallied in a mostly peaceful protest in Washington D.C. amid widespread allegations of election fraud.” Mostly peaceful? Really? If by “mostly” you mean that most of the protestors didn’t actually enter the Capitol, then this is likely correct. But the same could be said of the riots in the summer. I would assert that “most” of the protestors then didn’t do anything wrong. And the statement “amid widespread allegations of election fraud” is laughingly simplistic. It ignores the facts that ALL of the “allegations” are coming from just one side, that ALL of the “allegations” have been rebutted with rational arguments, and NONE of the “allegations” have been backed up with any evidence in court. How is that any different than saying “widespread allegations that the Earth is flat”? There’s just as much evidence for that assertion as for election fraud.
