Do the Math

I had an experience this morning that I failed to react to appropriately. It’s Sunday. As I was getting out of the car to settle into my wheelchair, one of the church’s greeters wanted my opinion. He’s a very nice gentleman who has never in all these years broached a political issue.

He asked what I thought about the liberal gang beating up conservative groups. He said it was happening at different political rallies. He seemed concerned for the ‘victims.’ I replied that the violence was the result of Trump’s incitement.

I asked where he was seeing all of this. He said he saw it on Fox. I replied that was the problem, that a study of Fox stories showed that only 19% of their stories were factual. He didn’t consider it to be Trump’s fault. In response I noted that I wasn’t against just Trump. I called for a pox on both their houses.

My excuse is the lack of time for a deep dive in that situation. I wish I had had the opportunity to offer a few facts, not to be presented by Fox. His reference was to Antifa. Between 2009 and 2018 followers of Trump and others of that ilk killed 425 people. Antifa and others on the left have totaled a mere zero deaths.

Given the time, I would have asked why he had never before brought up the 11 Jews killed at the synagogue in Pittsburgh or the 9 African-Americans killed in the Methodist church in Charleston, South Carolina. And then there was the guy who drove his car into a crowd of protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one and injuring many more. One could get the impression on Fox that only members of the Alt-right, Neo-Confederates, Neo-fascists, White nationalists, Neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and various right-wing militia organizations are victims of political violence.

It is unlikely that the substance of the above two paragraphs would penetrate the accumulation of years of non-facts and cause a victim of Fox to react appropriately.

Trump has tweeted that he thinks Antifa should be declared a terrorist organization. That would give law enforcement much more leeway in dealing with them but I doubt that Antifa is the real problem or classifying them as a terrorist group is the real answer.

425 to zero – Do the math.