I think I am not alone when I say that I felt relieved when the verdict for Derek Chauvin was announced today. I did not expect to see the jury convict on all three counts. That said – it was clear that the prosecution had made a strong case, and the defense, well, they tried but didn’t have much to counter, especially when the video was right in front of the world to see.
Nonetheless – as The Atlantic pointed out – this case is the exception that proves the rule.
The speedy result, announced in a Minneapolis courtroom this afternoon, is a sign of how unusual the case is. The verdict is a victory for justice and a relief to people, politicians, and police in Minnesota and beyond, who had braced for unrest if Chauvin had been found not guilty. But the trial also demonstrates why the courts will remain a challenging venue to reform law enforcement in the United States.
And as I wrote in an e-mail to a friend today, “make no mistake, this will not dissuade thug police officers from similar actions. They will work harder to hide it is all. The fight is Rounds. This is just Round One.”
One can support the police without giving carte blanche to deliberate and unnecessary force that leads to murder. This should be a self-evident fact to just about everyone – regardless of their political persuasion.
One would think. However, an article at The Bulwark shows us that for the 27% of Americans who want to “own the libs,” even a convincing case is not enough to persuade the true believers.
This Tweet sums up where they are headed:
As if to prove Steve’s point the usual suspects came crawling out of the woodwork. Leading off is Scott Adams who can prove that he is still just as stupid as he was over 4 years ago.
It just goes downhill from here.
STFU darling, after this:
You don’t get to criticize anyone ever again.
Breitbart’s creation had to chime in:
Even your mentor – as useless a person as there ever was – would not have stooped that low, Ben. And here’s a news flash, Breitbart is still dead.
And finally, Tucker Carlson felt it was necessary to go full racist on his show tonight. One should never go full racist:
I can’t help but think that if Fox had been around in 1945-46 they would have tried to put in good words for these guys:
And as much as one can loathe Carlson, its important to understand what is really behind is dog whistles today:
The Anglo-Saxonism to which I refer has little to do with the Germanic peoples who settled in medieval England. Rather, it’s an archaic, pseudoscientific intellectual trend that gained popularity during the height of immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe to the United States, at the turn of the 20th century. Nativists needed a way to explain why these immigrants—Polish, Russian, Greek, Italian, and Jewish—were distinct from earlier generations, and why their presence posed a danger.
They settled on the idea that the original “native” American settlers were descended from “the tribes that met under the oak-trees of old Germany to make laws and choose chieftains,” as Francis Walker put it in The Atlantic in 1893, and that the new immigrants lacked the biological aptitude for democracy. Anglo-Saxon was a way to distinguish genteel old-money types, such as nativist Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, from members of inferior races who had names such as, well, McCarthy. The influential eugenicist Madison Grant insisted that the Irish possessed an “unstable temperament” and a “lack of coordinating and reasoning power.”
When Carlson says “civilization” he really means the definition listed above – and even the brain dead leadership of the GOP tried to step away from it very quickly. However, don’t kid yourself – there are way too many Americans who agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene and others – and Carlson, through his program gives them a voice.
This is going to be a full 15 round fight. Round 2 is still coming up.
And Fox will still be pouring gasoline on the fire:
@karlemmrich Fox News ##foxnews ##democrat ##republican ##progressive ##leftist ##liberal ##politics ##conservative ##police ##trial ##biden ##trump ##maga ##chauvin ##bernie ##fy
I can’t help but notice that all this racist hatred begins and ends in blue cities, in blue states and in places that haven’t elected a republican in over 50 years. What is it with all the racist democrat assholes? This particularly true in police departments in those same areas that seem to be nothing but racist to the core from the top down. Hell from the mayor, city manager, county supervisors, even the school board. What a nightmare. I’m glad I don’t live in any of those shitholes.
Clearly, you need to get out more. I can point you to plenty of small towns in America with equally racist, thug, police officers. Furthermore, the statistics on police shootings bear out that this is not just a “blue city” problem ( which is a terrible way to look at it anyway). It’s a systemic problem whether you choose to accept that fact or not – it nonetheless remains a fact.
It’s an American problem which has as its root cause, American selfishness and stupidity – the failure to value all our citizens equally.