Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 07:15 pm
Republicans, having lied through their teeth about how “great” their own convention was – think Hannity thanking Trump for “a pretty flawless convention” – are now inventing negatives about the Democratic National Convention, including the myth that the convention is somehow an anti-law rally.
Watch Fox News’ Richard Grenell and Martha MacCallum on Tuesday’s The Real Story:
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RICHARD GRENELL: Look what they’re doing tonight. Tonight is an anti-police, anti-law enforcement rally disguised as “Let’s talk about the victims,” and we’re not really going to get into the real information on each individual case of why — look, police walk into danger every single day. I get that we have some problems, but we should zero down and not make this a national story. We should make this local law enforcement issues, not national memes about anti-police.
MARTHA MACCALLUM: Could you imagine how powerful it would be if you could get people onstage from both sides of that discussion? Because this entire place is surrounded by state troopers, police officers, secret service. These guys are working so hard, it’s a hundred degrees out there, protecting the Democratic National Convention. And on the stage tonight you’re going to hear from victims. Now, victims exist in these scenarios —
GRENELL: Absolutely.
MACCALLUM: And we all understand that, wouldn’t it be pretty powerful if they had victims up there alongside members of those who are in law enforcement to try to bridge this gap?
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani added his racist voice to the chorus Tuesday night. He spoke his hate-filled heart while appearing on On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, in the wake of Mothers Of The Movement speaking about their slain children. Apparently because if you’re a black mother of a child killed by the police, you have no right to speak:
“It shows you exactly what the very socialist Democrat Party has become. It’s become a one-sided party showing no respect for law enforcement. Some of the cases you’re mentioning, the police officers were found not guilty. Police officers in Baltimore, two of them now have been found not guilty. I believe the judge was an African-American judge. So, not only are they not showing respect for law enforcement, they’re not showing respect for our system of justice.”
A system of justice that treats white people one way, and people of color another. For Giuliani, that is justice.
Oh to think about Fox News personalities talking about “bridging the gap” – any gap. It doesn’t get more one-sided than Fox News. And the GOP has drawn the line as clear as they can. As Giuliani’s words demonstrate, in Republican minds, nobody has to show any respect for black lives, yet letting these mothers of murdered children speak somehow “Shows no respect for law enforcement.â€
These women weren’t calling for the murder of police officers. Nobody said anything about violence against cops, nor anything about hate or vengeance. They spoke of their slain children, of keeping their memories alive, of being mothers. As Craig Harrington wrote at Media Matters, “The mothers seek to rebuild police-community relationships and strive to end gun violence.”
The Democrats are talking about unity. About being stronger together. About communities working with the police and police departments working with their communities, to end this plague of violence, whether it is assassinations of police officers or police killings of unarmed young blacks.
Fox News trotted out Sheriff David Clarke to claim, “The DNC theme tonight is compassion for criminals.”
It is not. If you watched the DNC, you saw that the theme was love, family, caring, and compassion for all – working together to make America a better place for all Americans, not just the white people having a good time at the RNC.
For Republicans anything but maintenance of the status quo is an attack on law and order. With Trump, who doesn’t even want to see black employees in his establishments, positioned as the “law and order” candidate, you can readily see justice plays no part in GOP thinking.
Until Republicans understand there can be no law and order without justice, and that means justice being applied fairly as the Constitution demands, they will remain the real anti-law party.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
