No U-turns For The Progressives

... ever.

As we all knew the first time it was reported, the Covington Catholic kids, particularly that smirking weasel confronting the noble and peaceful Native American Elder, were examples of the rampant white supremacy in America which has been encouraged by President Trump. We all knew this, including the chardonnay-sipping, sort-of-right-wing pundits at the National Review and the bishop and arch-bishop of the Kentucky diocese that educated those little klansmen.

All of us. We knew it.

And then the truth came out and we all decided the boys had been railroaded. Apologies poured forth. "So sorry we called for people to assault and possibly murder you and burn down your school! I hope you understand. It's just one of those things that happens sometimes."

Katie Herzog, an opinion writer who is on the Right Side of History, penned this piece which perfectly embodies what happened. First, she joined the mob.

The video clip was enraging. It showed an older Native American man drumming, surrounded by jeering white teenagers in MAGA hats. The clip focused on one red-hatted boy staring directly at the man with the drum. His stupid, smirking face seemed to symbolize everything wrong with America right now. The tweet claimed that the boys surrounded and mobbed a group of Natives at the Indigenous Peoples March in Washington DC, and I saw red and hit retweet in less than a second.

That's something she tries to avoid because she's open-minded and fair.

Taking part in viral outrage is generally against my own rules.

You know how that goes. One minute you're open-minded and fair and the next you see a white kid's face next to a noble and peaceful Native American Elder and something just breaks inside you, driving you to scream through your keyboard.

It's all good, though. She has seen the error of her ways and apologized. Sort of. Well, as much as can be expected in a country where red-hatted boys stupidly smirking at a noble and peaceful Native American Elder symbolize everything wrong with it. It's not that these nameless things, which we call White Supremacy and the Patriarchy when we're naming them, aren't permeating America to the point where poor Katie is convinced she's living in the Handmaid's Tale, it's that in this particular instance, it didn't happen.

Maybe. Because, you know, maybe it did and we just don't know it.

(I)t’s undeniable that the kids look for all the world like white-privileged (jerks)...When I saw a young white man in a red MAGA hat staring down a Native American elder, I just knew he was a bigot, a thug. And maybe he is. Maybe he is exactly the smug little (jerk) he looked like in that moment.

Emphasis mine.

The event didn't cause Katie to change her mind or anything. I don't think it made anyone change their mind. It was just a false alarm, but a perfectly understandable one, given how white supremacists practicing toxic masculinity can be found everywhere.

So Katie looked down from her high horse at the deplorable swine-children beneath her and condescended to admit that although they might be crazed racists, they weren't this time. Note that she did not draw any conclusions about the black lunatics who had been verbally assaulting the boys nor the noble and peaceful Native American Elder who was, in fact, a political activist and accomplished liar. No, those people symbolize nothing at all. It's such a far-fetched notion that it doesn't even occur to Katie to ponder it. Why would you? What on Earth could racist black thugs screaming insults and a progressive political activist lying to the media about white kids represent?

Where is that sort of thing in the Handmaid's Tale?

No, let's not go there. It's enough that the Kentucky klanskids got away this time to run back to their homophobic Church without being lynched too badly. Hey, they got some apologies, didn't they? They should be thanking the Katie Herzogs of the world who are willing to look deep inside themselves and find almost nothing wrong.

Unlike smirking, white, Catholic kids who symbolize racism and privilege, the ANTIFA thugs taking over part of downtown Portland is symbolic of nothing.