Larry O’Connor’s suggestion was so brilliant that . . . Rachel Maddow is almost sure to ignore it.
On today’s Morning Joe, Weekly Standard editor and radio talk show host O’Connor suggested that Rachel Maddow, accompanied by Dem senator Cory Booker, should escort onto campus Milo Yiannopoulos and other conservative speakers who have been confronted with violence.
Maddow should make the point, suggested O’Connor, that violence is “not what we do in America.” O’Connor argued that by their silence, Dems are being hurt by the protests because Americans are seeing opposition to Trump as “violent thugs.”
Note: the segment began with a report that there was violence last night at NYU, with people protesting against a speech by Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes. He was pepper-sprayed while entering the hall, and several demonstrators were arrested.
WILLIE GEIST: It was another night of violent protest at another college campus over another controversial speaker. Conservative speaker and Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes was scheduled to speak at New York University last night at an event organized by a Republican group on campus. Before the speech began, protesters gathered outside the building where McInnes was scheduled to appear, He was hit by pepper spray on his way inside according to a university spokesman.. . .Shortly after his McInnes’ speech began, people started to curse at him and shove one another.JOE SCARBOROUGH: You got to stop that.WILLIE: Several people were reportedly arrested.JOE: Larry O’Connor: oh Lord. What’s going on here, Larry? I read a book called The Closing of the American Mind back in law school about 800 years ago.O’CONNOR: That book was controversial when it came out.JOE: It was controversial when it came out. Now of course people like Condi Rice and Christine Lagarde are pressured from speaking at commencements: it’s unbelievable.O’CONNOR: That’s right. It’s not new. I just spoke with Michelle Malkin on my show yesterday on WMAL in DC, and she said yeah, they did this when I had my book at Berkeley ten years ago. They didn’t have bonfires and riots and this kind of thing. But this is a real danger for the left and Democrats.You know, if Democrats were smart, if Cory Booker were smart, he would ask Rachel Maddow to join him, with Milo Yiannopoulos, with Ben Shapiro, and escort them onto a college campus and say: no. This is not what we do in America. If we disagree, we listen and then we argue with our points. This is ridiculous. And Democrats, by their silence, the left by their silence, they’re getting locked in with this. To the American people’s eyes, to citizens across this country, they see opposition to Trump, and opposition to conservative values, as violent thugs. That’s not a good thing.
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