On Sunday, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden visited Uvalde, Texas, the site of last week’s horrific mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, which left 19 children and two teachers dead.
During their visit, the Bidens attended a memorial service held at the school for the victims and afterward went to Mass. President Biden also reportedly met with the family members of some of the victims and first responders.
As the Bidens arrived, they were greeted with a smattering of “cheers” which sounded like just a few people clapping and cheering out of a crowd of both locals and demonstrators from other parts of the country.
Watch:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was also at the memorial service. As he arrived, Abbott was met with some scattered boos and calls for “change,” as seen in the below video clip:
The “Biden was cheered, Abbott was booed” story was one that was picked up by the Huffington Post, Raw Story, and some mainstream media reporters, while the “Abbott was booed” story was picked up by multiple media outlets including Newsweek and The Hill.
Many of the stories insinuate that Biden was beloved during his visit as “Comforter in Chief” while Abbott was allegedly reviled by his own people. But the stories paint a distorted, incomplete picture of the reactions to Biden during his trip to Uvalde.
As Biden left Mass on Sunday, the crowd that was gathered there had a mixture of reactions, with several booing and jeering while others yelled “do something!” and “thank you!” The boos are faintly heard in the first clip and better in the second, shorter clip:
Apparently, the agitated nature of the crowd bothered the Secret Service so much that they didn’t allow Biden to walk up and talk to them:
Also left out of most media reports I’ve seen is that the small group booing Abbott as he arrived at the school memorial service were Biden supporters, according to Dallas news station WFAA:
While some people came to pay their respects, others came to have their voices heard.”We need change governor,” voices cried from the crowdsGov. Greg Abbott was booed by some of the president’s supporters when he arrived.”Our children don’t deserve this. Our children need help,” shouted Ben Gonzalez.
In addition, KERA immigration reporter Stella Chavez was asked by CNN’s Brian Stelter on his low-rated Sunday morning “Reliable Sources” program about how people felt about Biden coming to Uvalde. Her response confirms there while there were mixed reactions about the visit, it stoked “a lot of outrage”:
“I think it depends on who you ask,” Chavez said during an appearance on Reliable Sources. “I think, for the most part, the families who were affected want to focus on their loved ones who were killed. And I think having the leader of our country come here and express, you know, his condolences is important to them. But I also know, I’ve heard people say, you know, now is not the time for him to come here.”Asked why that is, Chavez said, “I think some people are concerned about politicizing this event. And I’ve heard a lot of outrage from people. But I’ve also heard from folks who say, ‘I don’t want to focus on that, on what could have happened, what should’ve happened, I just want to focus on the kids.’ So I would just say it depends on who you ask.”
Understandably, after these unspeakable tragedies, people look to leaders to “do something” regardless of party, but they are also not shy about expressing their anger towards those same leaders. So it’s not surprising at all that the reactions were what they were to Biden and Abbott, to the extent that the handful of people either cheering or jeering are definitive and reliable indicators of majority sentiment in one way or another in the area.
The problem here is not so much how the people reacted – although a convincing case could be made that maybe memorial services and Catholic masses aren’t the places to do it – but instead how The Usual Suspects on the left and in the press portrayed it for partisan gain. Ideally in these situations, politics would be put on the back burner as people from different backgrounds came together to work on solutions that make communities safer while not infringing on the Constitutional rights of others.
But as history has shown us repeatedly, Democrats and their media allies never let a crisis go to waste and never hesitate to obscenely politicize things – in some cases, even as the events are unfolding. That is, unfortunately, pretty much what happened Sunday, which is why it was worth correcting what was initially reported to have happened, just for the record.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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