RUTHFULLY YOURS

On Saturday, California Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters went to Minnesota and demanded militant demonstrators “get more confrontational” this week in the absence of a guilty verdict in the George Floyd murder trial of former Minneapolis Police Office Derek Chauvin.

“We are looking for a guilty verdict,” Waters said. Anything less, would be an insult to warrant insurrection. “Not manslaughter. No no no, this is guilty. For murder.”

If the jury, which has not been sequestered despite the ongoing unrest in the Twin Cities, refuses to hand down the demanded verdict, Waters said, it’s up to progressive revolutionaries, who, just this month held a police station under siege and smashed windows to loot businesses to “get more confrontational.”

“We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business,” Waters said.

Hours later, two Minnesota National Guard members were injured in a drive-by shooting. The largest corporate outlets drew no connection between Waters’ rhetoric and the ensuing violence.

Waters’ weekend incitement, where she traveled to an anti-police protest after requesting police protection, provoked rebuke by congressional Republicans. House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy demanded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seek retribution for the dangerous rhetoric, pledging if she doesn’t, “I will.”

Georgia freshman Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments by Democrats for amplifying conspiracies, said the disenfranchised lawmaker would introduce a resolution to expel Waters from the lower chamber. By Democrats’ own standards, Waters’ rhetoric would warrant expulsion as a minimum. By the media’s, it would warrant forfeiture from future public office. By corporate America’s, it would warrant de-platforming across all services.

In January, House Democrats moved to impeach President Donald Trump for inciting a riot at the Capitol that began before the president had even finished the White House speech said to have provoked such turmoil. Democrats focused their case on one line in Trump’s speech, where the president employed commonly-used rhetoric encouraging supporters to “fight.”

“We fight like hell,” Trump said. “And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Often omitted by those who wish to frame the president of directing his supporters to riot at the Capitol, include orders to protest “peacefully.”

“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” Trump said. “Today we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections.”

Congressional Democrats, however, with the help of malicious framing from a press hostile to the president throughout his entire White House tenure, exploited the crisis at the Capitol to shoulder the blame entirely on Trump by impeaching him for a second time. Though the impeachment failed, with the Senate conducting trial post-presidency, nearly a dozen House Democrats, including Waters, have signed an NAACP lawsuit suing Trump anyway as responsible for the Capitol “insurrection.”

If Waters’ participation in the lawsuit hadn’t already undermined the case, consider her infamous 2018 speech in which she called on supporters to surround Trump cabinet secretaries in public and “push back on them.”

Coverage of her most recent remarks has focused on the Republican response to Waters’ incitement — which was far more direct than anything Trump ever participated in — and mostly ignored her demands for retribution across the public-private sector.

There’s still no coverage of Waters’ weekend remarks in the New York Times as of Monday afternoon.

Nor is there coverage in the Washington Post.

Coverage of Trump’s speech in January on the other hand was written with the pre-determined premise the president “incited” an “insurrection.”

“The president incited those who attended his rally to march to the Capitol,” ABC News declared on Jan. 7.

“In his first public appearance since the Capitol siege, Trump expresses no contrition for inciting the mob,” the New York Times headlined days later.

“After President Trump Incited a Riotous Mob, Will He Face Any Consequences?” pondered Time Magazine in a piece promoted as news.

It was this kind of coverage across legacy platforms that amplified the Democratic effort to pursue impeachment and offered ammunition to progressives in power at elite institutions justifying their long-anticipated purge of the president and his supporters.

Now the same question from Time goes to Waters. Will she face any consequences?